Barr Beacon towards Dudley
This scene was inspired by a sketch part part one of Barr Beacon, a local beauty spot where the ariel view can be seen for miles.I have driven there many times to take photographs as reference points, but the details of the landscape can only really be appreciated by sketching. This is an exercise where I fully understood the reasons for sketching a scene first; without it, it would have been impossible to make out the intricacies of all the cross-crossing fields that are easy to see with the naked eye, but seem to be obscured when viewed as a photograph:
Barr Beacon looking towards Dudley
My painting seemed to work better with a looser style of brushwork – otherwise the picture would just be a tight weaving of all the green hedgerows marking a boundary. After under-painting with yellow ochre and blocking in the shapes with a dark sap green, I over painted teh foreground letting the under-painting show through again, to give interest. I heightened the yellow to the foreground.
Somehow, the sense of ariel perspective on this doesn’t work. There is a sense of distance, but is does look flatter than in real life.
OIl on board A4
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