I’ve done scene before and posted it, but I came across it the other day and wondered if I could try it in the three cool colours I use, following on from the previous post where I used three warm colours. So this was done with lemon yellow, alizarin red and winsor blue. I have tried this combination before and found it quite difficult, when compared to using the warm colours – maybe it’s the more staining effect of the winsor blue and alizarin which can quickly overpower the painting . I must try a few more to see if you get a different feel to the paintings with the cooler colours.
I wasn’t completely happy with the original painting which you can see below and applied the paints on this one in a much looser way.
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With the equinox turning I thought I might ponder on things to come, well at least for us in the northern hemisphere.
These ducks amused me, but really I was taken by the row of distant trees in the morning light which I got by splattering colour into a sprayed paper.
Some time ago I reported, after painting the plein air Downholland Farm I posted, that I had left my portable palette behind. When I came back to search for it I came in my car and had to park on some waste land and the easiest way was to cut through this small copse. I loved the evening light coming in through the trees and the branches and trunks cutting across the scene making an almost stained glass effect. When I came out of hospital last week I thought that I could do this in pastel and sat down and cracked on and produced this pastel below:
Being a sort of obsessive I do paintings over and over again. This is the latest version of this path which connects the north end of Formby with the sea via the pinewoods and skirting one of the many golf courses here. I am beginning to feel a bit satisfied with the outcome. I initially went in with warm red, blue and yellow and mixed the colours all over the paper, spraying and mixing the quite strong colours. Then, when dry I rewet some of the paper with spray and mixed in the foliage, extending the trunks at the same time. I am pleased with the effect of the light even though I have painted over the whole paper. On a previous edition I deliberately left the area of the sun white, yet it doesn’t have the same impact of lightness – see below.
I was working on some bigger and more intricate paintings when I saw an advert for travel which depicted a river valley. I loved the colours in the photo where green was the mother colour but didn’t overwhelm. I felt I needed a rest from my acrylics and banged out this sketch this morning. I decided to add a stand of trees as a focal point which I masked out, but in hindsight should have just protected by keeping the area dry instead. I intended using only three colours, warm red warm blue and warm yellow but quickly realised I needed a cool blue to help out and get the depths of colours that were needed.
