The Baseball Series

. . . and this series goes out with thanks to Dennis, for inspiration and support. They are all oil on canvas on some kind, but I had some fun playing with different types of support and different ways of putting the paint onto it.

This first one is the most traditional: several layers of paint, finishing with some quite thin glazes to achieve a sense of the bright sunlight of Central Australia.

Baseball Boy III: Oil on Linen (65cm x 65cm)


These next two are much less polished, working with thin washes of oil and citrus turpentine (love the smell!), spending as much time wiping out the paint as putting it on. I wanted to keep the palette really limited here, to just burnt umber, cobalt blue and burnt sienna. Less interested in the light in these than in the mood of the subject.

Baseball Boy I: Oil on Linen (50cm x 76cm)

Baseball Boy II: Oil on Linen (50cm x 76cm)

The final two of the series are more of the 'ensemble' type piece . . . dealing with the relationships between people and animals and place.
This first one uses the same 'removalist' technique as above but with a wider colour palette (getting a whole lot carried away and adding mars violet, raw sienna and paynes grey to the mix). The support is still canvas, but a quite loose weave hemp which I stuck to board before preparing the usual way.

The Game II: Oil on Hemp on Board (80cmX 60cm)

The very last one of this 'baseball series' (sorry about the pun) is a four part painting (thank you to anyone out there who knows what this is called - I'm fine with the triptych but can't think what comes next . . . a quadtych sounds like some kind of Tolkeinish troll and a quatych . . . we'll say no more). Each single painting is actually quite small so it was challenging to get enough of a sense of individuality to each of the participants without trapping myself into miniaturist detail. I really liked the line of gum trees marshaled along the back, like fencing or an audience.

The Game: Oil on Linen (4 x 20cm x 25cm)