Queen's Mate

Queen's Mate
Oil on gessoed board

150x180mm

January 30, 07

To purchase for $180 click here

Blue Marble in Teaspoon

Blue Marble in Teaspoon
Oil on gessoed board

January 30, 07

125x150mm

To purchase for $150 click here

Another Teaspoon

Another Teaspoon

Oil on gessoed board

January 28, 07

125x150mm

To purchase for $150 click here

Sold

Small Ramshorn Shell

Small Ramshorn Shell

Oil on gessoed board

January 26, 07

50x50mm

To purchase for $80 click here
sold

Montbretias in Green Bottle

Montbretias in Green Bottle
Oil on gessoed board

January 25, 07

90x50mm

To purchase for $80 click here

sold

I love the wild Montbretias that flower prolificly around here at this time of year. I should have painted this on a slightly bigger board! I just felt like doing a tiny one.

Smiley Sticker

Smiley Sticker
Oil on gessoed board

January 24, 07

To purchase for $60 click here

Sold

I don't think I got the mouth quite right...

Is this the signifier or the signified?

Bowl Full of Plums

Bowl Full of Plums

Oil on linen mounted on board

230x240

January, 07

To purchase for $950 click here

Apologies for the lengthy hiatus in my postings here. This one took a bit longer than anticipated. I've been feeling the need to work on some slightly more ambitous paintings again, but naturally, they take more time.

As I've mentioned previously, we've had a bumper crop of plums on our tree this season. It stands alongside the path to my studio and I have to bow my head to pass underneath it every day. It is only a small tree, but it is now bent to the ground, heavy with fruit. I collect the ones fallen to the ground and take them with me to the studio. The small bowl that I've put them in, I got from the local Trade-aid shop. I think it was made in Africa. I love it and I have painted it several times. At first I tryed arranging the plums in a nice symetrical pile within the bowl, but they kept falling from the top to give a lop-sided appearance. After unsuccesfully struggling with this phenomonen for a while, I decided - Oh well, that's the way they want to be, I'll just build my composition around that. So I place the bowl off-centre in the composition with a bit of space on the left hand side and placed a plum on the shelf which seemed to anchor the whole thing down. At this stage I realised that it gave the effect of the plums tumbling out of the bowl. An over abundance of fruit, just like on the tree. So the theme of the painting turned out to be a kind of cornucopia, or "horn of plenty". It's that process of discovery that keeps me fascinated by the act of painting.

One Blue Marble

One Blue Marble
Oil on gessoed board

40x50mm

January 17, 07

This is one of my postage stamp sized miniatures. Approx 1.5 x 1.75 inch.

sold

Reserve is $1. Please note that Trademe unfortunately do not allow international bids. I have been considering using Ebay to auction these paintings if there is enough interest out there..? Thanks.

Small Ink Bottle

Small Ink Bottle
Oil on gessoed board

100x100mm

January 16, 07

To purchase for $150 click here

Paintings on NZTrademe

I have three of the popular cherry paintings from December for auction on NZTrademe at the moment. If you would like to bid click on the URL. This is only possible for NZ residents sorry.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=84796862

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=84797914

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=84798705

Thanks, Paul

Two Black Cherries

Two Black Cherries
Oil on gessoed board

100x100mm

January 15, 07

To purchase for $150 click here

I'm not sure of the variety of these cherries, but they are remarkably good keepers! They are the same fruit as the original december cherry collection... They have gone a nice dark black now.

Bottle Top With Plum

Bottle Top With Plum
Oil on gessoed board

100x100mm

January 14, 07

To purchase for $150 click here

Fishing Hook

Fishing Hook
Oil on gessoed board

50x62mm

January 13, 07

To purchase for $80 click here

Sold

My dog Fergus found this fish-hook on our daily beach walk. He brought it home with him in his paw. Ouch!

Rusted Tool

Rusted Tool

Oil on gessoed board

300x200mm untrimmed

Approx 250x200 trimmed

January 12, 07

To purchase for $400 click here

I've always been fascinated by old and rusty things. I'm not even sure what this is... some kind of spanner I suppose. It has been sitting in my studio for a while now waiting to be painted. Sometimes things will sit there for months or even years before I feel the time is right to paint them. Even after they have been painted, I tend to leave them around for quite some time. The cherries I painted in December are still on the windowsill shrivelling in the sun.

Even before I started painting this one I realised that the board was really the wrong dimensions for what I wanted, however I went ahead and painted with the thought of cropping it later. The photo below is the original uncropped version. It has far too much redundant space around it I feel. Sometimes less is more.

Eight Charcoal Sticks

Eight Charcoal Sticks

Oil on gessoed board

195x180mm

January 10,11, 07

To purchase for $300 click here

I got the idea for this one from the packet the charcoal came in. The charcoal was depicted in a simple "what you see is what you get" fashion that appealed to me. It also reminds me of I-Ching hexagrams, or perhaps a bar-code.

Charcoal Stick

Charcoal Stick

Oil on gessoed board

January 9, 07

22x125mm

To purchase for $80 click here

A burnt stick of charcoal is probably the first tool humans used to make marks with, hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Self Portrait Reflected in Narrow Mirror

Self Portrait Reflected in Narrow Mirror
Oil on gessoed board

170x200mm

January 8, 07

I'm always fascinated by mirrors. This one was salvaged out of some old fax or something I think. It's odd the way we require so little information to see a face. It's the way we're hard wired I guess. I had to close one eye to paint this.

Two Coloured Paperclips

Two Coloured Paperclips
Oil on gessoed board

January 5, 07

To purchase for $80 click here

Sold

Ripening Plum

Ripening Plum
Oil on gessoed board

60x60mm

January 4, 06

To purchase for $100 click here

This is a companian piece to the Pecked Plum.

Pecked Plum

Pecked Plum
Oil on gessoed board

60x60mm

January 3, 07

To purchase for $100 click here

The birds have discovered the plums! I don't begrudge them a few, as long as they leave me enough fruit to make a few jars of jam! I enjoyed painting the nice warm colours.

One Marble

One Marble

Oil on gessoed board

55x90mm

January 2, 07

To purchase for $90 click here

Sold

Deflated Balloon

Deflated Balloon

Oil on gessoed board

150x200mm

December 31, 06 /January 1, 07

To purchase for $300 click here