Patchings Festival ends!

Well, it's another half year gone, and Patchings Festival is over again. Lovely to meet so many folks there, and thank you all for your very kind comments. Above are two photos I took at the end of day three, showing my stall with 30 of my paintings on show.

I managed to paint three new paintings during the festival, in between chatting to so many people, and here they are:

 Moor Lane after Heavy Rain, Oil on Board, 7.5 x 10 ins

I took a photo of this view in between my village and the next after a really heavy downpour last week, and felt it would make a good painting, with plenty of recession provided by the blues of the distant trees beyond the railway bridge. Painting the road was almost akin to painting a river, with plenty of greeninsh reflections.

 

Sharp Evening Light, Eyebrook Reservoir, 

Oil on Board, 9 x 12 inches

I particularly enjoyed this one, again basing it on a recent photo. I accentuated the light on the water, aided by my memory - a photo never quite captures the sheer intensity of light without bleaching out all detail. Using a well-loaded brush, I dragged pure Titanium White across the tacky underpainting to assimilate the broken light on the water - the sort of passge I love to depict.  The sheep were added for a bit of life and scale.

The Staffs and Worcs Canal, Oil on Board, 9x12 inches
SOLD

I painted this one on the last day, and it was a joy to paint the shadows on the water and the varying degrees of light on the Cow Parsley adorning the bank. The temptation is always to paint white flowers with white paint, but they are only white where the sun is shining on them, just to the left of the towpath in the upper section where the path turns left. Even here, the colour was modified with a little greenish hue, but elsewhere, the tone was surprisingly dark on the pallette, but appeared very light against the dark of the water. It's all about careful observation and that's the key to producing a convincing painting, one that 'reads' right.

I managed to have a quick chat and a gander at David Curtis's paintings that he brought along in his tent when he did a demo on Saturday.  As ever, David provides, for me, the absolute benchmark for artist like myself to aspire to, and his paintings are intoxicating.  I can't wait to have some of his work in our new gallery in Uppingham, news of which soon...