This is small postcard-sized piece, the first finished of my contributions to the Open Eye Gallery's annual Small Scale show. And I'm pleased to say that its painting went quite well.
There's no particular music associated with this, though I did do a lot of catching up with Melvin Bragg's 'In Our Time' programme from BBC Radio 4. (There is so much of interest to listen to there – explore the Archive, you won't regret it) Having said that, during the final easel session – when I was hunting the painting down, and where everything fell into place – I listened to Reinbert de Leeuw's recordings of Erik Satie's piano pieces (like this one). Which connected rather pleasantly.
The source image was a fairly random but lucky find when free-roaming through google streetview one evening. It's a view from a Russian motorway – the M-4 - just north of the Lipovka turn-off.
Compositionally it's all about the sky (of course). The supporting landscape was flipped left/right and a little reworked, the distant hills have been enlarged, and I've shifted one of the cumulus to the right a bit. I'd taken the original screen shot probably about seven or eight years ago, and - failing to do anything with it - carried it forward year by year in my 'Cloud Studies' folder. When I finally got round to developing it and needing more info about the wider context, I found – to my horror – that I had no idea where this was. I had to go back to my original screengrab files and look for clues there. I found that I had, luckily, taken another screen shot some minutes down the road, which included a map view with a place name. As this is the only motorway in that locality, I simply tracked up and down it till I'd found the original location AND the right date. Streetview has now gathered so many shots of locations at different times, and on both sides of the roads, that it can be a bit of a jigsaw now, and the available source dates can change within yards. It is a fantastic resource, but it can be annoying when trying to trace a particular view on a specific date. I did find it though – eventually - and such was my rejoicing that I was close to making the title 'The Prodigal Sky – Lipovka'.
There's nothing unusual technique-wise here – spot grids, basic crayon drawing developed lightly with Paynes Grey fluid acrylic, then oil layers. Annoyingly, the spot grid crayon had rather pressed the card and made little indentations. They're not particularly deep, but could have gathered concentrations of paint where not wanted, so I may have to re-think using crayon on the relatively soft card surfaces.
All in all, I'm pleased that I finally got to grips with this image, and I think I've made a good enough stab at the higher altocumulus masses. Madam said that the lower cumulus clouds really do seem to hang in the space. Which was nice.
I should just say: The date of the source image is June 2013, and all is well. It is the main arterial road from the Moscow area to Rostov on Don, and eastern Ukraine. I have no doubt that the traffic on it just now – night and day, in both directions - is grim, deadly, and tragic. This present will become the past. And whatever sky is there today will be replaced by another one tomorrow, and constantly be wonderful.
