Crown of thorns

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

One of my very occasional ventures into religious art, a genre I enjoy looking at, but am not too confident about working in. 

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

Parked

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 20 cm:

SOLD

I tried out a limited palette of titanium white, ivory black, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. Supposedly, ivory black has a bluish cast, so one can mix subdued blues and greens from it, but it depends on the brand, I think: my tube is as pitch black as lamp black, so no blues, and my attempt at green (by mixing some of the black into ochre yellow) perhaps came out more brownish than green. Well, with the limited palette, you do not expect bright colors, and for some subjects I rather like the stark, subdued tone you get from monochrome or limited palette paintings. 

Cape hunting dog

Oil on Masonite, ACEO (= about 65 x 90 mm):

I haven't painted anything in ages, but have been itching to do so, and to try out a medium I haven't used in years, namely oils. I was rather relieved to see that while my painting has become a bit rusty, my old oil paints are for the most part still perfectly usable.

To start with, I stuck to a limited palette of black, white, yellow ocher and burnt umber. For this sort of subject matter you don't really need much else anyway, though the reference photo I used was definitely more colorful, particularly in the background.

Ceramic and egg

Oil on board, 20 x 15 cm (= about 8 x 6 in).
Painted with a limited palette of ocher yellow, ocher red, black and white. Using such a limited range of colors makes for an interesting challenge, particularly if you try to paint green or blue things; I cheated a bit here by picking subjects with colors that could be fairly easily approximated with what I had available.