Anthony O'Keefe Portrait and Equine Artist

I’m sure most people have experienced the problem of starting a piece of work only to discover that a slightly different composition would have been better. The way I get over this is by painting a watercolour sketch of the composition in the middle of a sheet. I can then play around with the boundaries until I achieve what I …

The advantage of underpainting is that you can quickly get the features in the right place and produce the right structure and tonal balance. It is monochrome so you do not need to be concerned with colour at this stage. I use Terra-Verta for my underpainting of flesh which is easy to use and cools down the finished painting where …

Everyone will have their own opinion on this subject. For me the best technical painting book I’ve ever read and always re-read, is “Alla Prima ii” by Richard Schmid, I’d reccomend it to all artists whatever their stage. Alla Prima is not a technique I use but the amount and standard of advice within the book is astounding, and crosses …

The thing to remember when using photographs as references for your paintings is that the camera does not see the world in the same way as you and I. If you want to paint pictures that captures the way we see the world you need to understand and compensate for these failings. In my opinion the main failings and a …

Rather than starting off with “my pallet is..” I thought I’d jump right into the deep end and share how I get the effect of contours. In my paintings that would normally be muscles and features. Unless I’m playing around I do not use a lot of paint on my canvases, instead I build up very thin layers letting each …

Reading a book called “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon has inspired me to share the tips I’ve gained that help my paintings come alive. Being a self taught artist most of these tips have been learnt by trial and error, there maybe other ways to get the same results, but the ones I’m going to share work for me. …

Set up this area to paint while at Harbour House

I have a week long exhibition at the Harbour House Gallery in Kingsbridege which is giving me plenty of time to paint suggested compositions of Becky and her pony, Joey. The compositions are in watercolour as I can get the image quickly onto the paper and more accurately show how a finished painting might look. It’s fun to do and …