Saturday 26 January 2013

Book on Kindle Store, Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B5JYU7O

People have had some trouble finding this,but it should be there now, fingers crossed.

Friday 25 January 2013

The Last of the Titchy-Pics....

Months ago, I bought a job lot of 10 7" x 5" block canvases.  I only really needed one of them, but as it happened they were on offer....

So having painted the one which I'd been commissioned (as it were; brother's birthday present, in fact) to do, I then had another 9 canvases to paint; and whether my eyesight's got worse, or whether it just wasn't a great idea to start with, I don't know: but it's been a bit of a struggle just to see the blessed things.

Anyway!  I've painted the very last one - you can see all three of the last tranche on my Facebook page, but for those of you who wouldn't go on Facebook if paid in gold bars, here's one of them.

It's a rather summery painting for this time of year, but it's so grey and dreary outside that I wanted something with a bit more colour.

And - Stop Press - my e-book, now titled Oil Paint Basics, has now been made available for the Kindle, and is available from Amazon UK.  I also have some work on show in a new café in Upper High Street, Ryde IW: unfortunately - I don't know the name of the café...  Ryde isn't the easiest place to get to from here.  But there can't be that many up there, so should you be in the vicinity, take your cheque book for a nice walk, cup of tea, slice of cake, and a painting to take home.   You know you want to.  You do.  No, really - you do.

Thursday 17 January 2013

Flooded Fields

I was given a tube of Aureolin watercolour made for the SAA (Society for All Artists) the other day, and it cleared up a longstanding mystery.  I have wondered quite why demonstrators of watercolour techniques on the Painting and Drawing Channel (www.thepaintinganddrawingchannel.co.uk) use paints that (like Aureolin, Rose Madder, Alizarin Crimson and several others) are "fugitive", ie not lightfast.

The reason would seem to be that while these SAA paints carry the old names, they aren't the same pigments at all.  Makes you wonder why some manufacturers stick to these old labels when anyone who knows the first thing about paint durability wouldn't trust them not to fade or darken over a few months.  It must surely confuse painters - there's a website called Handprint.com which is full of information about paint characteristics if it's of interest.

Anyway - responding to a challenge to produce a painting in 30 minutes, I did this one - the actual painting took a bit less than 30 minutes, but you can add another 30 to that to allow for the drying time.  It has its points; I'd have preferred to take a bit longer, and iron some of the odder shapes out.  Used Prussian Blue, Yellow Ochre, Venetian Red, Winsor Red, Cobalt Blue - and a touch of that Aureolin.


Monday 14 January 2013



The cover of my E-book, available (in PDF) on DVD for £10 including postage and packing, or £8 for a download.  Email me at robertjones@ratville.freeserve.co.uk for your copy.  As advertised on Facebook - and indeed anywhere else I can think of....

This is the second and improved version - although those who have bought the first won't find it so spectacularly different that it would be worth shelling out again for it!  If existing customers  really want it though - and who am I to say thee nay? - I will happily send a copy of the second edition for free by download, or the dvd for £3.00 to cover my post and packing.

The cover painting is of Summer Fields at Arreton, Isle of Wight - 10" by 10", for sale unframed at £80.00.

Thursday 10 January 2013

Painting again!

All sorts of things have cropped up to delay me this year, but rather than moan about them as is probably my wont, I shall just post my recently completed acrylic, which can also be viewed in all its multi-coloured splendour on www.painters-online.co.uk, and on my Facebook page.

For this one, I used a canvas-covered board by Pieraccini (www.pieraccine.com) supplied by Jacksons' Arts, and used Cryla Acrylic from Daler-Rowney, a bit of Winsor & Newton Artists' Acrylic, and Chromacolour (www.chromacolour.co.uk) for touches of glazing and detail.  I'm particularly fond of their Naples Yellow - mixes with greens and blues to make a range of different greens: it doesn't behave anything like oil Naples Yellow, but it's a very useful colour in its own right.

Still looking for help with running my website: I've got a bit phobic about it - what I need is a young person to whom these things seem to be second nature.  I shall feel a fool, of course, taking direction from a stripling, but I'd rather feel a fool than continue to be incapable of updating my own site.

So if anyone is out there .... you know where to find me.

Anyway, this painting is provisionally entitled Path to the Marsh, and is 30 by 40cm in size; it's for sale, as all my stuff is; and I have to confess I've forgotten where it was that I made the sketch for it - not that this should really matter very much, because all of my paintings are fairly freely adapted from the scene in front of me anyway.  I know it's either Newtown Creek on the Isle of Wight, or a walk near Emsworth in Sussex ...  must get into the habit of dating and placing my sketches.....

Painted on a red-coloured base, I used Titanium and Chroma White, Cobalt Blue, Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Prussian Blue, Naples Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, and a touch of Burnt Umber.  That's my version of a limited palette in acrylic: normally, I use more colours in acrylic than in oil, and more in oil than I use in watercolour.  


Tuesday 1 January 2013

New Followers

Welcome to you - please make comments, add your own thoughts: it gets lonely out here - and I don't remove comments unless they're stupidly rude: a bit of honest criticism never comes amiss.

Those fresh from Comment is Free (chortle, gasp, snigger) on the Guardian will know what I think of as rude.  Insult my opinions as much as you like: but don't insult me unless you know me well enough to do so.

And if you do know me well enough to do so - what kind of friend are you anyway, you git?

Latest on Painters Online

http://www.painters-online.co.uk/Blogs/New-Start/Confessions/_bl284_po2795_pg1

Hope you can find this - at times, blogger baffles me.   At times?   This is the man who can't even manage his own website......  help urgently required to sort it out for me.....

Anyway; look, here; consider; reflect - the purpose of this blog was really to determine if there's a market for lead white oil paint.  There ought to be, if people are really interested in genuine oil painting rather than the miserable substitutes for same offered to leisure painters and hobbyists.

If you're interested in getting your hands on genuine lead white oil paint - Flake, Cremnitz, and Foundation White - please get in touch with me: here or on Facebook.  Then we might be able to secure a reliable supply, and paint in oil to its fullest degree of possibility and achievement.

By the way - my e-book Oil Painting Basics is still available at £8 per download, £10 on dvd.   Email me at

robertjones@ratville.freeserve.co.uk OR

jones-ratville@hotmail.co,uk

If you want to pay for it via my website, go to www.isleofwightlandscapes.net, but, especially if you want the dvd, don't neglect to email me with your address.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Robert Phillip Jones

(www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk)