Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang

It's taken me quite a while to get round to this painting. I tooks some photos of the scene some years ago while walking around Grisedale, the day was a cold, frosty February morning, and as I approached the buildings at High Shaw Paddock with Wild Boar Fell in the distance this was the scene that greeted me. With the highlighted farm in the middle ground the fells in the distance took on a bleak(er) look. I painted the scene in two sittings, allowing the first covering to dry before proceeding, but still maintains an 'alla prima' look.

I had some fun with the foreground - I wasn't bothered after all it was painted as a trial piece on a bit of primed hardboard. I 'borrowed' a plastic brush from my daughter to achieve the texture of the reeds and plenty of paint with scratching and blending with my fingers, and I quite like it - it achieved it's purpose and now that cheap plastic brush has a new home (apologies to my daughter).

Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang, Oil on Board 16" x 12"

So, even though I painted this as a 'trial' piece, I am pleased with the way it turned out, and it gives a feeling of the drearyness of the scene; it shows another face of the dales - away from the brighter landscapes of the Limestone Dales of the southern and western half, and the more open landscapes of Wensleydale. This, one of the northern dales, the landscape reflects the geology, a hard, dark gritstone, more akin to the sandstones of the Mid-Pennines.

Jervaulx - A Cracking Bit of Wensleydale

A Cracking Bit of Wensleydale.
Apologies for the cheesy title, but this part of lower Wensleydale is a fantastic place to while away a few hours. The owners of the Abbey have done, and are doing a wonderful job of maintenence, and any visitor to the abbey ruins are highly recomended to visit the excellent tea shop / restaurant across the road. We visited the abbey a couple of times last year with the family, and had a great day, sketching and painting in the ground while the children explored and picnicked. I made some sketches but the painting was from a number of photos taken on the better of the two days.

Jervaulx - compsitional sketch

I made the compositional sketch in one afternoon from a couple of photos, and set to with the painting. I didn't rush this one, initially the main colours were underpainted in acrylic (which I find dry much darker than when initially laid) hence the blue of the sky is much darker than I originally intended, and rather than looking for texture I was trying to achieve more flatter areas of colour, so that any variations (e.g. the party, the trees and the building structure) would not just stand out tonally, but also texturally.

A Cracking Bit of Wensleydale - Oil on Canvas 20" x 16"

The title of the painting came to me while I was laying down the acrylic underpainting, having just watched one of Nick Park's animations with the kids, and have to say I was grinning inanely while slapping on the paint. I quite like the painting although it's not to my wife's taste. For me the learning process with the tones of the middle-distance trees was an important one. In the past I have found full summer foliage a bit of a weak point, but following this now feel more confident with this aspect of landscape painting.

Incidentally Jervaulx is a corruption of Yore Vale, i.e. the valley of the River Ure, which flows nearby, although the modern valley is named after one of the main towns through which the river flows - i.e. Wensleydale. And at the head of Wensleydale is the creamery where the cracking cheese of that name is made.

http://www.wensleydale.co.uk/
http://www.jervaulxabbey.com/