All the pieces are in place

Okay, all the pieces are now in place and I feel awful to think that it has taken me a month to get this far! From now on in it is tidying things up and making finishing touches. I have to say, it is a project that was much bigger than I thought and I should probably have chosen a larger canvas to give myself more space to work on thos details! The other option of course is to do it smaller so you just hint at the details. This is somewhere in between I guess. Oh well, I have to do some more work on it to get it finished. All in all, as a first attempt at a building I guess it is not as bad as I think it is. It is very frustrating but it is all a learning experience.

Mosque update

This is going really slowly. It is hard! It takes a lot of concentration and right now I can't work for long periods of time on it as my brain gets frazzled!!!

I have mostly been working on putting in the shadows, but there is so much detail and so many domes it is really hard work! I am just painting it - can you imagine what it was like to build.

I am using a very limited palette as usual. Cad red, cad yellow, burnt umber, cerulean blue and titanium white. I keep getting lost in the details, I should be more disciplined and get the main areas done first. Today I tried really hard to do that, but the details kept drawing me back. I guess I am in a hurry to finish! Don't know why.

New things for me

It is a long time since I have done any paintings with buildings or structures in them. For the past two or three years I have been mostly painting either dogs or horses, and that is becoming relatively easy for me now. I think the last time I did a painting of a building was when I was in primary school and the teacher made us study local architecture and took us on field trips to draw churches.

Well, perhaps I should have started again with something simpler, but every day I pass the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi when I am picking up the kids from school. I love the way the light reflects off it, and especially around 5pm at the onset of dusk.

This is a work in progress (wip) - oil on canvas 10" x 20"

At the moment it is in the very early stages. I started to block in the shadows, but then got carried away with the domes! I will finish blocking in the shadows of the walls before I do much more on the domes, but I just wanted to see if I could get the effect I was looking for. It is going in the right direction. There are some issues I have to deal with, but it is an extremely complicated structure and there are a lot of small domes, ledges and doors. This is a real challenge for me.

Evening desert ride

I have a horse and I keep him out near Al Wathba near the endurance race track. I like to do classical riding which is a bit like dressage, so mostly I ride in an arena. However, there are times when we both need to relax, and that is when we ride out in the desert. In the evenings it is nice to watch the sunset and appreciate the silence of the desert. It is at these times that the camels are being taken out for their exercise too. There is a camel race track nearby and it gets very busy of a Saturday morning. Many local people have herds of camels that need to be kept fit and they take them out in groups with a lead rider and a host of camels tied together. This painting is inspired by these scenes. I have never been really up close as horses are not too keen on camels for some reason, but at a distance, we see them passing.

Dog Beach Done

Well it is a trade off between trying to give a sense of the activity and trying not to make the picture too busy. I am fairly happy with how it turned out. Dog beach is a busy place. At the moment there is a construction project going on outside the exhibition centre on the opposite side of the inlet. It remains to be seen whether dog beach will survive as it is. The current financial crisis may mean that it gets a few more years, but if construction picks up again, for sure the area will be developed and swallowed up by high-rise apartments, offices and hotels..

Dog Beach

This is not finished yet but I am pleased with the way it is going. It is one of my favourite places to be early in the morning. It is commonly called "Dog Beach" by the ex-pat community in Abu Dhabi. I have no idea what the real name is, but between 7 and 9 in the morning, you will find a lot of people walking their dogs off leash. It is one of the few places here where this is possible near the city - otherwise you have to go into the desert to walk your dog off leash. I still have to add people and dogs to the picture, but it is getting there.

New blog

I'm starting this blog to view Abu Dhabi as I view it. I have been here for a year now after moving from Portugal, where I lived for 18 years. It was hard to leave and I didn't really want to come to Abu Dhabi, but now I am here I am finding that I can see beauty here and this is what this blog is about!

I am not attempting anything more than allowing you to see the city and its surroundings through my eyes and through my art.

I am very much linked to horses, so there will be times when this will include my horse art, but principally, this is not about horses it is about the city the people and my impressions as an ex-pat living in the UAE for the first time.

The first painting I have for you however, is of a horse and his 'master' - Ali Al Almeri - a UAE (Abu Dhabi) national, who works with horses for films, commercials, and shows. Here he is seen working with his horse Tayyeb at liberty in the desert near where he lives.