Eyebrook Summer

Oil on Board 9 x 16 inches

I'm forever digging out previous demo paintings that need 'finishing off', and here's another one I found after a studio tidy-up.

This is a view of Eyebrook Reservoir just down the road from the gallery. It's much smaller than Rutland Water, but it has a charm about it, and I have painted it many times. A view in June, looking straight into the light, with that piercingly bright sunlight glinting off the water was manna from heaven, transforming a fairly ordinary scene, with a few swans and ducks feeding on the water, into a smashing vista. 

It's that moment when the evening sun is low in the sky, just above the top of the picture plane here, and lights up the water beneath. This is great fun to depict in paint, to capture that diffused flare around the intense reflected light.