by Clare Bowen | Feb 22, 2019 | Albert Bridge, Cityscape, England, London, Sunset, The Thames
No wind, beautiful light and cloudless sky. Such a great combo, with the silhouetted shape of the old Victorian Bridge (built in 1873.) I maped out all the dark structural areas first, not much detail just main shapes and then the lighter sky. Tricky when it changed...
by Clare Bowen | Jul 23, 2018 | Castle, Competition, England, Windsor
My first plein air competition! I found it quite nerve wracking to start with and didn’t realise how big is would be with 100 artists! There were areas we were allowed to paint in the grounds and it had to be choose before hand – tricky if...
by Clare Bowen | Jul 6, 2018 | England, Flowers, Oil Painting, Still Life, Sunflowers, Yellow
A busy week, hard to keep on top of all the artists jobs to do, including this one!I am lucky that my Mum supplies me with great flowers to paint, like these :-)I decided to paint outside again as the natural sunlight works well on a still life especially flowers. I...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 30, 2018 | England, Garden, Green, Landscape, Oil Painting, Summer, Teaching, Trees
I did a 1 to 1 plein air day with Elizabeth St John this week. She wanted to paint the view from our garden as we focused on mixing greens. Sheltered by a big pine tree we weren’t too hot and managed to get two paintings done. I suggested she mixed her...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 29, 2018 | England, Flowers, Jug, Oil Painting, Peonies, Pink, Still Life
Peonies by Mary Oliver “This morning the green fists of the peoniesare getting readyto break my heartas the sun rises,as the sun strokes them with his old,buttery fingersand they open -pools of lace,white and pink – and all day the black ants climb...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 24, 2018 | Countryside, England, Green, Landscape, Oil Painting, Summer, Surrey, Surrey Hills
I was feeling confident from my previous large scale peonies painting so decided to go large on this one as well. I wouldn’t usually on a new subject but was egged on by Sarah Manolescue who also went big.We struggled a little with noise pollution – young...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 19, 2018 | Chickens, England, Garden, Green, NEAC, Oil Painting, Summer, The Mall Galleries
Back in our friends garden, I didn’t plan to paint this but thought is had a charm. I made a quick ‘Notan’ sketch before – which is a Japanese name for light and dark design:This allowed me to see that most of the painting was mid and dark...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 16, 2018 | Artist Life, Daisies, England, Flowers, Oil Painting, Open Studios, Pink, Still Life, Surrey
I am enjoying these still life paintings as you can experiment so much with colour & harmonies, composition, subject…I tried with no hard line background this time, bigger in size and reflected vase on the table.I can’t write so much today as just...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 12, 2018 | Bridge, England, Landscape, Oil Painting, Reflection, River Wey, Summer
It was a toss up between Waggoners Wells and Tilford Green. I was painting with Sarah Manolescue when we got to Tilford there was bridge works happening and it wasn’t obvious what to paint. We walked around thinking we should maybe try Waggoners, but often the...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 9, 2018 | Albert Bridge, Colour, England, Light, London, Teaching, The Thames
The sun was from behind and directly lighting the bridge, not easy to paint as it’s more about colour less tonal than I have been working, but a good challenge! This was the final painting of the day with my 1:1 student Christopher Mike. I wanted the bridge...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 8, 2018 | Albert Bridge, Boats, England, London, Oil Painting, Teaching, The Thames
A one to one plein air teaching day with Christopher Michael, choose Albert Bridge area and we were lucky with lots of sunshine!I helped Christopher with the practicalities of working outside, equipment, layout of paint and using a viewfinder and then tonal values and...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 7, 2018 | England, Flowers, Glass, Jug, Oil Painting, Peonies, Still Life
I saw these lovely white peonies in the supermarket, a sweet scent and blousie look. I managed to paint them while our Open Studio was on last weekend. Quite a challenge to get the tones and colours right. The tonal scale in the flower is so small e.g. Light...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 3, 2018 | Artist Life, England, exhibition, Flowers, Oil Painting, Open Studios, Peonies, Pink, Still Life
Painted with haste and gusto! The background a blue black to set of the light pink flowers peonies which are so fun to paint, quite addictive! (There will be more 🙂 I think they are a good subject because of the globe shape so you get great light and dark on...
by Clare Bowen | Jun 1, 2018 | Artist Life, England, Oil Painting, Open Studios, Portrait
My first attempt at a portrait!! I haven’t even tried to paint one in my studio, just felt quite scary and uncertain, so went on a ROI painting day at The Mall Galleries to make me do it! I decided to act as if…. pretend I felt confident even though I...
by Clare Bowen | May 29, 2018 | England, Flowers, Garden, Landscape, Purple
Painting these flowers in a friends garden was a fine way to spend a bank holiday Monday! When I began this painting I had no idea whether it would work as I wasn’t sure how to tackle it. This is how I started, by blocking the two main greens. The...
