As months of lockdown start to come to an end, the sun started shining and this morning the light was fabulous, with those lovely long morning shadows and golden light. So a bit late to the party I organised my kit as quickly as possible and trotted down some of our local lanes for a good few hours of plein air painting.
This morning was pretty much perfect as an outdoor studio, standing in the shade slowed down drying times and when I did want to accelerate the drying time I simply popped the painting into the sunlight.
My first image is always just a case of getting something onto paper and trying and get in tune with what’s happening. This means figuring out how the setup will work, playing around with brushes and getting some colour mixes sorted out, which I see as waking the paints up!
In this one I didn’t want something too complicated or time consuming I just wanted some lights and darks and simple shapes, so it’s just looking up a lane with some of those strong shadows going across the road. This one was completed in my sketchbook on smooth cartridge paper and whilst it takes the paint reasonably well it doesn’t really allow the paint to be manipulated once on the paper, so you can’t really lift paint back off the paper without it disintegrating. Anyhow it did the job for me. There are some interesting shapes and edges and the paints woke up. On the critical side the image is lacking a subject and my sunlit hedge didn’t really develop with the shapes I was after.
Image number two was just a 180 degree turnaround, it seemed pointless carting my kit around when there were painting subjects all around. In this image I was drawn to the field of wheat, the dark line of trees bordering the field and the bright opening at the bottom left hand side. It was also curious that the shadows seemed to be pointing in the direction of the sun. In actual fact they were cast by the large trees on the left hand side because the sun was hitting the top of the branches. There was also a nice little path through the field which was a useful device for taking the eye through the field to the distant trees. I would have liked a better rendering of the near trees and could have spent a but more time on those distant trees but such is the nature of plein air, it’s great for capturing ideas.
By this time my legs were in need of a stretch so I packed up and headed around the corner where I found my third and final image of the day
This one went portrait and ticked a few more boxes for me. Having woken the paints up I felt that Naples yellow was definitely the colour of morning light, and was something I remembered from my lesson from Sargent (see my earlier blog with a house in Crete). So whilst this house wasn’t really Naples Yellow nor that bright I went with it because I know it would help with my shadows, which are a big part of this painting. It is interesting how things come together and this sketch was pretty quick to complete, mainly because I had already worked out a number of greens and shadow colours.
I was also reasonably happy with the composition. There is noting of real significance in the scene, but I think the details in the fence and the sneaky green garden umbrella just add a bit of interest and keep the eye in and around the focal point.
By now it was also getting very hot and my water supplies were running out, both for drinking and painting purposes. So pleased with my efforts I packed up and headed for home felling that I must do this again soon!
An Artist on Tour 