Hankley Common 2016/2017
I have been walking my dogs here since I moved to the UK in May 2016 and love it here. It is wild, quiet, hilly and has heather, pines, silver birch and many more wonderful plants. I love watching the seasons and the colours change, everything goes from green to pink/orange/rust/yellow...my favourite colours. I can be quietly painting in the bushes and nobody can see me, it's wonderful! The dogs have a great time running around chasing rabbits and deer (!) but keep coming back to me every so often. Kelly, the female, sits down quietly and keeps me company, Spike, the male, goes hunting!
Everyone's happy!
With painting, I take a long time to get to know my subject, but that's ok. I spend months just walking it, stumbling on things at different times of the day and with different weather conditions.
Getting it right is just a fluke...the right time of day, the right climate...the right mood - but that's the fun of it, you never know when you're going to do a good one!
Below I did a nice watercolour, (third down) I haven't done watercolour for years, but it's nice and light for carrying so I packed it in my backpack and had a go. I also had a small box of (dirty) pastels for adding highlights, which can be quiet effective. I like the dusky pink and orange in the watercolour, and as Christopher Cole, my teacher pointed out, I have soft edges in the watercolour and hard edges in the oil, something I must think more about...! In fact, in nature, all edges are soft.
I am now trying an abstract in oil, below is a small one, 6x8" but I have started a larger one in the studio. I never know where I am going when I paint, I just try and see what happens. I often feel very motivated in the beginning then I leave them for weeks, months not knowing what to do, then one day, I start on them all again and finish them...painting is really an odd thing, you just have to
wait for the perfect day when it all fits together and comes out.
Oil, 6 x 8" fits in my cigar box, nice and light for carrying
Oil 14 x 11" done onsite
Watercolour 22 x 18cm Fabriano watercolour sketch book (I always use a 'middle page' incase it's a good one and I want to cut the thread and remove it! Good tip!)
8 x 10" Oil on MDF done onsite
6 x 8" oil done on site in July/August when the heather was in bloom, looking at composition with the path going down.
80 x 60 cm done from a small oil sketch
8 x 10" oil on board, done from watercolour sketches trying to simplify the masses
120 x 80 cm abstract, done from sketches in the studio.
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