The Long Slog - Pen-y-Ghent

Looking towards the hill (mountain to us Yorkshire folk), of Pen-y-Ghent or Hill of the winds from the Pennine Way track. This is the approach view for any long-distance walker along the pennine way or any day hill-bagger who has parked along the Silverdale Road at Dale Head.

The Long Slog - Pen-y-Ghent. 20" x 8" Oil on Board

First proper panorama for some time. This is the sixth time I have painting this particular massif, and I think finally I may have nailed it with respect to aerial perspective recession and overall composition. Its been a long road - and at each turn I am learning more and more techniques about capturing the subtleties of painting the yorkshire dales. Todays lesson was not using any form of mixed green whatsoever, as in previous paintings the saturation seems to have overtaken the image and imposed a false distance to the work. Its a lovely thing to be able to learn new things after nearly 10 years of painting, and I guess thats what keeping my interest in the subject.

Sheep on t'road, Newby Head

This is the farm at Newby Head which was once an old coaching inn on the Lancaster to Richmond Turnpike and the distinctive outline of Ingleborough provides the scene with a sense of place. Odd to think that this farm and its neighbouring farms - at Gearstones and again at Widdale Head were also once pubs / inns at one stage in their lives; at that rate it looks like there were more pubs than houses along this route! You have probably guessed, the title comes from the road sign rather than the actual lack of sheep on the road, any anyone who knows this road understands its a biking favourite, as sheep, not being the brightest of creatures have a pretty slow reaction time when faced with a 1300bhp bike blazing along at 60+ mph.

Sheep on t'road - Newby Head: Oil on Board 10" x 8"

Having taken some advice and read some other posts I avoided the use of mixed greens (the thuggish pthalo green and sap green) and settled for a mix of lemon yellow and paynes grey / cobalt for pretty much all of the greens. Again I am still learning, and over the base ground of raw sienna, the lemon yellow provides a wonderful greenish yellow, perfect for these upland areas at this time of year. Problem is now I am retrospectively looking at past works thinking I wished I had used used my own mix rather than these handy tubed greens previously.

Regardless, its been a fruitful couple of weeks as some previous posts had sold, Knight Stainforth, The Escapist had both sold to passers-by at The Little Gallery and also Spring Greens - Smearsett had also left the walls of the studio / gallery.

Knight Stainforth

Looking downhill from the west towards Knight Stainforth (Little Stainforth) and Stainforth beyond. Knight Stainforth Hall is the white building in the middle ground and now home to a caravan park. Although the date stone above the hall has the building aged from 1707, the building (or parts of it) is far older. It was a miserable day, no bright sunlight, no strong shadows and for that I was quite grateful, more often than not the strong shadows dominate the painting, however I'm pleased to portray this scene in the all-too often 'a bit overcast'.

Knight Stainforth, Oil on Panel 8" x 10"

Sometimes while painting, the feeling just flows and the painting looks right from the start to the finish... this was not one of them, there were a couple of u-bends and a couple of times I got the feeling to bin the lot. I am glad I persevered with this however, and there lieth the lesson... I have had a similar issue with books or watching a film its that mid part, when nothing seems to be happening, nothing clicks and its at that point, perserverence must kick in; subsequently something drops into place and it all works out, but that 'wall' exists in whatever I am doing. That question 'can I be bothered to finish what I started?' is always there, and I have dozens of unfinished paintings which have hit the wall and no further progress has been made, indeed I have with books and films that I started watching / reading, but gave up for something else / better.

In essence I am glad I continued the momentum, and not produced a half-arsed, half worked piece but completed it as I had already seen in my minds eye. Hope this works for you as it has for me.

Out of fun I have posted some photos of the work in progress, the painting was completed in a matter of hours (such is working on smallish panels). As I have had no formal training or lessons, everything I learned about painting is from the net, books and trial and error; my style, techniques and materials are flexible and evolutionary, perhaps they may be old hat to some but I feel that I am treading on new ground every time I adopt one (for instance the use of turps rather than white spirit!!!)

Stage 1 - the outline and 'underpainting' using promarkers

Stage 2. Blocking in using dilute / thinned oil paint - although some areas its quite thick and opaque.

Stage 3. Addition of detail.

Spring Greens, Smearsett

This started as a commission, however I managed to get the viewpoint all wrong and this was the result. Painted in the height of spring the seasonal touch is reflected in the greenery of the vegetation in this boggy pasture overlooking the village of Stainforth. The view to the west is of Smearsett Scar, a lovely knobble of a hill which is a focal point on the limestone massif to the west of Stainforth, although not particularly high (enough for me!) it certainly has character and is fairly recognisable to those who know the dale. The photo below shows the prominence of Smearsett above the clouds durng a wonderful inversion earlier this year.

Sett is a Norse name and is used frequently in these western dales in a variety of forms, below the knoll of Smearsett there are traces of an iron age / romano-british settlement which can be quite clearly seen as a load of lumps and bumps in the fields.

Spring Greens, Smearsett, 8" x 10" Oil on Panel

The painting is painted on a precut 8" x 10" mdf panel, gessoed up (3 coats) and sanded down. I have used a number of different grounds with linen canvas, canvas boards and wooden panels, so far (at this point in time) this is the most appealing ground to use partly because I am lazy, and partly because I am tight.

Autumn Shadows, Wharfe

Although a tiny hamlet of a handful of houses and farms, Wharfe has provided inspiration in bucket loads. Each visit reveals new subjects, each changing season provides new views of old scenes, and indeed the light changes from day to day completely changes any composition. It's a Norse Name, hvarf, meaning a bend in the river, as in the River Wharfe much further eastwards which gives its name to Wharfedale. But this Wharfe lies in between the village of Austwick and Ribblesdale.

Autumn Shadows, Wharfe. Oil on Board 8" x 6"

This view is one of the handful of 17th century houses sprinkled around the shallow valley side along a public footpath, the strong Autumn light provides a great introduction to the image leading the viewer into the painting as it bounces off the top of the dry stone wall lining the grassy path. I once read somewhere that you can get away with many techinical mistakes with good composition and although not technically spot on, the strong composition makes up for this. This was painted (again) on gessoed mdf panel, and although it was on a white ground I used promarkers again to build up an underlying tonal sketch before jumping in with the oil underpainting turpsy wash (as Alwyn refers to it).

Autumn Light Stainforth

Bright highlights and strong long shadows make a perfect combination for a 'townscape' or even 'villagescape'. This is Riston Barn in Stainforth with the village's only post box, depicted here with a flash of windsor red. Once again this is painted on a burnt sienna ground (mdf panel), and following peniclling in the rough outline of the buildings I used some promarkers to build up the underlying tones. I've used these a couple of times and for a quick tonal underpainting these seem to be ok, although they do tend to remove some of the acrylic base wash.

Autumn Light, Stainforth. Oil on panel 8" x 6"

Again I'm trying to be looser in style and purposely avoided overdetailing the background houses, infact theres only two layers there and together they make for enough detail, but a new addition (for me) is the depiction of a car. Now I have previously avoided putting the trappings of modern-day into these paintings, however I am getting to feel that they are so prevalent they cannot be omitted and indeed provides a sense of time and place with these paintings. I did avoid putting in the wheelie bin as that would be a step too far.

The Escapist

Never seen the film, neither (I suspect) has this sheep. Looking up one of our little green lanes near Stainforth in the Dales, the sheep hadn't escaped but I needed some subject matter and although an autumnal lane is a pretty subject - I felt it needed more, so in went the rear end of a sheep and out came a nice catchy title.

The Escapist, Oil on Panel. 8" x 6"

This was mostly painted with a big (1") decorators brush (certainly half of the picture was at least) using a limited pallette on a sienna-stained MDF panel, which I think works well here. I am trying to get a more looser style to these small 8" x 6" boards, and I am chuffed with the way the composition works out, all designed (by luck rather than judgement) to take you on a journey up the lane to whether or not there is a gate at the top.

The title on the painting is a nod to one of my favourite artists, Peter Brook, and its a little focus using one of the colours not employed in the painting itself. I rather like it, and will probably be employing its use in the future.

Most (!) of the works are available, check out the website and drop me a mail if anything catches your eye.

Pochade - Moughton Nab from Top O'Feizor Nick.

Bit of a mouthful for a title, could be 'Early Autumn, Above Bark House', anyway geographically speaking the valley in the view has no name; it connects Wharfe and Austwick with Ribblesdale at Helwith Bridge. The hill in the distance to the right of the photograph below is Pen-y-Ghent, and I thought it churlish to omit this beauty from the pocahde, however I didn't want it stealing the show so compositionally it was rejected... The paint is still wet on this one, and took me longer than the allotted 1 hour to paint due to the amount of people stopping for a chat, plus I wasn't really rushing it, but I'm still calling it a pochade regardless.

I always found it a bit unnerving painting in public, and this is quite a thoroughfare with a number of walkers, runners and the obligatory flock of hawkers (not trying to sell anything - but taking their Harris Hawk out for some exercise) passing by all-too-often. Actually today I rather enjoyed it, passing the time to chat while pretending to be busy, more often than not the conversation started with an apologetic ice-breaker such as "sorry for scaring the sheep" or "sorry about my dog, he's just curious"...

Moughton Nab from Top O'Feizor Nick; Oil on Board 8"x6"

This is painted on MDF board - which the wife uses as a backing board for her framing, gessoed up (3 coats) and sanded down, a coat of acrylic burnt sienna provides an excellent Autumnal ground on which to lay down the paint. Another revelation which I have discovered is the use of turpentine; for years I have been using white spirit to thin the paint, but turps does it so much better, although I still go armed with the white spirit to clean the brushes. I was purposefully limiting the palette with this, keeping to Ivory Black and Tit White, Lemon Yellow (mixed with the black makes a strangely accurate green), Ult Blue, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre, (with the tiniest smattering of pthalo green). Although I have managed to cut the paint usage down, I still take more brushes into the field than is necessary or practicable, and end up cleaning the lot of them. Some disciplines have not yet sunk in - and I guess this is the result of having no formal training...

I also thought I would put a picture of the new and improved pochade setup, the box is fitted to a small but portable camera tripod which does make walking to the location a damn sight easier than lugging a large portable table easel up a mountain slope, but am limited to this samller box.

I would appreciate any comments about anything on this blog, as I have so far received zero... any feedback positive or negative is a bonus - shows someone is actullay reading this..

Furry Coo

Furry Coo, Oil on Board 8" x 10"

Oil on Board 8" x 10". Highland cattle seem to be the order of the day recently on the lower fells of Ribblesdale. A small herd inhabit the fells above Stainforth and their shaggy exteriors provide great subject matter, and as well as these another herd of Belties (Belted Galloways) have made their presence felt in the field across from these chaps. The steely-grey sky is typical of these dales, and its a feature I think I should replicate more in my paintings; having just picked the kids up, as I was driving home I noticed this very same coloured sky and the thought hit me to paint more of this.