Going out late on a winter’s afternoon, ready to paint a sky with a little drama to it usually means having some sort of plan beforehand, so that no time is wasted driving around looking for something that attracts me and as little time as possible wasted pacing up and down, studying the view from all angles before committing myself!

This view was painted from the edge of a small copse overlooking a farm. Looking towards the West the lavender grey and butter yellow distant clouds were framed nicely by the haystack and the small cottage. In conditions such as these, the picture can be split into two or three tonal blocks i.e. sky, background, foreground. I find this helps a great deal in simplifying the painting process, keeping distracting detail to the bare minimum and helping to make a strong composition. Or that’s the way it should work.

In this instance, I was enjoying the moment far too much for the good of the picture and started fiddling with foreground leaves, twigs and undergrowth. Hardly any of it was essential for the overall mood I was trying to convey, but I simply got carried away.

Lesson learned for next time, then.

Back to the ‘bend in the river’ theme. In the cold November of 2009
I took canvas and oils out to a spot where there was an ‘S’ bend in the
local river that attracted me with its lazy sweep around the corner,
flanked by thick vegetation with a backdrop of dark thorn bushes
and beyond them, a line of willow trees.

As I was in mid flow blocking in the painting I heard that distinctive,
high pitched single note whistle –a kingfisher was coming. I stopped
and waited and sure enough, the kingfisher came around from my left
following the curve of the bend, low to the water and near the far bank.
Always a delightful site, the kingfisher whistled again as it passed out
of site around the right hand bend in the distance.

I never finished this painting. It was very cold, and as soon as
either I’ve eaten or drunk all my provisions, or I start thinking
about a nice hot cup of tea and my hands are getting cold, it’s
time to either man up or pack up. On this occasion the
temptation was too great and I packed up and headed home!

I’ve just made a return trip to the same spot with a view to
finishing the painting, but some heavy fog made for a different
challenge. The subtle, veiled layers and muted colours of the
landscape make for great photographs, but I was interested in
what I could do with paint. Again a kingfisher flew down river,
this time closer to the near bank, and I did think about placing
it in the picture. I’m still tempted. You can see the dark paint
stroke I made at the time in the reflections of the vegetation,
to remind me of  the line the bird took as it flew downriver.

With the new, foggy version I will probably leave it as it is,
but the scene will always be one where a kingfisher flew
round the bend.

In the older painting, I’ve placed the bright blue flash of the
kingfisher as it flew round the right hand bend in the distance.
I first scanned the canvas and applied my ‘kingfisher’ in Adobe
photoshop, to judge whether to apply to the real painting or not.
The jury is out.

Every now and then I try my hand at painting in oils en plein air. This year I’m producing a handful of small paintings around the local arable farm that I have become familiar with over a couple of decades now.

Here I’ve included a new picture with a couple of older ones, and it’s interesting to see that although my approach is essentially the same (bish, bash, bosh…fell on the canvas without any effort), I’ve got a little bolder and more fluid with the brushwork but I am still slightly indecisive over the foreground.  Practice and persevere, I say.

Morning After Harvest
This picture was painted after the sun had risen and burnt off the mist, but is still low in the sky, off to the left. The raw sienna ground helps with the glowing light effect. If I were to do this again, I may treat the foreground slightly differently, more linear, and not get dazzled by the detail of upright wheat stalks forming their irresistible pattern.

 Farm track before rain
This oil was painted on board in 1991 on the same arable farm. It is June and the crop in the field is still green. There is a muggy atmosphere, becoming gloomy as the wind is beginning to blow in the hazel trees on the left. A thundery shower is on its way.

Still a favourite of mine although the foreground is painted a little thinly and indecisively, and maybe a little more sandy track just visible on the left would have helped.

 Sheep in the Orchard
This picture shows the old farm apple orchard with a couple of sheep taking life easy in the shade. The blossom and dappled light have been suggested by many dabs and touches, the painting took several hours to complete in one session, and I “fixed” the sheep in place early on as I anticipated they would get up and move off, which they did.

We always look to the bend in a river don’t we? as far as we can see, then wonder what’s around the corner…is it a stunning view unseen by the appreciative eye? are there exotic birds taking flight and impossibly large fish disappearing into the gloomy depths with a silver flash? does it all suddenly just end?

I have made sketches around my local patch in Essex of a few such views. The two below were drawn at either end of the summer in 2009, in May and again in September. Both times the sun had long gone, the sky was duck egg blue merging into butter yellow with
a hint of coral pink here and there, reflected perfectly, save for the odd ripple to tell you the nature of the glass-like surface hiding its depths. The darkness is creeping in, rendering all vegetation shades of green-black and blue-grey, and the bats fly in and out of the space only seen in silhouette.

The sketch on the left was made in May with a graphite stick and a little coloured pencil to remind me of the sky’s reflection. The drawing on the right is later, in September, and drawn in conte crayon. Both were drawn from a small bridge over the river at dusk.

I made a coloured conte drawing on blue tinted paper to explore the colours of the muted greens and blue shadows. The water surface is smooth apart from a ripple or a floating twig here or there, and I added the wake of a moorhen moving into the dark bankside cover out of sight, or could it have been a water vole, or even an otter?

I often find myself wanting to “fill in the gaps” with studio renderings and never quite feel I have enough information. This then drives me outdoors again, with the desire to finish something there and then in front of the subject, to say all I want to say in as fresh and spontaneous a way as possible, and then leave it alone!

I have gone back to the original sketches again for this new ink drawing, where the picture has gone in a direction of its own only partly controlled by me, and ended up more moonlight than dusk. It’s maybe not the fresh, vibrant splash (no pun intended)
of blackness that I intended, but does convey a certain mood. The reflected sky hints at deep water, the disturbed surface still says “shy creature escapes attention” and the volumes of lush waterside vegetation and balmy summer night atmosphere come across ok, so not a total disaster. There will be another version to add to this post later.