![\"Landscape,](\"http:\/\/www.treeshark.com\/BlogPosts\/Painting\/oil12L.jpg\" "\\"Pembrokeshire")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis is done from a sketch I posted previously, for the sketch I only had a tiny board but this is 26in by 14in. I had a few photos which show the trees\u00a0as very dark so I took all my tone values from my sketch. Cameras see shadows very differently to the eye. This is I have read due to us needing to see\u00a0danger lurking in the shadows, which makes sense I suppose. My method here was to very roughly adjust the different areas in the photo refs to match\u00a0the ones in the sketch. I have mounted a screen by my easel so I can paint from a screen image rather than a printout. I find the luminous screen image\u00a0more compelling as a guide for some reason. I am still trying to find a balance between the freshness of a sketch and the consideration that a studio\u00a0painting needs. This one is a small step forward in that regard I feel. Picture can be clicked for larger view.<\/p>\n
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I arrived early in Green Park everything looked very beautiful with the light streaming in ribbons through the trees. As there was a tube strike there\u00a0were streams of commuters cutting through the park coming from Victoria station which gave the park a strange air, a little like a scene from a\u00a0disaster movie. This is 14in by 10 in and took about an hour. As with all “woodland” scenes how much to simplify is tricky. If you turn it all into\u00a0blocks of tone you loose the transparency and feel of the veils of foliage, but if you break it all up too much it becomes too pointillist for my liking.\u00a0Here I’ve done the back layer in average tones of leaf and sky painted in broad areas then added just a single pass of richer detail keeping it to a\u00a0minimum. Click picture to enlarge.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n I only had to walk a few yards for my next location, this had a lovely mixture of yellowing leaves and the richer oranges. I have actually had to buy a\u00a0tube of Hardings permanent orange as it gives a cleaner result than a mix. When I started the ground and the path were a carpet of leaves, but the\u00a0men on the left of the picture came and blew them all away! Click for larger, 10in by 8in<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Having had enough of trees I went across into Shepherd Market. I decided on a 14in by 10 in as I am trying to do plein airs a little larger. The key to this\u00a0sort of scene is careful underlying drawing. Some painters appear to believe that because the brushwork is going to be quite free that the drawing can\u00a0be looser. The opposite is the case though I feel as expressive brushwork need a good underlying structure to work. The most common thing that mars\u00a0otherwise good sketches is careless drawing. On a tactical note I painted the car in first as I know from experience they always drive off just as you are\u00a0half way through! Click picture for larger.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n This is a bit of a mongrel…\u00a0 the painting not the dog… when I visited Greenwich park with my good friend Anna I took my point and snap. I looked\u00a0at the photos to find I had a great picture of her and the dog but the background was not good. So when a few days later the weather was similar I\u00a0blocked her and the foreground in on a 10in by 8in panel and set off to find a better setting. After a bit of trotting about I sat and painted in the scenery\u00a0which was grand fun and made for a very rapid painting with no difficulty at all in fitting the two days together. The path of course made things a lot easier.\u00a0Click for larger.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n