Plein air painting 49

Southampton Cenotaph, located in Watts park, is seen here from across the road from neighbouring East Park. Above Bar Street runs between the grass and structure. It is designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose later designs, included the Cenotaph in London. The memorial is a Grade I listed building. 
Painted in late June 2022 on cardboard sized at 12" x 9.5", in oils.

Working on closeup 72

 Working on closeup 72

A small snippet of a famous building in London oil painting...

Fantasy big railroad locomotive departing city - WIP stages

Fantasy big railroad locomotive departing city - WIP stages

Stages of the digital artwork consisting of the gigantic railway locomotive.

A gigantic railway locomotive is about to depart a city with very tall skyscrapers in this 1940s inspired retro railway illustration. The digital artwork was completed during December 2019. The first stage of the illustration was to do the initial drawing/ colour concept on a Samsung tablet running software called 'Auto Sketchbook Pro', a drawing app that uses a pressure sensitive pen. Once the concept is worked up to a point using the device, the file is then transferred to a more powerful windows desktop machine, which also runs the same program. The tablet can only do so much before it reaches its operational limits and the image, to be printable, needs to be of a far bigger size than the tablet can cope with. The file is exported as PSD levels as set on the tablet app, and these remain on the desktop file. The image is enlarged to 6000px (horizontal) and then is redrawn/ repainted at this new definition, with some work carried out additionally in Photoshop.

The picture below shows three panels, the first is the drawing with the second showing the colour rough as completed on the tablet. The final panel features the finished artwork as completed on the desktop machine. The illustration can be viewed in greater detail on this link.

Fantasy big railroad locomotive departing city - digital illustration

Fantasy big railroad locomotive departing city - digital illustration

Finished artwork of a giganitic steam locomotive at a big city fantasy illustration

The subject of this scifi/ fantasy scene is a extremely large steam locomotive about to depart a city comprising of some very tall skyscrapers. Some employees of the railroad are having a meeting before departure. The landscape has a retro/ 1940s vibe in terms of the design of the buildings, car and locomotive sitting on the monorail railroad track. The main engineer is dressed in a classic uniform for the job.

Auto Sketchbook pro was used for the creation of this digital illustration. Initially it was started using a Samsung tablet to rough out the idea up to a certain stage. It would be nice to continue using the tablet but it has technical limitations as digital work is processor and ram intensive. It is exported to a windows desktop computer, still running the same program but with the power that is now available. One of the first jobs is to resize the whole image to something that can be printed up to a large scale, the initial image being too small for anything other than screen viewing. Then the whole painting is redrawn/ painted to the final required details/ colour for final output.

The illustration was completed during early December 2019, and can be seen in detail by following this link.

Bishopsgate London - oil painting

Bishopsgate London - oil painting

London, Bishopsgate finishd oil painting

Painted in May 2019, a busy view of Bishopsgate is shown. This is a main road on the edge of financial district of the city of London, and Liverpool Street station is seconds away on the right hand side of the street. A number of pedestrians can be seen to be crossing the road which appears to be full buses. It is a sunny day so plenty of shadows are cast on the ground. Interestingly light is being bounced around by some of the large glass fronted buildings so further shadows are cast leading to quite complex patterns on the road. The skyline is dominated by tall buildings so unusually there is no sky visible in the London landscape view.

This landscape oil painting is done on mounting board, with an area of 33” x 24”.

A clearer view of the painting can be seen here on this external site.

 

Working on closeup 54

Working on closeup 54

 A small snippet of a London based scene...

 

Winter shopping season Southampton - oil painting

Winter shopping season Southampton - oil painting

Winter shopping season Southampton - 24" 36" oil painting

During very early 2018, the important Southampton City Art Gallery held an open exhibition where the theme was 'the seasons'. I created 3 oil paintings for this exhibition which were exhibited, and the one featuring in this post also won the competition beating over 500 other entries.

It shows a miserable, winters day in the middle of the shopping zone of Southampton City. It has been raining and members of the public have only the thoughts of shopping on their minds as they use the road crossing. One of the main features of the painting is the wet surfaces and puddles, that adds lots of visual interest to the scene in the form of reflections and damp surfaces.

The painting is done in oils on a canvas sized at 24” x 36”, and took approx 4 weeks to paint, during December 2017.
Details and pictures of the exhibition can be seen here.
The painting can be seen at a larger scale on this link.

Working on closeup 39

 Working on closeup 39

 A small snippet of a street/ urban based oil painting...

WIP street scene in the rain oil painting

City Invasion Furry Monster - digital painting

City Invasion Furry Monster - digital painting

City Invasion Furry Monster - digital painting

This digital illustration features a large, black, furry creature terrorizing the residences in a major city during the 1950s. It may have been the result of some scientific experiment that went wrong, so the glowing, red eyed creature is on the loose, and seen here crushing a taxi.

The painting was done during late January 2017 using 'Auto Sketchbook Pro' on a computer, with some final colour grading done in Photoshop, and can be seen in full detail here.

City Invasion Furry Monster - drawing vs painting

City Invasion Furry Monster - drawing vs painting

City Invasion Furry Monster - drawing vs painting comparison

The picture shows the initial drawing and finished painting of 'City Invasion Furry Monster' together. The drawing and painting are both done digitally using 'Auto Sketchbook Pro' software, found on tablets and desktop computers. The drawing would have been created with each element on a separate layer and cleaned up on a further layer until the drawing looks reasonably clear to work from. 
For the painting the sketch is enlarged in Photoshop to the required output size and again each element is painted on separate layers to make working on the file easier and more flexible.
Often the content will be changed slightly, because it can be found that the drawing is not that good but it is just to act as a starting board, so the element when being painted would in effect be redrawn at the same time, rather than alter the drawing level. It can be seen that there are a few subtle changes between the drawing and painting on close examination.
The final artwork can be seen here in closeup.

Southampton City Wall - watercolour sketch

Southampton City Wall - watercolour sketch

This sketch was done on a sunny Sunday morning in early June and shows a part of the remains of the old stone walls that once surrounded the town of Southampton, and date from the 1300's. The road it is on, the Weston Esplanade, would not have been there originally and in fact the sea would have been licking against the wall, while ships would have unloaded valuable cargo. The water colour sketch is 10" x 7" approx and took about an hour.

Southampton medieval wall - water colour sketch

Monster Octopus attacking building in storm

Monster Octopus attacking building in storm

A giant octopus is seen attached to the side of a tall building during a stormy evening, its tentacles weaved around the office block. Lightning is flashing across the sky and illuminating the creature allowing passers by on the street to look up and be shocked by the sight of the monster. It has many sharp teeth, and will pose a threat for some time...

Painted in Photoshop to A4 size during February 2014.

http://martin-davey.artistwebsites.com/featured/monster-octopus-attacking-building-in-storm-martin-davey.html

Monster Octopus attacking building in storm

Southampton Medieval Merchant House from High st

Southampton Medieval Merchant House from High st

 

This painting illustrates the Medieval Merchant's House in the 'Old Town' area of the City of Southampton, UK, with its distinctive barrel hanging from the outside of the building. It is one of a number of treasures of old Medieval/ Tudor buildings to be found in the Southampton area. The house was build in 1290 by John Fortin, a local merchant. The house currently is in 14^th century appearance. It is to be found at 58 French Street, Hampshire, SO142AT.

The painting is done in oils on a red acrylic base, using a canvas board sized at 20” x 16”. It is based on a photograph taken during the summer of 2012 and painted during the summer of 2013. The house is seen through a gap in a modern development of flats, from a viewpoint standing on the main high street. I was struck by the way the modern buildings were in shadow but the merchants house was bathed in sunlight. The people were there at the time and make a good scale reference within the painting.

Southampton Medieval Merchant House from High st