Morning Light Albert Bridge, From Battersea Bridge, Oil on Board, 6" x 8" ( The Plein Air Process)

This is a plein air piece I embarked on on a breezy Saturday morning last week.

Morning Light Albert Bridge, From Battersea Bridge, Oil on Canvas, 6" x 8" SOLD

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I tried my best to take some stage shots to explain the "Outside -in" technique (where I cover the whole surface fairly quickly and work into it). I mostly use the "Inside-Out" Technique (where I start from the inside of the surface and work my way out)

Adebanji painting the scene- I sometimes sing while I paint!

This was quite tricky because the scene started with lots of water around the boats then all of a sudden, most of the water disappeared and I was left struggling to adjust the scene and painting the mud. But the light shone through and its effect on the mud made the piece interesting.

Stage 1- All the colours lined up, fresh and nice. Order is vital, it helps to know exactly where each colour is.  Sometimes I increase the speed at which I work and it's always nice to know I'm dipping into the right colour. I have a some drops of Liquin to help in fast drying. It's a grey day and I'm not really bothered about this, I'll try to work in some colours into the piece.

Stage 2- With very diluted Liquin I quickly start the sketching of the basic structures -the bridge, the boats and the background foliage and foreground trees. This is just about putting things in the right places.

Stage 3- Here I begin to cover the surface with the larger elements, which are sea and sky, all the surface is covered at this point.

Stage 4- At this stage I start making each component more definite. The little details that matter

.

 

Stage 5- The water started vanishing away from around the area where the boats were positioned and kept drying up as the sun came out! I had to quickly adjust my painting to suit the change. This is not something I do very often but because this surface is so small, I could take the risk.

Final Stage 6- with the Full Set-up-This is when I had to stop, you can see that the river  has completely gone far back and the boats are almost on dry land. It's always good to be flexible in handling these tricky changing events while painting outdoors

SPECIAL QUOTE
Just get out there and paint, forget about the wind, the rain, the snow or the biting cold! They all seem to vanish when we start painting!"-Adebanji Alade

Sketches on the train, tube and bus in April I

These are some backlogs of sketches I haven't published here! Enjoy the moments! Enjoy the people from different places. London is a melting pot-a sketchers' dream!!!

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SPECIAL QUOTE
"Nothing gives me such delight while I journey from place to place within the city of London, than when I am busy sketching every face that catches my attention on the train, tube or bus. It's a really high feeling!!-Adebanji Alade

Seasons Change, 2 x 8" x 10", Oil on board

This piece just reminds me that seasons change.

This was painted at Westfield park, Upcerne  Road, Chelsea.

Seasons Change, 16" x 10", Oil on board (2 Separate pieces)

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I really enjoyed the feeling of painting this at different seasons. I hope to continue this with another scene.

That's me during the winter season- the best time to paint!!! No light changes.

SPECIAL QUOTE
"Whatever season you are in now, just remember that it is not permanent"- Adebanji Alade

The African Headgear III, 8.5" x 11", Mixed Media on Card.

This is the third piece in my series of paintings and drawings to celebrate the beauty of the African Headgear.

This particular piece all started off without any preliminary drawing, I just decided to go into into it with the pastels used with the broad side.

THE AFRICAN HEADGEAR III, 8.5" x 11", Pastel, Crayons, Coloured pencil and Oil Pastel on Canson Card, 2013

 

 

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Because I started this way, I was left starting off without any accuracy at all and a long process of corrective drawing. But it was quite fun as I enjoyed watching the repair process materialize into a finished product I was satisfied with.

Below are some of the Stage Shot photos I took while working though it.

STAGE 1- That bold start that got me frightened, I thought, what am I doing here? No preliminary drawing, just broad strokes of pastel on the card.

STAGE 2- I blend the broad strokes together, just for some clarity.

STAGE 3- Introduce the darks, this changes everything, but I'm still timid, not sure how this will work out.

STAGE 4- I slow down and keep my focus on correcting the faulty areas, adding more rich smaller strokes of the pastel.

STAGE 5- Here I am a more confident, the corrective drawing helps and slowing down is a reward, as it is often said, "Haste is the Artists' Worst Enemy"

SPECIAL QUOTE

“A portrait can get awfully hot when the artist thinks in terms of flesh and blood, rosy cheeks, lips and ears. This is particularly so if there are cools surrounding the subject such as a blue curtain or blue shirt... don't forget that some of that cool might very well be bouncing into the face and figure”- Harley Brown

The African Wrapper II, 8" x 11.5", Graphite and charcoal dust on museum mount board (The Process)

This is another one of my African Wrapper Series.

The African Wrapper is popularly worn by African women and it is a notable feature in the fashion of who we are as a people. 

The African Wrapper II, 8.5" x 11", Graphite and charcoal dust on museum mount board

 To purchase this piece please click HERE

I have positioned the model here to reveal a bit of elegance and sudden spontaneity for the piece to have a refreshing feel as she lifts part of the garment.

Stage 1- I'm so pleased to have some stage shots of this piece. I really enjoyed working on the piece at this stage. I almost stopped it all here. I loved the flow of the water mixed with charcoal. It had a wonderful "watercolourish " feel to it. I used a sable brush to start it off here on a Museum Mount board

This one was done by starting off with Charcoal dust mixed with water and finishing off with graphite.

Stage 2- I got really dark here with more charcoal dust picked up and applied with water to the surface. Because the mount board isn't that absorbent, the washes sit well on the ground.

I normally write words into the dark shaded areas, I do this to create textures and also to add real words that apply to work and things going through my mind as I work on the piece.

SPECIAL QUOTE

 "Let your workings remain a mystery. Just show people the results." - Lao-tzu

The African Wrapper, 14" x 10", Oil on Canvas (The Painting Process)

This piece is one from my series which celebrates African Fashion, with the focus on the African Wrapper.

The African Wrapper I, Oil on Canvas, 1, 2013

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I get really inspired by the colours and designs of African Fabric and the way the garments are worn, when it comes to the wrapper, it is tied in different ways. In this particular piece the model is in the process of tying it. I decided to play the light effects to mainly reveal the textures on the material used for the wrapper.

Stage 1-Taken under tungsten light, it's a bit yellow. But it shows the beginning of the process. This is one of the paintings I approach with the Outside-In Technique. I start with broad washes of lean colour with lots of solvent. I also draw with fluid paint with lots of calligraphic strokes.

I started by working on this piece with light lean washes of oil with plenty of turps, then  towards the end, I introduced more juicy rich strokes of heavy impasto to reveal textures on the wrapper.

Stage 2- A clearer picture of it with lots of drawing and sketch marks. The drawing is corrected as the process continues. There's no real thick colour at this stage.

Stage 3- Here I begin to introduce, thicker colour, you can see the difference on the top right hand corner of where the thick is laid over the thin washes. I thought I was going to leave the washes in some areas but as the process continued, I changed my mind and decided to have it all covered. I'm not sure whether it was a good decision but I feel it was the best for me at the time.

Stage 4- At this stage I feel I have completed the process. I work on the background with thick solid strokes and I also add details to the face and more textures to the wrapper.

SPECIAL QUOTE
"The painting process goes backward and forward, cancel and counter, scrape and add, decision and indecision, sweat and blood, courage and fear.....and these things seldom show up in the completed piece...phew! -Adebanji Alade

Nocturnes, Night Plein Air Painting in London (No 3 & 4)

These are two more night plein air paintings I have done of London. These are both based around Sloane Square, one of my favourite spots in London.

 A very good reference to read alongside this post is in this months Edition of The Artists Magazine  it has a full 3- paged article on Urban Nocturnes. In this article I share some demos and tips, methods and everything I do to get myself geared to painting at night. It's The April Edition, the one currently in the shops.

This is a cut out of the first page of the article in The Artist's Magazine (April)

On both these occasions I did my best to focus on the things that interest me most, working with a bit of speed but also making sure the scenes had that special feel that the night lights in London always have.

Number 3-Royal Court, Sloane Sqaure

Royal Court Theatre at Night, 10" x 8", Oil on Board

At certain intervals there's always a bus in front of the Royal Court Theatre at Sloane Square, I somehow didn't want to put it in but then it kept on parking there so I ended up having it being part of the painting. I think I should have titled the painting, "The Bus in front of Royal Court Theatre at Night".

Royal Court Theatre at Night- The set up

Number 4-  Lights and Shadows towards Sloane Square Station at Night

Lights and Shadows towards Sloane Square Station, 10" x 8", Oil on Board

 This one was finished under one sitting, I really wanted to capture those artificial lights from the stores, they had a way of bringing life to the pathway. The few figures that  where waiting for the night buses added a bit of drama to the scene.

Lights and Shadows towards Sloane Square Station, The set up

SPECIAL QUOTE
"I managed to stop myself painting over  the thinned paint I used to 'render' this in the dimness. You don't really know what you are doing when painting in the dark or under orange light. The effect is quite grim, which I like."-Peter Browns commentary on his painting 'Night, Cleveland Bridge'"

Nocturnes, Night Plein Air painting in London (No 2)

This is another nocturne plein air I have done in London. This particular one was done on 2, 10" x 8" boards. I started off the first one then I thought it didn't justify the scene, so I decided to add another 10" x 8" board to it.

Trafalgar Square at Night, 20" x 8", Oil on board

 These are some other shots of the painting session in progress.

The First session in progress.

As I must have mentioned before, painting at night is a brilliant exercise, the light remains constant and if you've got great surrounding light around from street lamps and possibly a head lamp- the job at hand would be made much easier!

At this point I had added the second board.

Some people have often asked how I get my pictures taken. Well, while painting in London, so many people stand and watch for hours while the painting is in progress, a lot of people love to take pictures too, especially tourists. It's from these folk that I politely ask for them to take me a picture too. I show them exactly what I want and they are always more than willing to help. When I don't see these guys, I basically keep asking until someone agrees. I have also devised a plan of taking myself, I used this technique while Painting in Bath but they normally make me look a bit foreshortened. But they are better than not having a picture at all.

This is the finished piece with the scene

The Pochade box I am using was made by Guerilla Painter, this particular one is the 6" x 8" Thumbox. It has some extensions that make it also useful for 8" x 10" work.

SPECIAL QUOTE

"Areas of light can occur as pinpoints in a night scene, such as streetlights or car headlights, or as a broad pane of light in the window of a house, so it is necessary to carefully compose using them. It is easy to end up with a piece that looks spotty, with points of light scattered in a disjointed way all over the painting. Design with the thought of how the viewer’s eye will move through the piece.

Remember that the area where the lightest light and the darkest dark come closest together will draw the eye first and become the focal point of the piece. Sometimes in a dark painting the largest area of light will become the focal point, such as a large window where the light pours out. Be sure that in either of these cases that the visual pathway formed by any other points of light compliments and reinforces this focal point, rather than drawing the eye away.

Light areas in a night painting are the perfect place to use exciting colors, such as the sulphur yellow and lime green of the lighted square in Van Gogh’s painting. The contrast of dark surrounding the light accentuates it, making it a special feature of your painting. Different kinds of bulbs cast light of varying hues. Incandescent bulbs are warm and yellowish, fluorescent light is generally cool and neon light is intense.

All bright lights at night have a slight halo, a softening of the edges where the light seems to hang in the air. The night air is somewhat moist and this vapor holds the light inside it. The larger the light and the wetter the night, the bigger the halo tends to be. Technically you can achieve this effect by saving an area in the dark plane where the light will be, then laying in a medium color, perhaps a red, and blending it slightly into the surrounding darkness. Then add a layer of a medium-light color, depending on the color of the light itself, and allow the color beneath to show at the edges. A final touch of the lightest color in the center, usually very light yellow or white, simulates the brilliance of the light shining in the darkness."- From an Article on Night Painting (source not mentioned) (c) Deborah Christensen Secor

Elected as An Associate Member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters (The Journey)

My journey and passion with Oil colour started while I was at Yaba College of Technology between 1992-1997. It was where I discovered this wonderful medium, up till then I had only painted in water based media.

ROI 2007- The painting Rush Hour III won the First Prize in the Winsor & Newton Under 35 Category. 

I can't remember the exact year but something tells me it was in 1993! I heard a lot about the prolific painters in the Higher National Diploma classes while I was doing my National Diploma in General Art, from other art students in my class. They told me to ask politely to get a chance to watch them paint! I tried peeping through the windows first, but the windows were too high up! One day, a day that would be the day I got "trapped" in this medium was an afternoon when so many of these guys were painting pictorial compositions directly from sketches they had composed from life and imagination in their sketchbooks. They had massive palettes all placed out with juicy blobs of oil colour pressed out on them in a very orderly manner. Some of them had also mixed all the tones of each of the colours they were going to use to paint! The smell in the room was terrific! Turps and Linseed reeked in the whole place! I saw these guys absorbed completely in their paintings with various sized hog brushes bashing against their large canvases, the least sized canvas in the studio was a 24" by 36". These guys were bold with colour!! I was allowed to sit at the back and watch for a while, until I couldn't hold it again! I just shouted, "SEE COLOUR!!!"- which was a Nigerian way of saying, LOOK AT THOSE WONDERFUL COLOURS!!! That was it! From then, they would nickname me, "See Colour". That was the day I would decide to specialize in Painting! That was the day I got hooked on Oil Colour!

It's 20 years since I got introduced to the medium and I remember doing my first Oil painting in 1994 or there about. I accepted a commission to do 3 Oil paintings and I had never used the medium. I took up the challenge, gave it my best shot and my friend who commissioned me to do the work, paid me N800. That would be about £8.00 in today's Pound Sterling! But N800 was a great bonus for me and I went on to sell more work and win major art competitions where I was awarded N15,000(£100) in 1996! So I was thrilled with my improvement!

ROI 2008- Felt really great, My painting Rush Hour IV was hung in the main gallery next to Past President- Dennis Syrett's painting!!

Then in 1999 I came back to London, where I was born, to continue my life and see if I could further my career.  But when I came over it was a total shock! The culture shock was too much for me to handle! I went to the job centre in search of something I could do and it was a great disappointment!  I couldn't get to do anything but menial jobs, so while doing menial jobs-I decided never to stop sketching even if I couldn't get back to painting.  I later volunteered to share my art skills with homeless people at St Mungos in 1999 and I did that for 6 months after which I got a temporary job there.  I later got a permanent job working with homeless people from 2001-2008. I would one day become full time painter in 2008, till date!

 When I got enough money to buy my first set of oil colours in the UK, I was so pleased, that would have been around 2000 or 2001. Then the magic started again! I started painting portraits and I started getting commissions too, in oil!

In 2003 I decided to do a Diploma in Portraiture at the Heatherley's School of Fine Art in Chelsea. There, the tutors enlightened me greatly on how to mix and use oil colour properly, more than I had ever known before. Alongside this, I would buy loads of instructional books on Oil painting- The Best being Alla Prima, everything I know about Oil Painting by Richard Schmid. It was an Artist called Z. S. Liang that recommended the book to me after contacting him for advice on how to kick start my Oil painting on another level and I must say, this book completely gave me everything I needed to know about the usage of this medium. I don't know how many times I have read it, I still read it every now and then, it is a book one can refer to in a life time. The only thing I am yet to do in it, is the almighty colour charts, which my painter friend David Pilgrim cracked and he is now a Full Member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. 

ROI 2009- Great feeling again as my Painting , "Summer Light, Clapham Common wins The Artist Magazine Award!

Immediately I left Heatherley's I decided to take up entering into competitions and open exhibitions at the Mall Galleries. The first society that I got my work into was the Pastel Society, in 2006! Then I got into the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Society of British Artists! I was so pleased that I finally tried the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 2006. I was encouraged to take part because in 2005, one of the students from my Portrait class at Heatherley's won the 2nd or 3rd Prize in the Under 35 category. So I put in 2 works but none got in! I wasn't discouraged because one of them had a D, which means it was judged and then rejudged before it didn't make it into the final selection.



So I thought if I could get a D in my first attempt, I'll do much better work and see what would happen. In 2007, I entered 2 paintings: one of a Homeless guy and one of my Rush Hour Paintings. The Homeless Painting was Rejected BUT The RUSH HOUR painting was accepted and won the First Prize in the Under 35 category! I was over the moon! That was the first time I would get  a painting into the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Exhibition and the last time I would be able to compete in the Under 35 category. It was a great boost for me to win and ever since then up till 2012, I have exhibiting regularly with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

ROI 2010- My painting at Norfolk was one of the paintings I did in my First Instructional DVD! You can get a copy of it with Town House Films.

In 2009 I was made a Provisional member and then in 2012 at the Annual General Meeeting after the December show I was elected an Associate Member! The journey has been long since I first discovered the medium and I am so glad to be associated with such a prestigious society!

ROI 2011-Great feeling again as my painting of "The Face of Homelessness, Kings Road" is one of the first to sell, even before the Private View starts!

I am also thrilled to be taking part in my first exhibition as an Associate member in April this year, at the A K Wilson Gallery. I'll update you with the details when the time is near.

ROI 2012- Great feeling as my painting "The Face of Homelessness, Earls Court" gets hung in the main gallery alongside Roger Dellar, A prolific painter and member of the RI and PS.

SPECIAL QUOTE
"Never ever give up! You might be down today, feeling low, but don't let that feeling affect your tomorrow!"-Adebanji Alade