LIVERPOOL SLICE 3 – ACRYLIC PAINTING

I have shown versions of this before and here is the latest manifestation following more changes. This time I thought that the figure on the left needed improvement and I made it in the likeness of Duncan Ferguson a key player for Everton which is represented by the blue. This counters the right side with the Liverpool hero Steven – so establishing some symmetry and evening up the accolades for this football obsessed city.

I admit that not a great deal has changed since the last time but with my daughter up from London for a few days I didnt get much painting done and this was all I could fit in – so take a slice of Liverpool.

Other scenes of Liverpool are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MORNING ON THE MOSS – ACRYLIC PAINTING

A more traditional rendering of the local landscape than my previous blog, but both show the topography of the flat moss. Here the road – Segars Lane, a single track road – hovers above the drained marshland which is now fertile arable land. It gradually splays and slides into the fields below, causing it to undulate in the process. Then the road is reinforced and the process starts again. Roads, crows and powerlines cross the land. Here the powerlines take a shortcut into the sun on a bright summer`s morning.

Other landscapes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

TALES OF THE MOSS – ACRYLIC PAINTING

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Continuing the local landscape theme on canvas I pushed on from the graphic style I have been showing recent. This time starting with some loose washes and textural work to see where that brought me out. I have done similar things in the past, favouring blue/purple/yellow orange combinations, but this time went for greens and reds, though yellow seemed to pushed its nose in there as well.

And this was the result. Too messy? too many motifs? I’m certainly undecided. I also wonder whether adopting this complementary colour approach also causes confusion. Keeping things in one colour segment and working tonally might calm things down.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

SOME LIGHT IN THE FOREST – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I was in the middle of an acrylic painting and had an impulse to paint this in watercolours. It is of another favourite subject of mine: Ainsdale Woods which sit on the edge of the sandunes on the coast. I loved the purples, blues and greens, which I have enhanced here, and how they collide with the yellows of the sunlit leaves.

I tried to be sparing in my washes and brushwork to keep a freshness and may have left areas underworked as a consequence. Anyway, there`s plenty of colour for a gloomy pine forest.

Other forest scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

TOWARDS NEW CUT LANE – ACRYLIC PAINTING

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Another in a graphic style acrylic painting, though this is not on canvas but on paper and slightly smaller at around 36×52 cm than earlier paintings of this type. The undulating furrows of a newly planted potato crop caught my eye as I cycled around the Moss earlier in the year.

Other landscapes and local scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

OFF TO THE BEACH AT FORMBY POINT – ACRYLIC PAINTING

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Staying with the beach theme started on my last post; another view of the Sefton coast, this time at Formby. I did this in acrylics and I am happier with the depictment of the vegetation compared to what I achieved with the pastels. I am tempted to repeat the previous post of the Alt Estuary in acrylics.

The painting comes from a watercolour sketch I did a few weeks back, one sunny morning when I visited the beach.

In the distance ( through the gap) on the acrylic painting are the impression of some seabirds which I thought I saw as I sat painting. When I blew up the images I saw that it was litter left by the previous day’s tourists – still, the white blobs are birds in my eye.

Other beach scenes are available for purchase on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

DUNES AT THE ALT ESTUARY- PASTEL PAINTING

It’s a while since I last had the pastels out and I wanted to do some paintings of the Sefton Beach, so I thought that they might be just right for the marram grasses.

This is the view where the River Alt empties into the Mersey Estuary and in the distance the Wirral, across the estuary. On a good day you can see the Welsh hills. Just around the near headland is Gormley’s, Another Place, which has the figures looking out into the blue of the distance.

Other local paintings are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

TWO CHURCHES – WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS

I did warn you there were more churches to come. These are local country churches. I did a sketch of Halsall Church, above, one quiet morning during the lockdown. Normally the road in the foreground is very busy, but on that morning there were only a few passing vehicles and a couple of pedestrians. Even so, I wedged myself over a wall on the steep bank of a stream and painted into the light. On this version I widened the field of view, to put the Church into context.

This second one is of Sefton Church and I have presented a version of this before, but I wasnt happy with the washes and I felt I had too much foreground at the expense of the subject. So here is a second go. I feel happier with this version.

Anyway, that concludes my ecclesiastical excursions – well at least for now.

Other local scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

A JUG OF FLOWERS IN A SUNNY WINDOW – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I presented this as a sketch in April and the sketch has been floating around in my studio since then. As an inveterate fiddler it was only time before I had another go. I wanted to break up and explain the background better and pay more attention to the reflected light and give more deference to my wife`s flower arranging. At least this time its not on the back of another painting , which for me, is a step forward.

Other floral painting are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MORNING, ST LUKES CHURCH, FORMBY – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Maybe I’m undergoing some sort of epiphany or, then again, perhaps not, but I am painting a number of churches of late. I have a couple more in the pipeline, but this is a completed one.

I had been over to the sand dunes at Formby to do some early morning painting and was making my way back to the road when I glimpsed the church through the chestnut and sycamore trees. I squeezed in under a dilapidated fence and sat and painted the back of the church, though it was the light coming in through the leaves of the trees that adds the punch to this painting and I didn’t do that justice in my sketch. So here is my second go at home, sat in comfort, listening to a spot of Mozart – you can almost feel the sunshine.

Other churches and local paintings are available for sale on my website grahammcquadefineart.com