100 years has passed since World War One (WW1), with the 4th of August 1914 drawing near, I decided around March 2014 to paint a series of WW1 paintings.  I planned to paint 3 Acrylics on my favourite canvas size of 16″ x 20″ to mark the anniversary of the First World War.

A Personnel note:  For my generation our grandfathers fought in The Great War  and late last year I painted my grandfather sitting round the camp fire in his uniform with his mates.  This can be viewed here on this blog. He was in the Royal Artillery and survived the trenches returning home (Birmingham) in early 1919.

So I set about in March to paint 3 Acrylics from photographs I had gathered over the last 12 months or so.  As with any new series things change and I ended up with my first painting in water colour, not acrylic of a French Soldier dressed in the battle dress of that time blue.  The reason for the deviation was the stumbling upon a WW1 photo of this French soldier.  I could not resist the temptation and went about painting the allied soldier.

So getting back to the main event 3 Acrylics on 20″ x 16″ canvas paper.  I started with a 1914 photo probably from the battle of the Marne of British cavalry charging a German position.  Now I am unsure when the photo was taken however the chaps on horse are wearing the army caps not the traditional tommy helmet which I am led to believed came into service around late 1915 early 1916.  I named the painting “Stop the advance” and can be viewed on my website.

Next came the British Officer ordering his troops “Over the Top” again done in acrylic on texture paper.  This painting was taken from a few photos along with my imagination to enhance the painting.  As for a year I looked further into 1916 and around the time of the Somme. Viewed here along with my other work.

 

acrylicSo that was it 3 paintings not all in acrylic.  I decided to work on one last a to make my goal of 3 paintings in the medium of acrylic, but what to paint? An aviation painting came to mind after watching a documentary on WW1 planes, something which I have only painted twice before and surprise to me both painting sold very easily.  “Darken Sky’s” was created with much thanks to the Royal Flying corps along with the famous RAF born out of WW1 in 1918.
Job done 3 x Acrylics and 1 x Water colour painted with in the period of around 8 weeks. However after my success of painting a number of presentation piece of a Napoleonic Rifles Officer for the Rifle Battalions of the British army I decided one last painting similar in style but a 1914 British Tommy concluded the series.

 

I hope you like the series and as always please please contact me your thoughts on anything you have see here today.  Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, you never know I might decide later to paint a German soldier on the Western Front.  Don’t be shy if you have a idea for a great painting to mark the 100 years of the Great War then e mail me.

take care Phil