I was really looking forward to the weekend as on Thursday and Friday I had to take son #3 to his early morning job at the gym eating into my lovely precious painting time.

I think I have exhausted my brain though so it’s time to take a bit of a break but I’d like to share with you where we are at with this painting. We don’t have that much further to go but it is still quite detailed stuff especially when I start adding in the people in the foreground.

So hope you’ve all had a fabulous weekend.

Stay blessed, stay focused!

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Some days I seem to whizz through and other days are just a teensy bit slower. If you blink today you just might miss what I’ve done this morning but my rule is better to do some painting however small than none at all.

Such is the roller coaster of life of an artist, the ups and the downs, the ebbs and flows, the  highs and lows that make up our very rich and creative tapestry.

Off to the day job. Have a happy day. Be blessed my friends. Stay focused.

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Oh my goodness! This sudden drop in temperature might well become a threat to my hard won discipline of waking up at the crack of dawn.

In spite of my recent excitement about my current painting I found myself snuggled up a little longer in bed this morning as I contemplated shifting my stiff joints into the shower.

I am pleased to report my discipline prevailed and won the day.

Have a fabulous day my dears. Stay blessed and stay focused!

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I was up at the crack of dawn this morning eager as a beaver and raring to go. Truth be told, I didn’t get much sleep but strangely I still feel energised and full of adrenaline from a full day of painting yesterday. I had to dig deep to find the same discipline I use every morning to get to bed last night…

I know many of my fellow artists will appreciate the emotions I’ve described above as we completely absorb ourselves in our work.

This morning’s session went all too quickly but there is enough there if you want to win at ‘spot the difference’.
Have a fabulous day my friends. Stay blessed, stay focused!

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It’s time for me to sit back again and enjoy that spiritual moment between me and my painting.  I’ve had a fabulous day knowing when I put my brush down its not to rush off to do my day job but just to stand back and view the progress so far.

I am going to call it a day now. I’ll be back again tomorrow morning. Have a superb evening.  Stay blessed. Stay focused!

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It’s been nice have long, consecutive, undisturbed hours to work on this painting today.

Having satisfied myself that all the elements are in place and that the proportions and scale are relatively ok I have committed my outlines more permanently with acrylic paint. This means I am just about ready to start adding colour.

I am so excited now that I have reached this stage. It’s a busy picture and for that reason patience and preparation is the key. I am not the most patient of people so I’m taking 5 minutes to give myself a well deserved pat on the back and a nice cup of tea.

More later… Meanwhile continue to stay blessed and stay focused!

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It was great to be able to get back to my drawing this morning and have managed to spend a whole hour getting some detail in.

The time spent included a lot of standing away from the drawing because it is important to get the scale and proportion right or as right as is acceptable.

I am not much of a technical artist and am not too fussed about accuracy (except perhaps when it comes to portraiture) but relative to each other the elements in my paintings have to look right.

This is a busy picture and I can still hear the sounds of the traffic, the tooting of horns,  the sound of construction, people talking, shouting, laughing, gesturing. I can still see all those bill boards, hundreds of them erected sometimes to obscure other billboards but each with some commercial message to lure shoppers to try the latest tech gadget. Above all that I can still feel the heat.

Wow! All this in one painting! I hope I get to do it justice. Stay blessed my friends. Stay focused and have a fabulous day.

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I didn’t get much done this morning and I say this without malice or disgruntlement but perhaps a hint of impatience. My normal day started unusually early when I had to drive Elliot to his new job at the gym and as the  buses don’t run so early it was my motherly duty. Can we expect anything else? Then it was off to the day job.

So we have the beginning of an outline drawing, probably about 30 minutes worth. This bit is really important as it is the base upon with the whole painting will hang. It’s a very busy scene and there are lots of details I would like to add, all of which has to be carefully scaled and proportioned.

So have a fabulous day my friends. Stay blessed and stay focused.

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I am going to try and keep a series of short daily blogs to document my next painting ‘Accra Circle’ (working title). This is going to be a street scene from Accra Circle, a busy hub of activity in the capital of Ghana. 

I’ve started by painting with a ground of a mixture of cadmium red and yellow ochre and already it is starting to give off some heat Even this bit for me is exciting as I am already planning in my head exactly how this painting is going to be laid out.

If you’ve been keeping up with my blogs you will know I aspire to become a full time professional artist and have managed to discipline myself to paint for at least one hour each morning before I go off to my day job.

I can’t wait to get my teeth into this one.

Enjoy your day. Stay blessed and stay focused.

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