Pintar Rapido...what a buzz

Well, what a weekend that was! My first attempt at Plein Air painting in London, with 501 other painters for company...

Last week I took a last minute decision to sign up for the second annual 'paint out' on the streets of Kensington and Chelsea and I'm so glad I decided to go, I had such a great time and learned so much in my 3 days in London.

So what is a 'paint out'? The idea has come from America where they are very popular. Basically, a bunch of artists go out and paint on location for a day, then they frame their paintings for an immediate exhibition where prizes are awarded for the best pictures and members of the public can come to buy the fresh local paintings; often before the paint has even dried! 

I had a lovely day painting on Saturday and met some wonderful artists and buyers at our exhibition on Sunday at Chelsea Old Town Hall. The excitement of painting outside, trying to capture the wind and weather on canvas is heightened further by the presence of so many other painters; and the pressure of an 8pm deadline to present your finished work. It all makes for a very intense painting experience that just cannot be matched in the studio.

I will definitely be taking part in plenty more of these events - in fact, I enjoyed it so much that I'm thinking of going to Wexford, Ireland next week for a whole week of painting at 'Art in the Open'!

The pictures below show the stages of my painting from Chelsea Embankment on the stormy Saturday morning...

The finished painting

View from the embankment - including other painters!

Adding some colour

Blocking in lights and darks

Composing the blues

Bluebell glade 24x18cm

This study is smaller and was painted faster than the first one, because of this, it has more energy and movement in the brushwork. I returned to the same spot as before but this time with the intention to focus on the composition. I climbed a bank and discovered the 'S' shape of the path winding up the hill, I liked the way that the path was striped with light and shade. The greens turned out to be the hardest part - so many hues yet all the same value!

Got the blues

Morning bluebells 30x40cm

I returned from my foggy sojourn to the East Coast to find that the most amazing bluebell carpet had appeared in the woods near Winscote on the Apley estate. This year seems to have been a bumper year for bluebells so I took the opportunity to capture them on canvas.

I set up quite early in the morning to catch the pattern of light and shade on the flowers . I have never seen so many bluebells in an open glade like this and their colour was just spectacular.

It was a challenge to mix the right colour and in the end I needed to use several shades of blue and purple together to give the right depth to the blue. I had so much fun that I returned the following day with a friend to do it all over again!

The merits of Still Life

Whilst on the fog bound painting trip to Norfolk with my Mum, we decided to give up on painting the beautiful Norfolk skies 'en plein air' as we had planned...and make the best of our predicament by painting still life instead. 

We bought these gorgeous tulips and I dropped them into a vase, allowing them to settle in a naturally haphazard arrangement. We then moved the vase to a position beneath a spotlight and set about taking black and white photos with our camera phones until we found a composition with potential for developing a painting. Then we squeezed our easels around the tiny kitchen table and set about painting the flowers in a single sitting. Leaving the tulips in bunches helped to create blocks of colour in the painting where the tulips overlap, linking one colour spot to another. A more evenly distributed arrangement of flowers may have produced a 'spotty' painting where the composition broke down into a polka dot pattern of individual coloured flowers against the green, this would have been too 'busy'.

I have been making more still life studies in recent months and I'm finding the process increasingly valuable. Not only does it sharpen my drawing, observation and colour matching skills, it also allows me to play with composition and lighting in a way that landscape will not permit. And, of course, when our lovely British weather is not on my side, it allows me to make very productive use of otherwise wasted painting days!  . 

Escaping the fog

Norfolk, sea mist approaching 18x24cm

This is a little plein air study I made on a recent painting trip to Norfolk with my Mum. Having promised her for the last 8 years that I would, one day, make the 6 hour journey from Shropshire to the East Coast, I decided it was finally time for me to visit her favourite spot in Bacton for a few days painting. Picking her up en route in Northamptonshire we loaded the car and set off with high hopes for a few days of glorious painting by the sea under those famous Norfolk skies... only to arrive in dense fog...which had also come to stay for the week in Bacton! 

On venturing inland one afternoon we discovered some lovely sunshine and decided to just stop the car and paint at the first opportunity, much to the amusement of the local farmer - and his brother - and his wife - all of whom were brought to visit the crazy ladies who were painting an empty field! It wasn't at all empty to me though, I liked the purple shadows on the golden ground and, of course, the looming fog bank in the distance.

Thank you Mr Prentice and farewell

The Wye at Tintern

Yesterday I was fortunate to visit the final two exhibitions of paintings by the late, and truly great British painter David Prentice. He passed away on 7th May 2014 at the age of 77, leaving behind him an immense collection of work and a unique contribution to the British tradition of landscape painting. 

Prentice fascinates me because his approach to landscape painting is so unlike any other artist. Traditionally trained in the art of drawing and painting in Birmingham in the 1950's he then travelled to New York and began making entirely abstract paintings. Over the following years, he slowly found a way to combine his love of traditional plein air landscape painting and his intuitive, studio based abstract approach. He would spend hours in the hills, (especially the Malverns after he moved there in 1990) drawing and painting beautiful pen and wash studies like the one pictured below, of "Tintern from the Devil's Pulpit". Then he would return to his studio and work only from memory, creating large oil paintings with many layers and colours, as above in "The Wye at Tintern". Somehow, the detail from the initial studies would find its way into the bigger pieces and an utterly unique combination of figurative and abstract would emerge. Tyre tracks, road signs and pedestrians are converted into thick slabs and bars of colour, laid over thin layers of rich colours. Foreground trees become rods of turquoise and yellow at the side of the painting. His eye for abstract composition allows him to play with shapes unconcerned about breaking 'the rules' of landscape painting. Reducing the colour contrast in his paintings reveals a simple pattern of values beneath each painting (the easiest way to do this is to squint at the picture through almost closed eyes). Although bright coloured and 'unreal' Prentice's paintings capture English light, place and weather like no other, the sense of space and depth in "Grey mist Malvern" is truly magical.

It may be a long time before we have another opportunity to view such a large collection of David Prentice's work. We can only hope that there will be an increasing level of recognition for his great contribution to our landscape painting heritage and that this will give rise to future exhibitions.

So, thank you, Mr Prentice for your inimitable work and your commitment to British painting. May your paintings give inspiration to generations to come and may you be remembered forever as a great innovator and painter of the beautiful British landscape.

There are currently two exhibitions of his work, one in Worcester Art Gallery and Museum, titled 'Skylight' curated by Prentice himself, offering a comparison between his own work and that of his hero Paul Nash. The second exhibition 'A Last Look at the Malverns' is at the John Davies Gallery in Moreton-in-Marsh, where Prentice had exhibited his new works annually for many years. They have a good selection of his works from recent years.

Exhibitions continue at John Davies Gallery until 19th July 2014

And at Worcester Art Gallery and Museum until 5th July 2014

Tintern from the Devil's Pulpit

Grey Mist Malvern

A very Good Friday

View from Calton Hill, 25x30cm

Having spent a remarkably chilly morning by Leith Docks I then ventured into town for the afternoon. 

After a very welcome coffee with Fiona McCrindle at the fantastic Edinburgh Drawing School Gallery I continued into the centre of the city to look for a view of that castle...

And I found it, looking across from Calton Hill I liked the mixture of old and new; the classic architecture and distinctive skyline alongside the shiny new roof of the shopping centre over Waverley station and the glittering windows of the traffic on the bridge. I had a great time making the painting and met some really friendly people who had also climbed the hill to enjoy the view. It was the first really warm sunny day of the year and some musicians had gathered nearby me to enjoy the sunshine. The sound of a tin whistle and acoustic guitar playing traditional Scottish folk tunes drifted by on the breeze as I  painted- perfect! 

New Work from the Studio

I've had a very productive few weeks in my little studio, making new work for galleries in Edinburgh, London and the lovely new Kingswood Gallery in Shrewsbury. 

Here's one of the new paintings, of the beautiful forsythia and currant blossom from my garden "Spring is here".

A little study made from the window of our apartment in Flaine - practising the colours to capture the light.

I painted this whilst on holiday last week in Flaine, France. Though sunny to begin with, the day got steadily colder, until eventually I was obliged to sample the delicious ‘Vin Chaud’ served in the cafe across the piste!

Just finished this commission of the horseshoe valley in Apley Park. England is so beautiful in the lovely light at this time of year.

A couple of recent plein air studies made with oils on small 8x10” boards, painting outdoors is great fun but it’s getting a a bit chilly out there now.

A commission of the view from the window of a holiday cottage in Bishop’s Castle - I really enjoyed capturing the English summer sunlight - especially with the shadows under the hedge

A Plein Air oil study of sunlight catching the laundry on the line. I enjoyed the challenge of painting it quickly before the light changed.

A Plein Air oil study of Mick Gilmore’s garden. I enjoyed capturing the contrast if light and dark here.