Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches
This one is another demo piece, painted for the lovely folk of the Horncastle Art Group. It's a view from the old bridge over the River Nene at Milton Ferry.
Painting trees and water are my stock-in-trade, and painting still water is relatively simple - you're just painting reflections, but when the water is ruffled by a breeze, the technical aspect is that bit more troublesome. Using fast-drying Alkyd oil paint, I placed in the reflections of the right-hand bank and suggestions of the trees, then blocked in the sky reflections and left it to dry for half-an-hour or so, then loaded a flat brush with the sky colours again, and dragged it across the sticky underlayer, making use of the texture of the board from my random application of gesso. Hopefully, the effect is an approximation of the wind-ruffled surface.
Below is how far I got with the demo in the allotted two hours, before working over the painting again back in the studio, refining where needed. I added an angler partially hidden in the bankside vegetation, just for some added interest.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteYou've done a brilliant job of capturing that fractured light on the water at the intersection between reflection of sky and trees. I often struggle with that because it is so enticing in real life, and yet so complex to try to replicate in paint. My efforts of trying to finesse a blending of wet sky and tree color never works, and I will try to use your approach of the light touch over partly-dried paint.
Thanks!
Mitch
PS. Great job of creating the look of the scum/algae growth along the banks.