London Calling

"Rainy Day in London"
By James Swanson / Travelers Jim & Dar
16" x 20" oil on Canvas

See the Journey of this Painting.

London Calling and it's about time! A historic city of this magnitude, means a real nice historic painting for this project. And what better way of seeing this old town than with an old friend.

Big Ben taken from Traveler Jim & Dar's 1972 trip

Our New Travelers Jim and Dar are old friend of mine that have been telling me for months that they traveled around the UK in the early 70's and had slides of the trip that I could use for the project.

Jim from the 1972 trip

Dar from the trip.

Well, I finally met up with our new Travelers Jim and Dar a little while back to take a look at what they had and hear their memories of the trip.

I've known Jim for a long time as one of the best art directors in Chicago advertising, and Dar is a design shop all to herself. I expected to see some pretty great photos from their trip, and wasn't disappointed.

The Travelers Tale: One of Jim and Dar's many stories from this trip was about the color of their rental car. Jim said it was the most awful blue that he has ever seen.

A blue rental, but not Jim & Dar's.

Even for the 70's, it was a disgusting color, and they had to use it for two weeks. Jim remembers trying to find lodging for the night in Scotland and the old land lady coming out of her house to tell him how ugly the car color was, and to move it for she didn't have to look at it.

London Street in 1972

Traveler Painting: "Rainy Day in London"

I've been painting all around the UK for a while waiting for the right moment to take on London. For weeks I've been painting places, inching closer to this town. And now I'm here and ready to paint.

The photo that I'm working from is one of the first slides Traveler Jim showed me. In fact he had it picked out as one I should look at, good pick Jim. A rainy day in London seems like a prefect place to start seeing this city.

Sketch: The hardest part to this painting was scanning the slide to get an image to work with. The slides are over 30 years old, and took a bit of work to pull some color out of them. Then I broken down the photo into simple line and shape. The design is a one point perspective design. Everything shooting back to single point.

Sketch on Canvas: I'm trying out a new roll of canvas on this painting. I had some good luck a time back on this canvas in the stretched form. Using a mix of Burnt Umber and Cobalt Blue, I tone the canvas and drew in the sketch for the start.


Adding the darks and drawing in the window shapes.

Working in the structure of the painting.

Artists Tip: Painting Thick over Thin colors. Usually dark colors are painted thin and underneath high key thick colors. Lights really shine when put on thickly. Another reason for thick over thin is, if you don't the paint well crack at some point, because of the different drying time rates.

Putting in the buildings and the light sky.

Putting in the flower stand boxes.

The whole painting is pretty much blocked in.

Most of the buildings are done and only the people are left to be done.

Done, it feels like you need an umbrella I think.

Details from the painting.

Framed Painting

"Rainy Day in London"
By James Swanson / Travelers Jim & Dar
16" x 20" oil on Canvas

Thanks to Jim & Dar for the use of their trip slides. I was amazed by how much they remembered about that trip, and hope to paint a few more from it. London is such a great place that I'll be painting a few more of it.

If you have a trip that was interesting let me know here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org

Until next time Tally HO!

London Calling

"Rainy Day in London"
By James Swanson / Travelers Jim & Dar
16" x 20" oil on Canvas

See the Journey of this Painting.

London Calling and it's about time! A historic city of this magnitude, means a real nice historic painting for this project. And what better way of seeing this old town than with an old friend.

Big Ben taken from Traveler Jim & Dar's 1972 trip

The Travelers Tale: New Travelers Jim and Dar are old friend of mine that have been telling me for months that he and his wife traveled around the UK back in the early 70's and have slides of the trip that I could use for the project.

Jim from the 1972 trip

Dar from the trip.

Well, I finally met up with our new Travelers Jim and Dar a while back to take a look at what they had and hear their memories of the trip.

I've known Jim for a long time as one of the best art directors in Chicago advertising, and Dar is a design shop all to herself. I expected to see some pretty great photos from their trip, and wasn't disappointed.

Both these folks, besides having a great eye have a keen sense of history. They've been avid Revolutionary war Re-en actors for years, traveling around the U.S. for shows and battles.

A blue rental, but not Jim & Dar's.

The Travelers Tale: One of Jim and Dar's many stories from this trip was about the color of their rental car. Jim said it was the most awful blue. Even for the 70's it was a disgusting color, and they had it for two weeks. Jim remembers trying to find lodging for the night and this old Scottish land lady coming out of her house to tell him how ugly that car was, and to move it for she didn't have to look at it.

Traveler Painting: "Rainy Day in London"

I've been painting all around the UK for a while waiting for the right moment to take on London. For weeks I've been painting places, inching closer to this town. And now I'm here and ready to paint.

The photo that I'm working from is one of the first slides Traveler Jim showed me. In fact he had it picked out as one I should look at, good pick Jim. A rainy day in London seems like a prefect place to start seeing this city.


Sketch: The hardest part to this painting was scanning the slide to get an image to work with. The slides are over 30 years old, and took a bit of work to pull some color out of them. Then I broken down the photo into simple line and shape. The design is a one point perpective design. Everything shooting back to single point.

Sketch on Canvas: I'm trying out a new roll of canvas on thid painting. I had some good luck a time back on this canvas in the stretched form. Using a mix of Burnt Umber and Cobalt Blue, I tone the canvas and drew in the sketch for the start.


Adding the darks and drawing in the window shapes.

Working in the structure of the painting.

Artists Tip: Painting Thick over Thin colors. Usually dark colors are painted thin and underneath high key thick colors. Lights really shine when put on thickly. Another reason for thick over thin is, if you don't the paint well crack at some point, because of the different drying time rates.

Putting in the buildings and the light sky.

Putting in the flower stand boxes.

The whole painting is pretty much blocked in.

Most of the buildings are done and only the people are left to be done.

Done, it feels like you need an umbrella I think.

Details from the painting.

Framed Painting

"Rainy Day in London"
By James Swanson / Travelers Jim & Dar
16" x 20" oil on Canvas

Thanks to Jim & Dar for the use of their trip slides. I was amazed by how much they remembered about that trip, and hope to paint a few more from it. London is such a great place that I'll be painting a few more of it.

If you have a trip that was interesting let me know here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org

Until next time Tally HO!

The Wondering Falls

"Cat Gill Falls"

By James Swanson / Traveler Neil
12" x 9" Oil on panel

Watch the journey of this painting.

Fell and walking? They sure don't sound like they go together, but they do.

Photo's are from Traveler Neil all rights reserved.

Take hill and walking, they sound fine together. Hill walking, right? Well, when I looking up what exactly Hill walking was, I came across the term Fell walking.

I Googled Fell walking to see what it was and that is how I stumbled upon our next Traveler Neil's web site.

Neil at High Seat Summit

Neil has a very nice web site that documents his walks with a ton of good info about his walks and trails. Oh and lots of wonderful photos of these journeys.

Neil has done pretty much all the walks you can in the UK. All ending with tired feet and a smile on his face.

A High Seat Trig Pillar Flush Bracket marking the top.

And the difference between Fell walking and Hill walking, Fell walking takes place on mountains and Hillwalking, yeah you know.

Into the woods.

Traveler Neil’s Story: This was a day of mixed fortunes and experiences. Mark and I drove to Ashness Bridge on the eastern side of Derwent Water and parked in the car park just beyond the bridge. There was lots of room in the car park as we were quite early for most I suspect. After putting on our boots and organizing our rucksacks and equipment we eventually set off at about 8.55am. Although it was mainly cloudy we did have a few glimpses of the sun as we headed back down the road to Ashness Bridge.

Another splendid photo from Neil's walk

We took a path on the right hand side after the bridge, which ascended the hillside below Brown Knotts. Still gradually ascending we followed the path above Falcon Crag and round to Cat Gill. Then we carried on to Lady’s Rake and finally the summit of Walla Crag at 379 meters. This was our first Wainwright of the day and was quickly reached in about ½ an hour.

Derwent Water & Bassenthwaite from near Bleaberry Fell

The views across Derwent Water were great although some of the high fells were obscured by cloud. In front were the Newlands Fells (including Cat Bells, Maiden Moor, High Spy and Dale Head), to our right were the Coledale Fells and Lorton Fells, and in the distance were Bassenthwaite and Keswick. It certainly was a superb panorama.

Neil's photo of Cat Gill Falls taken during his walk.

Travelers painting " Cat Gill Falls" This is a quick paint day for me. The holidays are here and spending a lot of time in my cold studio isn't going to go over well with the family.

The photo I chose to paint from Neil had to be something that I could handle in a few hours and something that I haven't done before.

I've seen a lot of great waterfall shots from Travelers while working on this project, but this one of Neil's just felt different to me. Like something that I might want to paint if I was in hid shoes and standing before the falls, and with the name Cat Gill Falls I had to take a shot at it.


The sketch just a quick warm up and a way to lock in the design for the painting. The design was already there in Neil's photo. a graceful S.

I toned a panel with some thinned out Raw Sienna and whipped out the falls with a paper towel.

The darks are painted in. It looks like I used the same dark for for this stage, but there are at least 4 colors there- just a bad photo.

The structure of the painting is done. Time to paint in some cools to balance it off.

Blocking in, I'm bring in the greens here to get it blocked in quickly.

The Greens are done, more cools are added. Starting to paint in the depth.

Painters Tip: Simple one Cool Colors recede in space and Warm Colors come forward in space. When you put a warm color of the same value against a cool color the warm always comes forward. That's why stop signs are red.

Pretty much blocked in now. time to refine things a bit.

I've been waiting and waiting to put in the flower colors. I wanted to put them in thick and juicy, and didn't want wet paint to mix with them to much. I mixed up a few different shades of the rose color to keep this color from flattening out the painting.

Done. I just went in with the palette knife here and there to finish it up.

Details for the Painting

Framed Painting

"Cat Gill Falls"

By James Swanson / Traveler Neil
12" x 9" Oil on panel

I really enjoyed this paint. It was quick and to the point, but meeting Traveler Neil was the high point. Thanks Neil for the sharing of photos and your story. Your walks are beautiful to see, hopefully I'll paint one in person one day.

Walkers take are a great help in my journey to see this world, if you have a journey or trip that was interesting let me know here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org.

Thanks for looking in, I'm just truck'n on down the road.