{"id":632,"date":"2012-09-14T13:29:33","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T12:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.treeshark.com\/treeblog\/?p=632"},"modified":"2012-10-12T15:15:48","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T14:15:48","slug":"a-light-in-the-city-and-a-visit-to-dorset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.treeshark.com\/treeblog\/?p=632","title":{"rendered":"A Light in the City and a Visit to Dorset"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been experimenting with set ups for painting in the City. So often the spot and time you want to paint are incompatible with setting up an easel or crouching on a stool. To this end I have rigged a photographic monopod to hold my watercolours. This has to be supported with a belt around my waist so that the thing won’t fall over if I let go for a moment. I have to say although it worked quite well I felt a bit of a nurk strapped to this gizmo in full public view. Also once started you have to finish without stepping away; which is rather uncomfortable and not much appreciated by my back. I had also considered a “match sellers” tray but the straps are too much in the way of painting. At the moment I am considering grafting some fold out legs to the monopod from a small tripod. Worth the bother I think because I was really pleased with some of the pictures that I got done with the set up. The other option I am considering is a completely hand held solution but that inevitably means compromise on the sizes of picture you can paint. I would like to be able to paint up to a 1\/4 sheet but that won’t be possible without some kind of physical support. The current model is illustrated below for the plein air nerds.<\/p>\n

\"plein<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Off on my travels again. Some good friends invited me to Dorset for a few days. I left the oils behind as they are a risk to other people’s soft furnishings. You never know when a wayward blob of Cadmium Red will transfer itself to your trousers and thence to the white sofa… Oddly I find Dorset quite a difficult painting destination. The place is just too picturesque. It can seem like a constant run of unfeasibly beautiful villages full of quaint thatched cottages, timbers bowed by the weight of burgeoning hanging baskets. Each hamlet loiters in an artless higgle-piggle by swan choked rivers and streams, \u00a0separated from each other by leagues of sun dappled horse strewn lanes. You would only have to replace the ranks of 4 by 4’s with a few tastefully placed haywains and garnish the road with some smock clad yokels and we would be back in a sanitised flower bedecked version of the 17th century. I enjoy all this to look at and wander through but I have difficulty finding paintings in amongst so much paintability. I think this maybe because they don’t give many hints as to the lives lived there, not to a passerby at least.<\/p>\n

I’m sure if you lived there then all sorts of paintable moments would present themselves; but the chances of you driving up at the right moment are pretty slim. That said I am not much of a fan of the self-consciously \u00a0gritty either. I prefer an un-preposessing cityscape transformed into a revealed beauty by a moment of light to the same scene done in a way to accentuate the grimness. I’m not that keen on either Helen Allingham or L S Lowry, though I can see why others like them. So I have not sat down to many village pictures but fortunately there is much else on offer. A beautiful craggy coastline and arching chalk downs looking down on those verdant village infested valleys. Better still atop the downs lie remains and signs of earlier ages, ring forts and tumuli now only populated by the wind, grass and the occasional waterproof enswathed National Trust member. The famous ones such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill are busy with tourists, but there are others where you can wander alone. I don’t know why these places engage me, it is easy to fantasise about all the lives lived there in ancient times giving them some mystical charge, but I don’t think that is really the case. For me it is more that you feel mankind’s history stretched out behind you in a great tide, of which you are for a brief moment the leading edge.<\/p>\n

Whatever the emotional charge, they are fiendishly difficult to paint. Concentric rings of earth banks up to half a mile or more round do not conveniently present themselves into satisfactory paintable compositions. If you want to catch anything of the feeling of place, just painting what you see won’t really do. At most of them you cannot get any viewpoints that do more than just hint at the overall structure.<\/p>\n

My own approach so far is to rearrange the scene before me into a slightly more descriptive layout. I don’t add anything that is not there, but I am trying to put into the scene some of the information I have gleaned by walking around the place. This is something I am doing more and more with all types of subject. In earlier times I was always rather literal and almost never adjusted reality for pictorial reasons, but even though I am accentuating and altering placements I don’t want it to be too obviously expressive. Van Gogh making his buildings writhe in sympathy with the cypresses would for me be a step too far. In the plein airs I have been quite tentative but I might see how far I can go with that approach with a few studio paintings on my return.<\/p>\n

I slightly recanted on my pledge not to do any pretty villages… \u00a0the last of the morning mist unexpectedly hanging on in a Stourpaine backwater lured me in (it was hanging basket free which no doubt caused me to succumb) . This underlined my ever growing feeling that sitting down in front of a so, so subject will very, very rarely result in a decent painting. As an artist you just have to put yourself in the way of a possible good subject by getting out there when the light or atmospheric conditions bode well. After doing that all you can do is hope for good luck. First pictures from my monopod adventures…<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"London,<\/p>\n

Here we are very early looking at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. This was painted standing on a tiny strip of pavement behind the tube entrance.<\/p>\n

Not used by pedestrians I could stand and paint but had to duck back every time a bus went by too close. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"London,<\/p>\n

The same day on my way home in the evening. This is Cannon St looking towards St Pauls. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"London,<\/a><\/p>\n

Next day, this is Cannon St again but this time looking the other way. Slightly bigger at 10in by 7in this was before the main rush in the morning. Even<\/p>\n

with my new set up this would have been impossible an hour later.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Acton,<\/p>\n

This is Bromyard Avenue in Acton. Not done on the monopod as a wheelie bin was conveniently positioned! 7in by 5in<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Thames,<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the Thames from Hungerford Bridge. 10in by 7in again. I snapped the river bus with my iPad and then drew it out referring to the screen. I might<\/p>\n

have to weaken an get an iPhone as the iPad is a bit big and slippery and I am bound to eventually drop it.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Winchester,<\/p>\n

This is Winchester in a quiet corner behind the cathedral. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Figsbury<\/p>\n

This is Figsbury Ring in Wiltshire, a late bronze age to iron age site. A certain amount of imaginative rearrangement was needed to make the structure<\/p>\n

more clear. Unusually for such constructions it had an inner ditch as well as the usual external ring. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Worbarrow<\/a><\/p>\n

This is Worbarrow bay on the Dorset coast. Very interesting light very hard to catch in paint, there was a sort of milky glow to everything. I will add a<\/p>\n

bit more activity on the beach if I get a moment. 10in by 7in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Dorset,<\/p>\n

A misty morning near Tarrant Gunville in Dorset. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Badbury,<\/a><\/p>\n

Badbury Rings. Very neutral light again a fair bit of imagination was needed to try and make it into any sort of picture. It is an Iron Age hill fort 800BC.<\/p>\n

I regret the dog walker, the distant figures were better by themselves. I am going to attempt a studio hill fort picture to try and get over the feeling of the<\/p>\n

places. 10in by 7in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Kingston<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the grand house of Kingston Lacy. I will try and spend a whole day here painting some day in the future. I did this too small, I should have used<\/p>\n

my larger 14in by 10 in pad as I rather lost the delicacy of the house. As my friend Richard and I were leaving in search of sustenance the light improved<\/p>\n

and I got a photo that will make a very good studio picture I hope. 10in by 7in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Fontmell<\/a><\/p>\n

This is Fontmell Down in Dorset. The only 14in by 10 in painting I managed. Very blustery and showery the light was changing moment by moment<\/p>\n

I have put a photo below to show how the scene looked about 20 min after I started.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can see how I have exaggerated the sweep and curves of the landscape to try and make a more cohesive composition.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Berwick,<\/p>\n

This is the church at Berwick St John, hard to get back from the subject in these small graveyards. I might do another as the camera saw it in wide angle.<\/p>\n

We are just into Wiltshire here I believe. Rain was threatening so I went on to Salisbury where there was a better chance of painting from the dry. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Salisbury,<\/a><\/p>\n

Salisbury cathedral in the wet! I did this crouched under my umbrella, but the wind got to be too much, so I went and did the one that comes next from<\/p>\n

from beneath a tree. Once I had done that the rain had eased so I went back. I nearly finished when the heavens opened, so the last bit of accenting of<\/p>\n

the architecture had to be done back in the dry. With such a complex subject it is impossible to do a completely accurate drawing, or at least it would take<\/p>\n

several days and still not capture the mood of the moment. I try to be very systematical. I work forwards from light to dark working in quite an ordered way.<\/p>\n

So I might work across doing all the mid tones in the capitals adding each touch to each capital in turn and then doing the next touch in the same order.<\/p>\n

If you do this you will suddenly reach a point where there is enough to indicate the structure without being too specific and then you should stop.<\/p>\n

It is always hard to spot subjects when it is all grey and gloom, but you should try and look for simple contrasts in just part of the scene, here we just have<\/p>\n

stone and trees really and the picture is better for it.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Salisbury,<\/p>\n

This is really just a time filler as I was thinking about the other picture as I painted this, hoping for the rain to stop. 7in by 5in.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"Stourpaine,<\/p>\n

On my way home. This is Stourpaine in .Dorset, a very typical village scene. But the last of the mist was hanging on and gave the scene a great mood.<\/p>\n

7in by 5in. Now I have to get some studio pictures painted while the memories are still fresh!<\/p>\n

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