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Here's a series of plein air landscape paintings I made of the River Thames near Twickenham during May this year.  It was a hazy morning with the sun just breaking through slightly. I hadn't tried painting in this kind of light before but I really enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere. The water at low tide was completely motionless allowing beautiful reflections to form. Twickenham Riverside, Hazy Morning 10x8" Oil on panel Available from Chelsea Art Society open exhibition 2019  This painting was completed soon afterwards, this time I stood on the bank of the Thames near Marble Hill Park and looked towards Richmond Hill. Again the day was slightly overcast, giving a peaceful feel to the river, with just a slight breeze ruffling the surface of the water.  This third plein air landscape was completed at Twickenham Riverside, in very different weather conditions - this time there was a stiff breeze rippling the surface of the water and tiny white clouds moving quickly across the sky.
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Marble Hill House
Oil on panel 5x7" (sold)
I've always loved paintings of buildings, and I especially love painting rooftops and chimneys - I really enjoy the way they catch the light.
I'm lucky enough to live just down the road from this beautiful English Heritage site. The house was built in the 18th Century for Henrietta Howard, who was the mistress of King George II. Its set in a beautiful park and is definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Twickenham. 
I painted this in Marble Hill Park on a beautiful April evening. The golden light was shining right through the newly opening leaves of the Poplar trees and casting long shadows on the grass. I might make a larger studio painting based on this someday.
Oil painting on panel 5x7". Available from Newbloodart online gallery
If you're already following me on Instagram then you may have seen this painting there, which I painted back in March. I was fooled by looking out at the strong sunshine into thinking it would be warm, but there was a bitter easterly breeze which really froze my fingers by the end of it.
Last time I painted this subject in Orleans House Woods, was in January, and I was painting with the sun behind me. I opted to paint into the sun this time as I loved the light streaming through the green foliage on the ground. Now - surely you can't paint spring without a fair amount of bright green, I actually went crazy and used a bit of pthalo green for this painting (for those of you who haven't used it it's a scarily highly pigmented green which can easily contaminate all your colours if you leave just a tiny bit on your brush!). Painting trees is time consuming, and I ran out of time to complete this outdoors, so finished off the left hand trees at home from memory.  Oil painting on panel 5x7" I wanted to make the most of the last day of sunny weather by getting outdoors, and I'm glad I did as the light by the river was incredible. Signs of spring such as catkins on the trees are transforming the view. The last time I painted here it was frosty - this morning there was a lot of dew which gave a similar effect. I’m not sure if it’s the increasing strength of the sunlight, or that I’m beginning to see a little differently with practice, but there seems to be a lot more blue in the shadows at the moment. It’s most noticeable when looking back at the scene after looking away for a little while. After half a second looking at the view the colours appear much greyer as my eyes adjust. But it seems to me that getting some of this initial impression of colour into the painting is important in establishing the light effect. I think I could have pushed the chroma of the blue in the distance up a little higher than I did to enhance this. It’s something I’ll play around with in future.  Oil painting on panel 5x7" Another bright frosty morning had me setting up my easel by the banks of the river Thames again. This group of trees is becoming a recurring motif in my paintings. You can find it in Orleans Gardens, looking over towards the Ham side of the river.
There was a lot of haze in the air which really increased the atmospheric perspective. Its only a couple of weeks since the last frosty painting but the light seems very different already as the sun is now higher and the light stronger. Maybe because of the smaller panel size, I didn't feel in such a rush this morning. I remembered to step back and consider the overall effect a lot more. I've been thinking about how to create colour harmony and researching this in Edgar Payne's book, Composition of Outdoor painting. I used a lot of blue and yellow today, it seems to tie the piece together quite well.  Oil painting on mdf panel 9x4" At last I got to paint some snow! There was hardly any snow left on the riverbank so I carried on to Marble hill park, Twickenham, where there was a light dusting of (rapidly melting) snow. I found this little snowy track leading into the trees. I was surprised to see dry leaves still attached to the saplings, which along with the green grass and violet grey in the distant trees created a colour triad. The scene reminded me of Isaac Levitan's paintings.  Isaac Levitan, Autumn Landscape 1880 (photo from Wikipedia) About 30 minutes into the painting it started sleeting lightly. To protect the painting I tilted the easel forward a bit, and lowered the lid of my pochade box (which I was using as a palette) . 30 minutes after that the sleet really set in - I had painted the whole panel loosely so I packed up to finish at home. This is how the painting looked at that stage (the white patch at the top is where the clip was holding the panel to the easel)  Back in the warm with a cup of tea it was a matter of trying to get the shapes and values right from memory. I was aiming to improve the composition and the accuracy of the drawing using what I know of perspective. I think accurate drawing is so important in this type of painting - it’s key to getting the sense of being really there -feeling present in the landscape. If the drawing is off it is a big distraction to me. I think the drawing is ok in this painting, but being cold and in a hurry I didn't exactly do my best. I noticed that the three foreground trees were very evenly spaced which is problematic, so I moved the furthest of the trees slightly to the right.
I hope I've managed to capture something of the mood anyway, which is the most important thing for me. And also kept the brushstrokes loose and interesting when seen close up.  Original oil painting on mdf panel 8x8" I was torn this morning between painting the daffodils again as they had opened, or heading outside to paint the heavy frost, but it was such a beautiful morning it seemed a waste to spend it painting indoors so I quickly packed up and walked down to Orleans Gardens.
Painting the frost was the hardest thing yet - squinting into that bright sunlight as it bounced of the ground was almost impossible. I found it difficult to judge the relationships between the values. Also I didn't reserve enough space for the white on my palette and it became hard to find any clean white to add the highlights. This meant I had to finish the painting off at home, but at least I remembered to put in the tree shadows at the start this time, so I've made some progress! I feel like the value relationships could do with a bit of adjustment, perhaps the greens in the foreground could be darker? Maybe Ill experiment with some glazes once its dry. I hope for some more frosty days to come so I can do some more studies outside. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for snow tomorrow : ) |
About meI am a realist painter, working in oils, painting landscape and still life. Archives
April 2021
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