THROUGH WOODS AND FIELDS TO HALSALL CHURCH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Another old favourite – Halsall Church, the village church, which is a few miles across the Moss from where I live in Southport. I did a similar view ages ago which sold. In spring, summer and autumn the church is obscured by foliage and it was only in December that I spotted the view again as I cycled around on a sunny day. The sandstone of the church in sunlight blends well with the winter coats of trees, and in this view I focussed more on the Church. The painting now sits in the window of my framer, hopefully awaiting purchase.

Other painting of churches and landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

HEADED BACK HOME – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I did this a couple of weeks ago, but it got forgotten in the pile. I was after the smoky blues you get in the still early mornings and did resort to a glaze of blue tinted gouache. Perhaps more foliage detail in the foreground might add to the depth, but there is an understated calm about it which is what I was after.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

GLIMPSES OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE – WATERCOLOUR SKETCHES

A couple more sketches taken from photos, but painted in one sitting, quickly as if I was on site. This is a path I’ve been along many times, cycling to work. The photo was taken a few weeks ago when good weather coaxed me back on the bike. I am a sucker for puddles and here they are in bucket loads. It was painted in three main washes. Sky and puddles, then land and the blocks of trees and finally all the left hand trees, house details, shadows and fiddly bits. I feel I went in too dark with the muddy track and that limited my options for building up texture there.

This is an image from late summer and it started to get a bit overworked trying to get the tufts of seeding rosebay willowherb ( I think) in shadow. This one probably needed masking fluid, but as I dont use it in the field I resorted to scratching back with a scalpel to get the delicate fronds of decaying flowers.

If nothing else it was a good exercise should I want to paint a bigger or more finished painting.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

SLOW GLIDE INTO A SUMMER’S DAY – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

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Another canal painting. I liked the dark form of the narrowboat melding into the bridge in shadow. There was also a lot of foliage and I tried applying paint to sprayed water to get lost and found edges. It took a few goes to build up the volume. Because of all the green I introduced some warms to break the monotony, though not too much as the subdued colour range pulls out the central figure and hopefully focusses the eye on the detail.

Just another day on the canal.

Other canal scenes are available on my website for sale: grahammcquadefineart.com

PASSING PLACES 2 – ACRYLIC PAINTING

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I posted a version of this painting in early January. At the time someone commented on the bottom portion of the painting; that it needed reducing. I had to agree with this useful suggestion and decide to extend and expand the narrative of the passing places down the canvas.

In the end I reworked two thirds of it, making it look like a collection of snapshots along this single track lane close to where I live – a record of a journey perhaps. The passing places, emblematic of how we have to compromise and defer on our journey through life – well, most of us anyway.

I certainly like the idea behind this painting and how the greys characterise the place and the vibrancy generated by this colour against the oranges and yellows in the sky and fields.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

PASSING PLACES – ACRYLIC PAINTING

I have struggled with this painting and have decided to stop and have a rest. Publishing it will allow me to create some distance and ponder. I need the space: of late I have found my painting getting slower and slower and decisions taking longer and longer to make.

This painting comes from an old photo of a country lane near to where I live. I love the incongruous angles of the posts. The photo is below along with marks and water stains made by me.

I wanted to break the image up and decided to do this in a landscape format, like the photo. I did some thumbnail sketches.

And off I popped on a 75x50cm canvas. Before too long doubts crept in and out crept the gesso. Well the gesso came out after I had completed a new acrylic sketch over an old painting, which retained a lot of its original colours.

I thought that this format might be better so then the gesso did come out and I completed the painting at the top of the page. I thought that the notion of the painting being in three parts, with each part slipping past the other, echoed cars on this track having to negotiate past one another. I was reminded of that piece of performance art – Imponderabilia” Marina Abramovic where visitors had to squeeze between the naked artists stood at the only entrance to the exhibition. I apologise that this piece isnt as unnerving or erotic – but then that’s what you get on a Monday morning.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MOSS TRACK 2 – ACRYLIC PAINTING

You may have picked up a certain dissatisfaction with my previous post and I did manage to find the gesso – so here is another version. I wanted colour and it is needed on this, our shortest day. A blast of summer.

The flattening of the perspective gets the viewer closer to the action of the switchback road that can even make the sedate cyclist queasy. It also clears space for a rush of colour for the sheer sake of it. Even if it isnt the finished article, I am closing in.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

SOME LIGHT IN THE FOREST – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I was in the middle of an acrylic painting and had an impulse to paint this in watercolours. It is of another favourite subject of mine: Ainsdale Woods which sit on the edge of the sandunes on the coast. I loved the purples, blues and greens, which I have enhanced here, and how they collide with the yellows of the sunlit leaves.

I tried to be sparing in my washes and brushwork to keep a freshness and may have left areas underworked as a consequence. Anyway, there`s plenty of colour for a gloomy pine forest.

Other forest scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

DANCING LIGHT, FLEETING SHADOWS – WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS

Another view from Ainsdale pine woods near to my home, where the firs and bracken have populated the old sand dunes down to the beach.

You can understand, in a more credulous age, the belief in sprites and fairies as the morning light bristles or crepuscular darks grow.

And another go at the view of the woods and path I posted a few weeks ago. The first one was quickly done on the back of an old painting and I loved the glow I achieved. Unfortunately some of the old painting had been cut down so it didnt fit my frames and mounts. Hence this second attempt on a fresh sheet.

Other paintings of the Sefton coast are available for sale at great prices on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

AFTER THE HARVEST – PASTEL PAINTING

With a recent spell of bright sunshine we went for a walk along the canal a couple of days ago. It was the fields nearby that caught my attention. This one with the light on the top of the hill and the deep blue of the sky setting off what remains of the autumn leaves captured the day for me. I was thinking of putting some crows in it – but so far have resisted.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website grahammcquadefineart.com