Monday 5 April 2010

Small Landscape Painting


Yesterday I spent the afternoon painting this small 5 x 5 inch box canvas. That’s about 12.5cm squared in new money. I’ve got a few of these mini canvases lying around and thought it was time to use some of them. At first I wondered if I was going to have trouble painting on such a small scale: I’ve done a few this size before and found it difficult making a composition work in such a confined space. It can also feel like a very cramped way of painting. But since I don’t really have a properly formed idea for anything larger at the moment, I also thought it’d be a nice way of doing some painting without feeling the pressure of having to ‘fill the page’.

The inspiration for this scene came from a bike ride I had a couple of weeks ago on the banks of the River Medina. This is a simplified scene of the opposite bank viewed across the water at about 9am in the morning – so it had a wintery morning feel. There was a patch of lovely green lawns opposite and the colour of them seemed to pick out the wintery, purple foliage. I’m not sure what the title is yet. A Winter’s Morning Across the River…? Although that title seems bigger than the actual picture itself!

Anyway, I enjoyed painting this one: it all seemed to work this time without too much difficulty and I’m pleased with the result (although I may have to tweak a few bits). I used seven different paints in total: Raw Umber, Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, Hookers Green, Cobalt Blue, Titanium White and just a dash of Black Ivory for a bit of depth. And that was it – all started and finished in one day. It’s good to have days like that.

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