For the second year I participated in the Warwickshire Open Studios Plein Air event in Jephson Gardens. I realised just how much I'd learnt from doing some plein air previously and this event in particular.
The main thing I have learned is that although the painting is spontaneous there is no harm in planning. Last year I turned up unprepared and ended up with a painting that was reasonably accurate but that didn't really have a sense of the plein air - I painted something in shade on a day that the sun was shining brightly. Jephson Gardens has a lot of things to paint but, as a living thing, its unlikely that the opportunities that existed last year would still be there this time. One major change was that while 2021 took place in bright sunshine, the event this year was expected to be overcast and even have rain showers. I went along a couple of days earlier and took lots of photographs of potential painting spots on a walk around the park. One consideration was tthe weather - I wanted a big tree to be under should there be rain. Of course I also wanted to be not too far away from the loo, refreshments and also, as a watercolourist, a water supply. I also wanted to be not too far from other painters and any visitors - this is meant to be a social event too.
The landscape had changed - the hedge by the river Leam had been cut much shorter than last year and so a seated painter could still get some river views - remember to see what it would look like at the height you create! The weather this year also meant quite a lot of the flowers were past their best. There are a few focal points that I wanted to avoid as they can become quite cliched. Some of the views from under the denser trees were so sheltered that the light was quite low and it would be a struggle to see true colours as I painted them. I narrowed it down to three views I liked and felt strongly for this one. I had thought about either pen and ink or pencil crayons but the amount of shelter here and the subject matter made me decide on watercolour (although I did take the other two just in case I change my mind). I also took an easel, and some stretched paper even though I didn't use them.
Another challenge of plein air for me is that I want to complete something and I only had a maximum of 6 hours to work so I also spent some time thinking about how I wanted to treat it given the time available. In my mind I wanted the trees in the background to provide a canvas for the fountains and the cocal point wold be the large leaf in the foreground and the fountains. I could see theat the fountains would be painted last and so there would be a risk with that - you can overwork them so that they don't look real. Also because the bottom of the fountain is not visible somehow you need to tell the story of what they are. I also wanted to engineer some more of the landscape on the far shore to try and establish the land and the lake in some way. On a drab day I wanted to make the most of the colour available - the orange fringes to the leaves and the reds. With this much foliage I wanted also to make sure that there was variety in the greens and that the plants were identifiably different.
I took a frame and mount with me and marked the paper with just a little more than the dimensions of the mounted image (320mm x 195mm on an A3 sheet of cream watercolour paper). I only very lightly sketched out the outlines of things and then got on with creating a colourful wash - my favourite part. It loosely resembles where things are. One lesson learned here is that I didn't spend enough time on composition. I could have editied the 'vision' a lot better before diving in.
Have to admit that I was very apprehensive how this would work out. I like to get some structure in place quickly so that I know where I am especially as I now had no drawing to work to. I am also always fighting to preserve white paper and to not add too much detail. My attempts at crude shapes on the left and bottom right was my attempt to try and represent some of the plants without painting too much detail - as you'll see I didn't achieve that objective too well. One thing with the washes is that I like the paper to be quite wet for this. I chose not to stretch the paper (300gsm) and so there was some wrinkling which slowed this stage down and also there was a lengthy drying time. I was please with the colour palette at this point.
It always fascinates me how 'recoverable' watercolour can be. This stage is about 2 and a half hours in to the event. The wash shines through but painting on top of the original wash establishes new boundaries quite easily and I was also lifting paint in some areas to lighten them. I've lost the lightness out of the large leaf in the centre and I needed to lift quite a bit of paint out of it to bring it forward and to make it stand out against the tree behind. I also found myself painting a lot of negative shapes in the foliage at this point to create some depth in the foreground. In doing so I was also creating leaf and plant shapes in the unpainted original wash - see bottom left hand corner. As you can see this is very much a leap of faith that a picture is going to emerge - that's the thing with watercolour - you need a clear view of where you are going to end up because until all the washes are on and the shadows and highlights in place the picture doesn't look very good and you need confidence to persevere. I have some unfinished paintings from when I was a teenager and can see I used to give up far too early.
Here is the finished painting. I like to see it mounted because it gets rid of all of the run-offs and uneven edges and a qhite mount lifts the colours. I managed to almost get where I wanted with the 'rhubarb' leaves through lfting out paint, creating sharp edges with the darker washes in the background and by adding highlights using gouache mixed with watercolour. This meant that the whitest white was the fountain using pure white gouache. My least favourite parts of the image are the composition, and the framing on the right. I don't think I made the most of the leaves in the centre - I feel they could have 'popped' a lot more. I also think I could have made a compositional decision very early on to show more of the lake because the bits you can see work quite well. I do like the left hand side of the painting more than the right. A number of people came across and marvelled at the detail. I don't see that - when you look carefully the detail is on the small number of rhubarb leaves to the left of centre. The rest is either undetailed or suggested silhouettes which I think is the reason I can get quite a lot done. What there is is a lot of brush strokes in a quite loose structured style. The whole thing took me 5 hours.
I was very happy to get a Highly Commended and the People's Choice Award in the end of day exhibition and judging. Looking forward to next year.
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