Matchbox and bottle shards

 Acrylics on Masonite, 10 x 15 cm:

On Instagram, there is a thing going called the Strada Easel Challenge. I think it is organized by a company called Strada, which sells easels? Doesn't matter; it entails drawing or painting something from direct observation every day for a month. I have been faithfully participating, but this is the first one I painted instead of just sketched. The bits of bottle I picked up on one of my morning walks, which goes to show that one person's trash is the artist's treasure.

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

Or go check out my books, or see what else I have been up to all over the web. 

Karoo landscape with sisal

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:

SOLD

Or go check out my books, or what else I have been up to all over the interwebs.

Traffic in the rain

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 20 cm:

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

Or check out what else I have been up to, or check out my books. 

Karee at the wall

 Acrylics on Masonite, 15 x 10 cm:

I currently live in the suburbs, which are in many ways rather boring from the perspective of visual interest. There are beautiful gardens, but here in South Africa such things are now all hidden behind high walls and electric fencing. What you can see is often blandly pretty rather than really striking. One exception, sometimes: street trees, particularly in older, more established suburbs where the trees have had time to mature a bit and develop character. And thus, I may just get it into my head to do some studies of them...

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

Or see what else I have been up to. 

Conversation

 Oil on Masonite, 20 x 15 cm:

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

Or see what else I have been up to.

Evacuation

 Oil on Masonite, 20 x 15 cm:

I seldom drag politics or world events into my work, but in this case I made an exception, largely simply because I thought the images of U.S. diplomatic personnel being evacuated from their embassy to be visually striking, rather than because I have any particularly strong opinions about the whole issue. 

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

Also check out the rest of my dubious online presence, if you dare.

Three cypresses

 Oil on Masonite, ACEO:

SOLD

Been a while since I painted anything. I have been busy sketching a bit, but nothing spectacular enough to be worth posting here, though some of it made an appearance elsewhere.

A bit of random philosophy. There are two things that an artist might look for. One is subject matter, pretty things that he or other people might like, such as, say, birds, vehicles, people, flowers, etc. The other is more subtle: simply interesting shapes and colors, irrespective of the subject matter. These two things are not incompatible, and often elements of both are present. The best subject paintings usually also have a solid underlying abstract design. 

But I have become more aware of late that these are really two different elements, and that one needs to be aware of it. Am I primarily interested in the subject matter (often the case when I paint animals), or was I mostly struck by the abstract pattern? In the latter case, the subject matter is almost incidental. The above mini-painting falls in this latter category.