David Maiden

April show at Talisman...

2012-02-23T08:58:00.001+03:00

Murray...

2011-11-29T11:03:00.001+03:00

Murray, 10.5"x9", Oil on linen

I'm in the departure lounge now, heading back to London. We made a road trip out of our journey to the airport- a breathtaking, ten day drive through the most spectacular country in the world.

I did this sketch a couple of weeks ago- Murray Walker, a legend and a bit of an indulgence to paint, the voice to all the best Sunday afternoons.

Murray, Detail

Mzee...

2011-11-14T10:56:00.001+03:00

Mzee, 10"x16", Oil on Linen

Stage 1

Stage 2

Mzee, 10"x16", Oil on linen

Paper beads...

2011-11-04T11:30:00.001+03:00

Paper beads, 14"x18", Oil on linen

Ayrton...

2011-10-14T10:55:00.005+03:00

Ayrton, 10.5"x8.5", Oil on linen

Another Portrait of Ayrton Senna- painted alla prima yesterday...

At first you think that you may have it easy- only having his eyes to deal with. The flip-side being that you only have his eyes with which to catch a likeness.

I called this one Ayrton.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Detail

Ayrton, 10.5"x8.5", Oil on linen

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think 'Okay, this is the limit'... something happens and you suddenly can go a little further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Ayrton Senna

Senna...

2011-09-27T14:16:00.001+03:00

Senna, 9"x13", Oil on linen

Something a little different- a portrait of three times world champion Ayrton Senna.

I'm a big motor racing fan. I first went to a race in September 2000, it was the last few days of our teens- in fact it was my best friend's 20th birthday that weekend. To celebrate we went by train to Milan in the hope of watching the Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza just north of the city.

The whole thing was incredible, almost indescribable- the noise, the speed! I was already a fan but I really fell in love with the sport that day.

We watched the race from the Curve Parabolica. Michael Schumacher won for Ferrari. Not only had he won in front of the tifosi but with his 41st victory he had equalled Ayrton Senna's tally of wins.

After the race we all walked the track and tried to get close to the podium. We watched the drivers being interviewed on a giant screen and saw Schumacher break down in tears when asked about the significance of equalling Senna's record.

It had been six years since Ayrton Senna had died in San marino. He's a true legend and I hope that this captures someting of him.

The portrait in some of its early stages...

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Senna, 9"x13", Oil on linen

Nyeupe...

2011-09-09T16:31:00.000+03:00

Nyeupe, 10"x12", Oil on linen

Sitting for a portrait is a skill, it's not easy. Painting a portrait from life also has it's challenges. I'm sure that fellow artists make for the best sitters. Marci, who sat for this painting, is a musician and music teacher.

Vipuli vyia dhahabu...

2011-08-20T11:06:00.006+03:00

Vipuli, 9"x11", Oil on linen

It's totally captivating- the challenge of painting a portrait, the challenge of capturing a likeness in paint and beyond that creating something that is living and breathing.

This piece is painted in a slightly different way. I developed the face as a whole with the features all emerging together, where I would usually work from feature to feature, completing each before moving on to the next.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Vipuli, 9"x11", Oil on linen

Anatabasamu...

2011-08-03T07:45:00.000+03:00

Anatabasamu, 10"x12", Oil on linen

Mtoto...

2011-07-25T11:03:00.069+03:00

Mtoto, 8"x10", Oil on linen

Mtoto means child in kiswahili...

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Mtoto, 8"x10", Oil on linen

Head sketch...

2011-07-17T13:42:00.002+03:00

Marci, 10"x12", Oil on linen

Beautiful little Maggie...

2011-07-13T12:32:00.002+03:00

Beautiful little Maggie, 8"x10", Oil on linen

There is a duka outside our house that we go to occasionally to buy beans and chapati. The duka is owned by Babu, Maggie's Grandfather. She and her brother and baby sister play outside the duka whilst their mum is at work. We've known Maggie since she was tiny, she is such a beautiful little girl.

Here is the painting at various stages throughout the day...

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

stage 4

Stage 5

Beautiful little Maggie, 8"x10", Oil on linen

A work in progress...

2011-06-23T08:02:00.000+03:00

Oil on Linen, work in progress.

Back in London...

2011-05-14T14:22:00.013+03:00

Athlete Struggling with a Python by Fredrick Leighton. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by JS Sargent

I spent the day on Thursday walking between galleries- starting at the Tate and going on to the National Portrait and finally to the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the mall gallery.

Aside from the Sargent portraits possibly the finest painting that I saw all day was a small portrait by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer. Believe it or not Landseer apparently painted with both his left and right hand simultaneously!

Sir Augustus Wall Callcott, by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, oil on millboard, 1833, National Portrait Gallery

Kate by Anastasia Pollard, oil on canvas, 20x15cm, Annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Gallery

Portrait commission...

2011-04-20T16:41:00.013+03:00

Here's a peek at a bit of the portrait commission that I've just finished- not the whole thing.

Detail, Oil on Linen, 30"x24"(entire painting)

African skin tones...

2011-04-03T17:49:00.006+03:00

I’ll be working on a portrait commission for the next little while. It’s a novelty to be painting Caucasian skin tones again. I’ve mixed so many African skin tones recently that my brush seems to have started to find its own way around the palette.

I don’t like the idea of formulas when it comes to colour mixing, but I do seem to have settled into a little bit of a routine. It’s something like this:

For the skin in the light; the bulk of the mixture tends to be cadmium red mixed with ultramarine blue and a little hint of cadmium orange, that makes a rich brown which I usually go on to flavour with touches of white, viridian, more cadmium orange and sometimes a little cadmium yellow.

I think that a touch of viridian is key- I think that this might be where the life lies.

I rarely ever use a brown, I squeeze out a burnt sienna but don’t seem to touch it much, I don’t know why.

The darker tones tend to involve more ultramarine blue and an introduction of alizarin crimson.

For the areas that are close to black I tend to mix ultramarine blue in roughly equal parts with alizarin crimson and a hint of cadmium red. Delicious.

I like to think of African skin as expensive to paint - it is - using all of those rich cadmiums, viridian and alizarin.

Mama Mwakozi...

2011-03-04T17:15:00.000+03:00

Mama Mwakozi, 10"x10", Oil on linen

Plein air painting on Funzi...

2011-03-04T17:01:00.038+03:00

Funzi Island is in the Indian Ocean, 70 kilometres south of Mombasa, it’s just a few kilometres wide in any direction and has an ancient little fishing village in amongst the palms and the mangroves.

This last week I’ve been camping and painting on the island with an artist friend, Charlie Turle.

We camped on the edge of the village and painted on the beach and in the village itself. As far as the villagers could remember we were the only artists to ever paint on the island, they were definitely intrigued, we were quite the visiting circus.

By the time that we were leaving it seemed as though everyone had been to introduce themselves and to have a look. People were especially interested to see the portraits that they’d heard we’d painted of Mr Pandu the old fisherman and of Mama Mwakozi.

Charlie and Ali

Painting Mama Mwakozi beneath the baobab

Sketching heads...

2011-02-13T15:11:00.009+03:00

Missing Mary, 18"x24", Oil on Linen

Anna, backlit, 16"x24 ", Oil on linen

I don't know if it's having a fresh start after our house fire- a new studio and a new philosophy- but I'm enjoying every second of my work right now. I've done a head sketch each day this week.

The best you can do is make art you care about- and lots of it.
Ted Orland / David Bayles

Mary, head sketch, 12" x 12", Oil on linen

Wesley's Sermons...

2011-02-10T12:06:00.009+03:00

I painted this recently whilst I was visiting my parents in the Lakes. The Big books at the bottom are Wesley’s Sermons Volume I and II. I think that they belonged to my Granddad.

Wesley's Sermons, 16"x20", Oil on linen

I usually sign my whole name, both the David and the Maiden. With this painting I tried signing just the surname. Sargent signed both names: John S. Sargent. Van Gogh just signed Vincent.

Turnip...

2011-02-03T14:09:00.009+03:00

A Little Turnip, 9"x6", Oil on linen

I actually painted this turnip twice today- the first attempt was a bit stale.

Alla prima...

2011-01-30T15:43:00.018+03:00

Spring Onion, 4"x20", Oil on Linen

My Brother bought me a copy of Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It’s a really good book.

A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups, all those on the left hand side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality..... come grading time and a curious fact emerged: the work with the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work-and learning from their mistakes- the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection and, in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

David Bayles / Ted Orland

Such a refreshing idea, I really like it.

Recently I seem to have been spending days on paintings- weeks even. With this in mind I'll be spending more time painting alla prima.

I've been working on the lighting in my new studio....

2011-01-28T15:48:00.037+03:00

The light for drawing from nature should come from the North in order that it may not vary. And if you have it from the South, keep the window screened with cloth, so that with the sun shining the whole day the light may not vary.
Leonardo da Vinci

Moving to the Southern Hemisphere I did a bit of research on how North light differs here.

South light doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, the same history or romance, but here in the southern hemisphere ‘North Light’ (cool, consistent, diffused) actually comes from the South- South Light is our North light.

What I’ve actually found is that, because I am so close to the equator (just four degrees south), whilst South would be ideal, I can actually get away with either a North or a South facing window.

I had a fire today to burn some of my old paintings...

2011-01-28T15:22:00.001+03:00

A few months ago our house burned down. The whole house burned to the ground apart from the one room where my paintings were stored. Some of the newer work that was saved was okay but a lot of the other stuff was really bad -the old work, hidden away at the back - I couldn’t bare to look at it, let alone show it. So, I decided to burn it.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that these paintings were some of the only things to be saved from our fire- only to be burned by me a few months later, which somehow added to the occasion.

The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your work that soars.
From Art/Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland