Finally finished the four small paintings of the first 7 Eleven store in Western Australia

The guys there commissioned these to give as gifts to some of the bosses of 7 Eleven when they visit next month, I hope the paintings go down as well as those Krispy Kreme donuts!

I've been spending a couple hours each night outside priming the aluminium panels. They're all double-primed with oil prime ready to go, all 350 of them, it took a while...

A new night scene on the big easel, finally !

This is just the underpainting really, blocking it in to get all the shapes in the right place, it's fun working a bit differently to the usual way I construct a painting.
(That's one of the little studies that I did a few weeks ago sitting above it on the easel for reference).

I pushed it a little more blue than in the study, but I think I've decided to push it back closer to the brown/pink/grey in the study (a bit hard to see colours properly in these little images on screen).

This is the second one in a body of work that's going in a joint exhibition with fellow oil painter Andy Kent,
We're aiming for somewhere around April for the show, but the decision on the date is way off at the moment - we just need to enjoy painting the pieces at this stage !

Trying out some of the new paints and one of the dry panels, not as slippery as I thought, actually it's quite absorbent probably because of the oil prime.

I've coated a couple more with a layer of red oxide and some medium, we'll see if that makes any difference once they're dry
First try with Michael Harding Prussian Blue (nice) and Old Holland Green Earth (nice), but wow - the Williamsburg Nickel Yellow is great !

I've recently found a source of Aluminium Composite Panel and just prepared a few ready to paint on - should be an interesting experiment. I'm assuming it's going to be a bit more slippery than working on canvas board (obviously), even with the added tooth of the oil prime
I've done a fair bit of research and it looks like this painting surface is completely dimensionally stable - it's not going to warp, move, crack etc

I just received some new paints from an online order I did recently, not much this time but I'm pretty excited about one colour - Nickel Yellow from Williamsburg handmade Oil Colors

It's exactly what I'd wanted it to be, I hope I don't get addicted to it cause it ain't cheap. My first try with PY 53 - Nickel Titanate, a really nice highly pigmented lemon yellow.

I also grabbed a couple tubes of Lukas 1862 Titanium white - my favourite white at the moment,
Michael Harding Ivory black and Manganese violet (cause I'm running out) and finally the tube of Michael Harding Prussian Blue that I've been meaning to try - it seems to have a tiny bit of a metallic sheen, that's to be expected with Prussian blue I suppose.

Rounding off the order is another tube of Willaimsburg French Cassel Earth ( bitumen! ), so I've got a tube to play with in both studios, and a nice big fat tube of Richeson burnt Umber Cool - this stuff is alot cheaper and I'm really happy with the quality for big areas when I'm painting rocks and things.

I've finally finished the last of the 27 paintings for Riverlands Montessori Schools annual fundraising exhibition, here's a shot of all of them on the floor of the studio, a week or so to dry then I'll varnish the lot - delivery is 1st of September.I'll post the details of the exhibition closer to the date

No cupcakes for me for a while ...