I am currently taking part in a ten day challenge to publish posts on a theme for 10 consecutive days. I am giving more detail about my posts on the blog. My theme is The Colour of Landscape. In Days 1 – 3 I introduced my thoughts about landscape and showed my background as a Word Artist.
Day 4 The Colour of Landscape
In my first year back at painting in oils I did a multitude of small ‘Daily Painting Still Lifes’. My fine arts degree in oil painting went back so many years that when I returned to oils and longed to paint ‘Contemporary Landscape’ I was not sure where to start or even what my style was. I did a brief three-day course at Norfolk Painting School and discovered that oils had changed and instead of just using turps and linseed oil, there were all kinds of mediums and alkyds available e.g. to speed drying or to glaze. I found an odourless low toxic solvent or just plain cooking oil for cleaning.
In the second year ‘back in oils’, I did many cloud paintings 20cm x 20cm, learning about clouds, colours and landscape.
Then, irresistibly, it was time to ‘go big!’ This resulted in a huge diptych: Shifting Colours, 76cm x 100cm.
My inspiration came from the magnificent sunsets I enjoyed on my son’s balcony in Sweden, overlooking the Baltic. I loved the way the sea glimmered through the black silhouettes of the trees. Below are two details.
Looking back at this painting, I know that with the glazing techniques I have since learnt I could have made it even more atmospheric. After two large paintings, I realised that my concepts were getting ahead of my skills and technical understanding; and I decided to do a very intensive year at Norfolk Painting School…which I did in 2019. The Norfolk oil painting diploma consisted of nine three-day residential workshops and during that year I painted about 70 paintings ranging from 50cm x 60cm to 80cm x 100cm.
What a year!
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