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In November 2005, I returned to painting after a gap of many years. It became immediately apparent to me that I was desperately out of practice and needed to retrain. This site is a record, in pictures and words, of the ongoing process of that retraining.
For finished paintings and drawings, please see my portfolio site: Paul Foxton Paintings
Step by Step Painting Demonstration: Winter Chrysanthemums
5th April 2009
It's a little while since I've done one of these step by step posts. This one covers the last painting I did before returning to full time work, and was originally intended to be the first of a series of flower paintings. The series is on hold indefinitely now, but writing this one up has reminded me of some aspects that I was intending to incorporate into the rest of the series, ideas about colour and design. It might be a little more difficult for me to paint flowers now, but revisiting this painting has started to get my creative juices flowing again, just a little. For the first time in a little while I'm starting to feel the call of the easel again.
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22nd March 2009
A while ago someone said to me that they thought that a lot of my work was about balance. I thought it was an interesting comment, and an insightful one too. I do think that balance is very important in painting and drawing in a number of ways. The balance of the values is perhaps one of the most important, in fact its been something of an obsession of mine for some time now. Composition is an obvious one. Even if the composition is deliberately unbalanced, it's still about balance.
There are more general ways that the concept of balance is relevant too. Finding a balance between reproducing exactly what we see and the needs of the picture, for example, or the balance between technique and feeling. But today I'm thinking about balance from an entirely different point of view, because this past week I lost mine.
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More Train Drawings - the second Week
15th March 2009
Two weeks into the new routine now and I think I might be starting to adjust. My 'practice time' spreadsheet is looking a little healthier this week at nine hours (last week was six) so things are heading in the right direction. Not quite the twenty I'm aiming for still, but I'm accepting now that it's going to take a little while to build up to that. Encouragingly, I wasn't completely wiped out this weekend and managed to get a bit of drawing done today along with setting up a new still life.
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Train Drawings - First Week of the New Routine
8th March 2009
Unfortunately I've no time for anything more than a quick update today, but I'd rather get at least something up this week than nothing. Actually, that's been pretty much the story of my first week trying keep my practice going around my new job - a quick bit of drawing here and there, not much but better than nothing.
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1st March 2009
Since I've got into the habit of rising early to paint I've come to love the mornings. The world is quiet at 6 AM and the day is still full of promise. Usually I'll be thinking about a painting I've got underway and wondering what part to work on next. Maybe I'll be starting a new one and tingling with the anticipation and excitement that that always brings. It's warm enough now to have the window open first thing and on this particular morning I'm sitting here as usual with a large strong coffee, enjoying the calm and the fresh morning air. The first hint of daylight is starting to creep into the room and I can hear the pidgeons cooing in the trees by the railway line at the bottom of the garden.
I like to hear the trains go by, taking the early commuters into London because they remind me how lucky I've been to be able to spend so many of my working days at an easel. I've spent plenty of time on those commuter trains myself. I know the routine and because I do I make a point of taking a little time every morning to count my blessings.
But today is different...
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More Head Drawings - Planes and Form
4th February 2009
The drawings I'm posting today were done about a year ago I think. There's not a huge amount of them, but they were a bridge from the Loomis planes back to copies of old (and not so old) master drawings. But these drawings are certainly not copies in the usual sense. All I was interested in was the form, abstracted, in a sense, from the originals.
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Feeling the Form - Loomis and the Planes of the Head
29th December 2008
It's a little while since I've posted any examples of the stuff I get up to apart from still life paintings. This post is picking up a thread that I dropped in April 2007, the Loomis head drawings. Most of the drawings in this post come from the year of no posts, but I'll update the site with what this practice has lead me to now in the next post, and so bring at least this thread back up to the present.
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Small Pieces in Series - Breaking the Block
22nd November 2008
I remember when I first came back to regular drawing and painting again in 2005, there's a particular drawing that sticks in my mind, etched into my memory. It was a little self portrait drawing. I remember looking aghast at it when it was done, amazed at it's clumsiness, it's downright awfulness. That drawing in particular brought it home to me that I was going to have to completely retrain myself. I should try and find it again and post it, but it's probably buried somewhere in a vain attempt to forget that such an abomination ever flowed from the end of my pencil.
So I knew I had to start over, but where to start? I had no idea, but I had to make a start somehow, and I came up with the idea of setting myself to work through some short runs of series of drawings and paintings, just to get the pencil, the brush, my hand and my brain moving. That probably turned out to be the single most productive idea I've had.
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11th November 2008
I've been giving a lot of thought to processes lately. If the recent results of my own trials and tribulations at the easel are anything to go by, the processes by which a painting is made have a great influence on the eventual result. Well, I suppose that's a pretty obvious thing to say, of course they do. But I'm thinking now not so much about particular techniques, but about mental approach. Or am I? Oh hell, lets just get on with the post and we'll see where we end up.
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Some Thoughts on the Sight Size Technique
15th September 2008
Before I start, I should point out that this isn't going to be a 'how-to' post on working sight size. For that, see the step-by-step walk-through of a Bargue copy done sight size and also have a read of sight-size.com. This is more a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of sight size as I see them, replete with my usual meandering and wandering off the point. This is also a rather long post since I've used it as an opportunity to think a few things through for my own benefit. Hopefully some of it will be interesting and/or relevant to you too.
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7th September 2008
What a week it's been. I'm exhausted.
A fortnight ago, friend and painter of exceptionally beautiful still lifes and landscapes Julian Merrow-Smith told me I should get my arse into gear and submit something for the Discerning Eye Exhibition. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Blissfully unaware of the chaos and confusion that lay in wait, I decided it was worth a try.
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The Lazy Man's Approach to sight Size
17th August 2008
For today's post I'm going to explain the set up for the final version of the iron painting. It's a bit convoluted, but hopefully I'll be able to get it across with the help of a view photos. It seems ny still life set ups have become increasingly complicated as I've tried to solve a series of problems and to evolve a repeatable working process.