Glacier, Svalbard

I've spent the last few weeks working on corporate commissions, but am now spending the last couple of weeks of the year doing some of my own painting. This image, started several months ago, is back on my drawing board, and I am currenly near to completing the main glacier. (I'll place an updated image here soon). I'll then work on the forground ice-floes, and lastly on the sea.

Mallard duckling II

Acrylic on canvas-board, 11.5'' x 17''

This painting will be exhibited at the Malvern Autumn Show - see my blog at www.jonathanlatimer.com for more details.

Mallard duckling
Acrylic on board - see my blog at www.jonathanlatimer.com for more details of this recently completed painting

'Chickens'

Acrylic on canvasboard

This new painting will show a pair of Silver Dorkings amongst apples on the orchard floor. This is a painting I've been intending to paint for ages, so have finally started it. After playing around with the composition for a while and altering the postures of the birds, I've finally settled on the image I'm happy with (top), which I will begin to work on adding more detail definition to the birds, whilst working up the orchard floor at the same time.

Waves
Acrylic on board

20'' x 41''

This painting was initially intended to portray a Leach's Petrel, but I decided that the bird would just be far too small in comparison against the waves (reference I obtained during a heavy Autumn gale at Formby Point, Lancs, a couple of years ago). I didn't manage to see any Leach's that day, but plenty of other things moving through, including Common Scoter and Eiders.

Once I have done more work on the waves, I'll begin to add the birds - which at this stage will probably be an Arctic tern pursuing one or more Sandwich terns. Watch this space!

On the Ice - Mallards
Acrylic on board

29'' x 34'' (framed)

















These birds were sketched during a really cold spell in January at the WWT Martin Mere resevre in Lancashire. After sketching pintail and other ducks in one of the main hides, I returned to the comfort of the cafe to thaw out, and came across a large group of resting ducks (mostly mallard, but a few goldeneye also) on a frozen pond out of the window. The late afternoon light transformed these common and often overlooked ducks into birds of incredible beauty.

14th July Glacier & Ivory Gulls, Svalbard

Acrylic on board
24'' x 29''





Once I have finished working on the main glacier, I will concentrate on the foreground sea and small, floating bergs. I'll probably add one, or maybe two Ivory Gulls against the backdrop of the glacier.

Iceberg, Svalbard


Acrylic on board
32'' x 37''







One of many huge floating icebergs encountered during a 2 hour long zodiak cruise in Svalbard (July 2006). I loved its shape as it dominated the skyline, and the red-tinged sky, commonly encountered in the Arctic (and Antarctic) , gives the painting a foreboding feel. My initial idea was to include a fulmar or two, as they were very common everywhere around Svalbard, but I couldn't get them to work in the design, so I may 'cheat' and add one of the albatross species from the southern hemisphere instead.