Hi folks,

Here is an update on my commission. I have added some more shadows to the background field and have added silhouettes of the foliage in the midground. I need to wait for this to dry then I will add some highlights to this area then I can start work on the foreground.

I am really pleased with the progress and how it is turning out. I am happy with my snow and it was simple and quick.

I'll be back soon with the next update.

Bye for now.
Sam

Hi folks,

Sorry for the delay for the next update, i'm still working on my commission (slowly).
I'm really happy with how it is progressing, still not happy with the house though, I may have to add some more highlights but the snow I am really happy with so far and will look much better once I have added the shadows.

I will be back soon with the next update, I promise it will not be a month away.

Sam

Hi folks, I hope everyone had a very happy new year. Can't believe it's 2010 already.

My first post of 2010 is of my first painting of 2010, which is a commission, hooray! It is 30x30inches on a chunky canvas, it is going to be of a beautiful wintery snow scene, which I am hoping will make us have some snow down by the coast, I have been very disappointed that we have'nt had any.

As you can see I have a much simpler sky on this one, as there is going to be a lot going on in the rest of the painting, lots of tall trees, a very strong foreground, I did not want the sky to over power the piece.

I'll be back soon with update 2.

Bye for now.

 Merry Christmas everyone.

Hey everyone. I feel like a kid again this month, we have just bought ourselves 2 brand new games consoles, a sexy black Wii and a even sexier Xbox 360 Elite. I literally screamed with delight when I saw everything arranged out on my bed.

Only thing is I have to try not to get too addicted to them, otherwise I will just be sat playing with them all the time.

Just thought I would share the exciting news.

Sam

I have had this piece sat on top of my radiator for over a year now and never got round to actually finishing it. I think now is a good time to finally get it completed.

I will keep you updated on the progress, here is where it is at at the moment.

Hello everyone,

Here is my final update as the painting is now completed, you can view a better image of it on my homepage or in my main Gallery.

As you can see, I have re-done the large tree as I really was not happy with the colour. Then I have toned down the buttercups a little and added more detailed grass to the foreground.

I hope you have enjoyed the progress as much as I have, keep checking back as I will be blogging a WIP for my next painting.

Bye for now.
Sam

Hi folks, here is my next update for you all. I'm getting quite excited now because I reckon I am pretty near completion now.
Just got a bit more highlights to the tree, then a lot of detail in the foreground grass and then just the finer details and I will be finished.

Sam

Here is the next part completed. I have done the first layer of the grass, next I will add highlights to the foreground and some detail with individual blades of grass. Then I will have buttercups in the field to the left of the painting.
After that, not that much more to do and I will have completed it WOO!

Be back soon with the next update.

Sam

Had a couple of really busy weeks so I have not been able to do a huge amount to my new painting, but here is where I am at so far.

I'll be back soon with the next update.

Hi folks,

Here is the next update of my new painting. Today I have completed the background trees and have started to paint the closer ones and put in base colours for the grass areas in background.

I am really enjoying it so far and am pretty pleased with how it is turning out.

Sam.

I have recently recieved a new commission, so I thought I would show everyone the progress step by step on my blog.

The painting is a lot larger than I am used to, 30x30", so is going to be quite a challenge for me. Although it is a good kick in the butt as I have been quite lazy and not been getting much new stuff done.

Here is the first update, the first image is a quick sketch so I know where everything goes, the second image is of course of the sky and the third is a close up for some detail.

I will keep you all updated on the progress

Bye for now
Sam

Just to let everyone know, today is my 23rd birthday. Yay!

Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather we are currently experiencing.
My apologies for not updating this blog for some time. For the last few months I seem to have had an artist block and have not had much enthusiasm to do anything.
I have decided to force myself to get back into the swing of things though.
I am currently finishing a painting that I have had sat on the easel for quite some time, the title will be "The Adventurer", it is a vast mountain range that gets lighter as it gets to the foreground in shades of brown and white highlights. The majority of the canvas is taken up by the sky (I love my skies!), which to me looks a bit like the northen lights, blocks of colour of dark violet and a light titanium colour which are roughly blended together with big brush strokes.
I will try to update with a photo of it soon, well I expect I will probably have finished it within a week, so I will hopefully be updating my main Gallery page after about 1 year of nothing new going on there.

My print sales have still been slightly disappointing, the difficulty is finding somewhere worthwhile to sell them. I tried Wimborne Market over christmas time and the new year, but I was just losing too much money from the fees that I had to give it up. I may try again in the Summer, when hopefully it will be a lot busier due to the nice weather.
I am going to be attending a car boot sale tomorrow in Canford Magna, so I will take some with me then but I don't expect to have many sales if i'm honest.
So if anyone has any ideas where I can sell them please please don't hesitate to contact me.

That's all I have for today folks, I will try to update again soon with the progress of my new painting.

Hope you all have a nice bank holiday.

For the last week I have felt like a little kid all over again with the downpour of snow in the southwest. The last time I remember seeing snow in dorset was about seven years ago, and even that was a tiny amount that fell in early april time. The last time I saw thick snow was when I was in primary school, which was probably about 11 years ago. So, naturally I went absolutely beserk, throwing snowballs at everyone, running across fields getting soaked.

Although it does make me chuckle a little about how unprepared we all were. Even though the snow was forecast days before it arrived, all but 2 schools closed leaving the kids running around the streets throwing snow at everyone, the gritters were not sent out until around 10am, which left the roads horrendously dangerous for the rush hour. A lot of my co-workers said it was taking them an hour to get to work when it would normally only take them 5 minutes.
I luckily do not drive, I have always been scared of driving, I get so nervous when I get in a car I start shaking. So I have been walking everywhere, which has been scary enough. This morning it took me nearly an hour to walk to work because the paths were just one big ice rink, the walk normally takes half an hour at the most.
I realise that in dorset we simply just do not expect any snow at all as we are right by the sea, but surely they must have measures in place just in case.

But I must admit it has been wonderful to see some snow for a change, and with it apparantly forecast for the beginning of next week i'm excited by the prospect that we might get some more, as I have not had a chance to make a snowman yet :(

I can't believe we are in 2009 already, 2008 has slipped through my fingers so quickly and I don't see myself anywhere near where hoped I would be.
I was hoping to have been able to quit my job at B&Q and be earning enough from my art to keep myself going but sadly this has not happened and does not look like it will happen for quite some time.

On a lighter note 2009 seems to have kicked off to a good start. I have been contacted by a manager of a Bistro who may be interested in having about 10 paintings done to hang on his bare walls, naturally I am extremely excited by this prospect but then I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it all seems too good to be true, but we will wait and see. I am hoping to be able to meet him within the next few days so fingers crossed it all goes well.
I also have another commission on the horizon.
I am still at Wimborne Market selling my prints and Mini Paintings, I have been there 6 times now and have sold one Mini Painting and 4 prints, which is a little disappointing but at least I know that some people want them and I know that it will take time to pick up.

I have decided that my new years resolutions are,

1. To Eat more healthily
2. To paint more and more often
3. To work on my website and try to gain more traffic to it.

Thats all for today folks
I hope that 2009 brings you much joy.

Today was my first day at Wimborne Market. The day has been a little dissappointing, as I did not sell any prints. Hannah sold a card so I was really pleased for her.
The day has been really quiet, even the regular sellers there were saying that sales were very slow.

We are going to try again next weekend but set up in the actual art and craft section that they have, as the position we were in probably did not do our work justice, we were surrounded by a lot of the stalls that sell books and odds and sods so we were not getting much attention around our area.

So I am a little disappointed but i'm not giving up yet.

Bye for now. 

Well, i've made up all my mounts and we are all booked in to start selling at Wimborne Market a week today. I am going to be selling prints of "Silhouette", "Perfect Reflections", "Bamboo Forest", "Wilma" and my untitled commission piece. I am also going to try to sell my mini paintings I have been doing as they have not been selling very well on Ebay.
I'm really excited, hopefully I will make quite a bit of money while I am there. I am going to be there every Sunday, so if you are ever visiting Wimborne Market on a Sunday I hope to see you there.

Bye for now. 

Just an update to keep you all up to date on what I have been getting up to. My mini Ebay paintings have been doing well, 3 out of the 5 paintings have sold and I will be adding my newest addition "Misty Mountains" to Ebay later today. I have not been painting nearly as many of them as I would like, as I originally stated that I would be listing 1-2 of them every week, but I am happy with what I have accomplished so far and may be taking inspiration from a couple of them to make larger main Gallery pieces.

I have always said that I want to set up a stall to sell my prints and I am pleased to announce that this is going to turn into a reality. Hopefully starting in November (to catch the Christmas rush), I am going to be selling every Sunday at Wimborne Market, which is a very popular market that sells pretty much everything, it is huge and has been going on for years, it is a very popular attraction for Dorset and attracts a lot of buyers. Needless to say then I am very excited about this opportunity. I will keep you updated on how I am getting on when it happens.

That is all for today folks
Bye for now.

Today is my 22nd birthday. Hasn't been that exciting to be honest, due to no one having any money. I was hoping to at least be able to get a chinese, but sadly I did not. Oh well, it's just another day.

For some good news, my first mini painting has sold on Ebay today, (Misty Forest). The Lost City has been relisted, as this did not sell the first time but it already has a watcher.

That's about all I have to say today.
Bye for now.

I have just added my first painting to the mini painting gallery page, which can be found if you hover over artwork on the menu.
I have already added it onto Ebay, and if all goes well I will be adding 1-2 new ones each week.

Starting bid on Ebay is £2.99, postage is free to UK buyers and £2.00 for international buyers. So if you want to grab yourself a bargain, there is a widget showing what paintings are currently for sale on my Mini Painting Gallery page or my Ebay username is chkychmp, so you can see everything I currently have for sale on there.
These paintings are only going to be sold on Ebay and no reproductions are going to be made of them, so they truly are one of a kind paintings.

Bye for now
Sam

Sorry for all my readers for not updating here in a while. I thought I would share with you all what I am up to.

Sales have been a little slow lately, not many prints sold either, so I have had a little break and have not really been getting much painting done.
I am now starting to get back into the swing of things, I have two paintings sat on the easel, I will share the progress when I find my camera.
I am also going to be starting to try to sell on Ebay again, if you have noticed I have added a new sub page into "The Artwork" section on my site, this is going to be solely for my Ebay paintings, which are all going to be painted onto canvas boards and will be small, only 5"x7" in size.
So when this all starts up it will hopefully be beneficial to you, as you will be able to grab a bargain original oil painting by me, it will also be beneficial to me as I will recieve a lot more exposure from having my work up on ebay again, well, this is the plan anyway.

I will keep you informed when this all goes live, or you can add yourself to my mailing list where you will recieve a email from me when it is all set up.

Bye for now.
Sam

I have finally completed my commission, it was picked up this morning and he seemed really pleased by it. Hooray!

The image is displayed on my homepage and you can see it in my Gallery.

Bye for now.

Things are starting to look up for my prints.
After many failed attempts at selling them, I came up the idea of having a portfolio of them in the staff room where I work. After the go ahead from the management, I made up a folder and this morning I placed it in the Staff room and already there has been a lot of interest in them, everyone has commented how nice they are, a few people have stated they would maybe like to buy one and two other people say they may want me to do a commissioned painting for them.

This is all after just one day, so obviously I could not be happier. Hopefully this will mean a few sales coming my way, (fingers crossed)!.

Bye for now.

Due to some errors to my previous blog, I have had to completely delete it and start a new one. To any readers of my blog, I apologise about this.

Currently I am still working on my commission, I have been doing it since August last year but am pleased to announce that it is very nearly completed, so it will be appearing on my website soon.

I still have not sold any prints, have had a few failed attempts at selling them at car shows and car boot sales. I am still planning on opening a stall down Poole High Street, I just do not have enough money to start this up yet.

Bye for now.