I don't really have a plan for my painting. Retirement is wonderful for spontaneity so I will decide that today is a painting day and then think about what to paint. I have a library of photographs which are ideas or more truthfully a variety of ideas which I have tried to capture in photo form. I am a terrible photographer so they are generally under- or over-exposed, in bad light for seeing detail or are badly composed. Often, like this one, they are a bit flat compared to the real-life experience when I first came across the view. This wouldn't win any photography competitions but what I do like is the angle of seeing Kenilworth Castle. From the town it can look a bit tame - more like an elegantly stately home than a fortress. From Purlieu Lane you are taken right back in time - it towers above the surrounding landscape. It's a good starting point for a painting and normally I'd begin by sketching out the view to make sure I'd got everything in the right place with regard to perspective and scale. This blog is about one of the few occasions where I just dived in and started applying paint (sploshing would be a more accurate word). Accordingly the finished image is quite different from the reference photograph but I really like the freedom the approach gave me and the distinct character the finished painting has. I am still learning so this is about what happened and how I think rather than an kind of tutorial - I'm just sharing the journey of creating this painting.
I find the exciting part of the painting is either the beginning or the end. For me the beginning can sometimes open up new ideas for the picture in ways that I really wish I could control but often can't. The first washes in a watercolour are quite challenging for me. There is a lot of water (I wet the paper then apply the colour), colours fade significantly after you've put them on the paper, the way the pigment responds to the water is variable for me (sometimes it spreads way further than I anticipated but sometimes it needs much more pigment adding to start the movement, and finally and crucially the white of the paper is a hugely precious part of the final picture and it is so easy to use it up without even realising it. With the first wash I am very loosely creating the shape of the picture but there is a lot of latitude. The process would be pretty similar if I did draw the scene but I would apply water much more carefully to the boundaries of some areas in the drawing - I suppose my brain is wired to 'colouring in' as a concept and my teachers telling me not to go over the lines. One other natural consequence of not drawing is that there is much less pressure to copy the photograph. It is always going to be inaccurate and so why not be inaccurate in colour as well as line?
While it is wet (on the left) it looks very garish. Lines are very indistinct and the fear is that you've overdone it. It takes a while to dry and all the time the colour intensity is fading and I start adding more pigment in some areas to get the basic structure with the bright colours I've started with. I am also lifting out paint in other areas to reflect lighter tones in the image. you can see the road starting to take shape in the second image.
Even when I do draw the image in pencil it can easily get covered over and indistinct so I am keen to get the basic structure stablished as quickly as possible
With this painting I could see trouble ahead with the perspective of the gates and fencing and so I began painting those in with mid-tones and started indicating where the shrubs and hedges were going to be. for me this stage is the scariest bit and there are quite a few attempts where I wonder whether it is worth continuing. Part of the decision to proceed is sheer stubbornness there are paintings in the bin which I wish I had stopped at this stage. You can see that I have lost all the white paper with the first washes and so I am really concentrating on not taking the light down any further - particularly in the top right quarter of the page.
Now I've got my bearings I can just
about see the finished picture and so I am adding some large 'structural washes to add some shape and shade - particularly to the sky in the top right and shaping the foliage on the left. It's only at this point that I felt comfortable the picture would get there.
I said that the beginning and the end are the exciting part of painting for me. Once the painting is at this point the final washes to add shadow, the detail painting and the added highlights make the picture pop - they trick the eye into seeing things that aren't really there - it's hanging the decorations on this basically sound Christmas tree.
The only trick is maintaining the balance of the painting. The eye will go wherever the detail is and I want the concentration to be in the centre of the painting on the Castle and also leading the eye through the gate, across the lane too it. There are some natural perspective lines which help with this on the fence, the signpost and the lines of the foliage. While the gate is detailed, the foliage behind it isn't. The gate on the far side of the lane is carefully drawn. The field in front of the Castle has little detail, but the signpost stretching up to it is defined. The Castle itself is rendered carefully (while the trees to the right aren't).
I always think adding white gouache highlights is cheating - it pretends there is detail there which isn't really and it conceals many a ragged edge!
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