Wednesday, 9 December 2020

Doll portrait

 Acrylics on Masonite, 20 x 15 cm:

SOLD

I have long thought that dolls, particularly antique-looking ones, are the most wondrously creepy things. And now I finally got around to painting one. 


Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Monday, 7 December 2020

Mugshot #1

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:


This work is for sale. Contact me at brianvds@gmail.com.

Painted from a police mugshot. I have no idea who the guy is or what he supposedly did, and I don't really care either. Call me crazy, but I find the faces on mugshots far more interesting to draw or paint than those of most other people. I may well do a whole series of these...


Friday, 4 December 2020

Welder at work

 Acrylics on Masonite, 20 x 15 cm:


This work is for sale. Contact me at brianvds@gmail.com.

Another one of my industrial scenes. Perhaps not entirely conventionally pretty, but a subject I enjoy. I used a limited palette here, of black, white, yellow ocher and burned sienna.

Unlike many modern westerners, I do not suffer from allergy to scenes of industry, and I find people's often extreme aversion to it somewhat strange. It's the very engine of civilization, providing us with all the stuff we like so much  (even when we deny it), including of course the computer on which you are reading this. 

Own a car? Microwave oven? TV? Knives and forks and pots and pans in the kitchen? Paintings on the wall? Clothes made of cotton? In short, just about anything? Thank industries and industrial workers for it. The Tolkienesque rural fantasy world that so many people today seem nostalgic for never even existed in the first place, and even if it did, it too could not exist without industry - even hobbits wear clothes, and use such things as tools, bricks and paint. 

And thus, unlike many (most?) people, I actually rather like scenery with such things as grimy, smoky factories, or train shunting yards, or modern farms with huge harvesters and grain silos. As far as I am concerned, all perfectly worthy subjects for paintings too.

Not that I object to pretty paintings, mind you. I like those too, and indulge in them myself. 


Wednesday, 2 December 2020

Spooky Mr Poe

Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:

SOLD

Another one of my monochrome things. I am rather enjoying these; the monochrome gives a picture a quite different sort of look. 

Tuesday, 1 December 2020

Friday, 27 November 2020

Green ice cream

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:

SOLD

Shaped like a crown, but it cools you down. The thing to eat in the summer heat. I enjoy painting these because it feels like it cools me down, and I like the rich, pop art colors and curly forms. 

Thursday, 26 November 2020

A slice of cheesecake

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 20 cm:

SOLD

I enjoy painting this kind of thing, but it does have its own drawbacks: it makes me ravenous!

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Cupcakes

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:

SOLD

SOLD

A pair of cupcakes. I may end up doing a whole series along these lines, because how can there possibly be too many cupcakes?





Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Monochrome elephant

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 20 cm:


I now and then enjoy working in monochrome, particularly for this kind of subject, which isn't all that colorful to begin with.

Monday, 23 November 2020

Flower power

 Acrylics on Masonite, 20 x 30 cm:

SOLD

A trip back to the 1970s, that psychedelic era of bad clothes and worse hair, that makes older folks wax nostalgic, and younger folks think it was a different planet...


Sunday, 22 November 2020

Uncle Al

 Acrylics on Masonite, ACEO (= 3.5 x 2.5 inches):

SOLD

I have hardly ever tried portraiture before, so I don't know what possessed me to try it out at this scale - I was terrified the whole time. Art truly is 99% perspiration, and no more than 1% inspiration.