New painting! There is a pared-down four-minute track to go with this – and an eight-minute version for those craving more. They're from Mr Richter's new batch of pieces titled – aptly - 'In a Landscape'.
I came across the source location by chance (google streetview, of course). It's near a village called Pozinovka, in Oryol province, in Western Russia.
My first sight was this – a gobsmackingly beautiful cloud - but I couldn't make the large wood beneath it work, so I went further up the road and found this alternative landscape which supported rather than competed with the cloud. I've taken liberties with the ground; I let the far wood disappear into the haze, slanted the foreground line of grass and flowers, and exaggerated a loose diagonal of bushes etc in the middle distance so that the eye is led back to the horizon comfortably. It's difficult to deduce logically where the main cloud (a cumulus mediocris to be precise) sits in space as there is no shadow, but my feeling is that it hangs above the green area between the midway diagonal and the far wood. I quite like the largely obscured line of distant cumulus, but if I was doing this again I probably wouldn't have included the undeveloped high altocumulus in the upper corners.
Technical stuff? Luckily, before I'd finished the grass, I remembered my untried tube of Turner's Yellow. Verdict? It's a good, opaque mid-yellow – not quite as vibrant as the full Cadmium, but half the price and very good as an opaque mixing yellow. Up in the sky, I made a wrong decision doing the top cloud whites. I chose a Stand oil medium, and the paint surface clogged too quickly and became 'heavy', not the 'aerie' effect I wanted. I had to go over it again with very light greys in Walnut oil, which I should have used in the first place. This was much better, and made the shine and glare along the top edges more effective. There's also too much cat hair and inexplicable black specks in the surface. The cats are moulting ferociously just now – I get that – but I've no idea where the black specs come from. I shall investigate.
As ever, it's the painting done with the least effort that's the most effective, and I am quite chuffed with the landscape paintwork in this one. The flowers in the near foreground are simple marks made in the first setting-out of the ground – wee scrapes through the paint with a shaped ice lolly stick. They were just enough to suggest 'flowers' and ease the eye's movement away from the foreground to the mid and far distance.
I've found lolly sticks to be quite useful – I bought them in a bundle from the local hobby shop. I shape them like a butter-knife blade, and can scratch or scribe a variety of marks into the wet paint. I also use them to dip and drip mediums from my jars of mixes onto the palette or paints – the liquid will drip more controllably from the point than from a dipped brush.
Now, there's been a bit of an obvious hiatus in the artwork over winter and spring. This was mainly the result of a short but nasty series of back tweaks (a bit of a setback in my ongoing treatment), a bad knee twist, and the unwelcome manifestation of wear-and-tear in my right shoulder. All a bit of a damper. Evidently, things are easing and I'm able to get on with work - though for shorter hours - and am back to regular drawing again. So, moving forward (as they say), I'll be back to working on a long-term piece, and attending to new paintings already planned. And indeed those not even thought of yet.
It's very nice having summer here again, and being back at the easel...
