Henry Jones • Artist

More good news came a couple of days ago. My painting "Hot Work" has been selected for showing in the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2018. I had a painting selected for the 2014 exhibition, a rejection the following year and left it two more years before entering again. So pleased, it means a lot to have my work recognised at this most prestigious of events. The painting is part of a fire series I'm doing at the moment, furnaces, steel mills, the Saddleworth Moor fire, riots and bonfires all feature.

Last week I visited a friend who owns a property in Southern France, near Beziers. We are planning to set up a series of residential painting workshops for summer 2019. His property  is ideal for this having a large old barn space with room for about 10 people to paint and draw Outside the town has infinite possibilities for people to find suitable scenes and is quiet enough for them not to be disturbed. Whilst on my recce, I did a bit of sketchbook work which you can see below.

Six of my paintings are in an exhibition called The Civil Times at The Troubadour Gallery, Old Brompton Road, London 8-29 July 2018. I used the opportunity to show some recent work based on fire and sold three during the pv, which is nice. Because the buyer wanted to take the paintings immediately, these had to be replaced so that no gaps were left.

New York, so yellow they named it twice. Sketches and, for a change of medium, a couple of acrylic paintings made in preparation for a commission.

It is said by some, that you should never return to a watercolour painting and rework it. This follows the idea that watercolour should be fresh and precise on the first go, which is satisfying and represents watercolour at its purest. However ... some paintings which would usually be thrown away (I destroy about 70% of my work) seem to want another try. It's impossible to lift out and regain the white in most cases, but the darks can be darkened creating contrast, and the spare use of body paint (yes, it worked for Sargent) can really lift a painting. Here are three paintings I revisited last week.

After a lull in studio activity, I've been back this week with a commission and an attempt at a Japanese snowy street scene.

Another visit to the Alps in February offered more subject for my wintery painting scenes. First amongst the reference was the railway (photos below) which I shall work into some paintings over the coming weeks. The second was a town called Bard, about halfway between Aosta and Turin, which presented a number of fine painting subjects, one of which I painted and sold this week. 

For the second time, after failing to get a painting accepted into a prestigious open exhibition, I put it up for sale on Twitter and within an hour, found a buyer. Loose and win, and in many ways I’m pleased with both outcomes, both gone to homes where they’ll be seen and hopefully enjoyed.

We are in the middle of winter here in England, not the coldest place on the planet but chilly enough. Luckily, or perhaps not so as it was by design, my studio is well insulated and warm, allowing me to concentrate on painting rather than jumping up and down to keep from seizing up. My latest paintings are a combination of small works for the gallery in Cologne and some preliminary works with a winter theme for a large painting planned later this year. New York also features in a series of small sketches specifically for a commission. Busy times, and venturing into the world of oil paint and acrylics.