En Plein-air

Having become a member (one of 2000-or so) of Facebook's UK en-plein air society, it has given me further encouragement and inspiration to get out there and paint rather than being stuck in the studio (with constant interruptions and vying for space with my framer - and wife - who's working practice involves watching Desperate Housewives on her iPad). So an agreement has been made whereby I get out and do more in the open air. Although this year has been fantastic for the weather, dry hot, sunny blue skies almost daily, a constantly blue sky can be a bit boring after a while, and one yearns for a change - well I certainly received the change yesterday when I went out to paint at Malham Tarn; the light changed every 15 seconds sometimes for the worse but often for the better where I found myself going over what I had already painted, darkening the sky and highlighting the hills, pretty much constantly through the 2 hours I allotted myself for this painting.

Malham Tarn 10" x 12" Linen Canvas - Unfinished!

The constantly changing weather is reflected in the clothing of the two protagonists, one wearing shorts and a vest top, the other wearing full rain gear. I thought I was being clever - more than likely I'll just upset someone. The painting is certainly not finished and as it was painted on my own (wife-made) linen stretched-canvas will require a certain amount of further work to make it one which I am happy with. However for a first pass I am happy with it, but I am rather looking forward to fettling with it.

Pen-y-Gent 8" x 6" MDF panel

This one of Pen-y-Ghent and Upper Ribblesdale was painted during one of them 'Scorchio' days on my little pochade box (8" x 6"). I love this little box, although I have tried mounting it to a tripod twice with both times ending in disaster... still I can work with it on my lap and knacker my back for the effort - being constantly hunched over.

Field Laithe - Stainforth 8" x 6" MDF

Halton Gill 8" x 6" MDF

It is educational and it is a completely different discipline, most of which is preparation! I must be the most unprepared plein-air painter I know, normally packing everything I don't need and forgetting fairly critical things like brushes, white spirit, certain paints etc. etc. The other main difference for me is being completely absorbed by the subject, in the studio I find I do a lot of procrastinating during a painting, dithering between drinking coffee and washing brushes, cleaning my pallet, googling stuff, staring at old paintings and so on ad-infinitum; however outside it's just observation and painting, with the occasional chat to inquisitive passers' by and of course the obligatory coffee while stepping back to judge the scene, although I do find I step further back than is necessary to make the painting look half decent!

New Barns, Arnside

Finished version of one of the paintings from and earlier post, painted en plein-air at the beginning of February, and touched-up back in the studio. The houses at New Barns Bay near Arnside ticked the boxes compositionally although my first attempt at capturing these houses on canvas were interrupted by the rising tide during the super-blue moon early last month. This tide being higher than usual so much so that the pochade box and tripod was moved several times before giving up altogether.

New Barns Bay, Arnisde. Oil on Board 8" x 6"

This second view was painted at the highest part of the tide fortunately well above the high water mark, looking towards the houses and café at New Barns (the café was artistically omitted!).

Out and About - Pochades in Arnside

There has been some fantastic bright sunlight recently which prompted me after a couple of days refurbishing the studio to get out of the house and do some real painting. When I say real painting I actually mean en-plein air, although I don’t want to sound too snobbish saying it. I was reading a blog extolling the virtues about painting small, and how the amount of kit you carry can impact on your ability to paint ‘on the spot’, now I desperately try to limit the amount of kit I carry, and I know I carry way too much; flask of coffee, sandwiches, tripod, camera, sketchbook, backup sketchbook, sepia pens, black pens, a whole host of pencils, charcoal, watercolours, water,  pochade box c/w 12 paints of varying colours and about 4 spare boards, white spirit, rags, backup rags, knife, kitchen sink, etc etc...? Hang on have I missed ought? Oh yeah - brushes... On more than one occasion my painting trip has been curtailed due to lack of one or more of these ‘essential’ implements.

Pochade Setup at New Barns.

Recently my wife bought me a little knapsack - I say ‘little’ in comparison to the 50litre bergen I have been hauling my gear in previously, and this little knapsack has proved its worth in  forcing me to cut down the amount  I carry, begging the question is ‘that’ really necessary... and its worked! So now, on a pochading trip I carry the 5 (carefully selected) brushes (in a roll), the pocahde box and tripod c/w 2 boards and about 6 colours, white spirit and rags, one sketchbook and pens (for thumbnails), charcoal and pencil (in the brush roll) and thats it! except for the coffee, and even that seems a little too much sometimes.

So Arnside, yes I know its not in the Dales, but it is still painting and therefore by my rules permissible in this blog.

Arnside - Chilly February

A couple of beautiful crisp days at the beginning of the month heralded a new start to the en plein-air year, cold enough to keep the painting loose (i.e. wanting to get it finished quickly to move on and warm up) and sunny enough to provide light for the subject. If you don’t know it Arnside is one of the hidden gems of the Lancashire / Cumbria coast, relatively unspoiled the entire mass of Silverdale affords numerous boxes to tick for the landscape painter, coastal, estuary, hills, woods, moor, ruins; it has been a place I have often wanted to paint in but never managed to get there with pochade box and have a crack at it. However on days like these it can be a popular little place, and there are oodles of dogwalkers c/w their canine companions so it is very difficult to avoid the critical gaze of passers-by, which by now I have taken for granted and for this reason I can make the excuse it takes more than the self-allotted one hour to knock out a half reasonable pochade due to the fact I am chatting for a good proportion of the time. As a relative newcomer to the en-plein-air lark I find these distractions welcoming, and don’t at all mind breaking off for a natter, after all it gives me time to glimpse (rather than focus) at the work rather than focus on it.

Pochade - Beechwood House, Arnside - Oil on Board 8"x6"

One thing that did catch me out was the turn of the tide, now as a sailor I understand the tides, but even still I was caught out by the speed of the tide at Arnside, as I was painting on the day after this years Super Blue Moon, I forgot about the exceedingly high tide and for one view the tripod was moved four times, eventually giving up. Arnside has its own tidal bore, not someone who chunters endlessly about the moon and the height of the sea, but a tidal wave which hurtles up an estuary. Now when I say hurtles, that could be applied to the Severn Bore which attracts surfers, the Kent Bore is a lot less ‘spectacular’ but still worth while to watch if only to understand the power of the tide and still attracts some hardy kayakers.

New Barns Bay - 8" x 6"

I don’t usually sell these pochades; they are after all sketches, aide memoirs to some future masterpiece or more likely to be stored in the sea chest under my worktable in the studio which is already brimming with views yet to be painted. Alwyn Crawshaw has a lot to answer for with his ‘atmosphere sketches and ‘enjoyment sketches’, I just enjoy painting them too much.

Arnside - 8" x 6"

New Barns, Arnside - 8" x 6"

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..

Stainforth Beck

Stainforth Beck - Oil on Board 8" x 6"

Just below the waterfall at Catrigg Foss, the Stainforth Beck, a tributary of the Ribble flows through a rarely visited patch of woodland. This was a pochade painted in around an hour (with a little touching-up in the studio afterwards). I tried to convey the peace and serenity of the little stream as it tumbles down the valley to the village of Stainforth some 1/2 mile away.

In the Shadow of the Viaduct

Packhorse Bridge - Dent Head Viaduct - Oil on Board 8" x 6"

Beneath the Dent Head Viaduct sits this little packhorse bridge spanning the Fell End Gill, overshadowed by the pillars of the Dent Head Viaduct. The pochade was painted en plein-air last week, and as summer turned to autumn I certainly could feel the chill. The bridge was in danger of total collapse some 5 or 6 years ago when a stone mason Pete Roe from Swaledale took upon its restoration, and thankfully saved this wonderful little structure for a few more generations.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/may/09/country-diary-dentdale-yorkshire-dales

Bad Bend Blackberries

Blackberries - Oil on Board 8" x 6"

A quick pochade of Mrs B risking life and limb picking blackberries for a record 16 pots of jam, which should keep us going through the winter. This was more about testing out a new (to me) technique of quickly blotting down the basic tones using W&N Promarkers and then applying the paint. I don't know about you, but I like to try things out before reading about other people's horror stories about doing exactly what I had just done - same with these Promarkers. I just bought the 2, a grey and a black in order to build a 3-point of tone to my sketch, and they worked like a dream, even better in fact as I went over the rough pencil sketch with the grey tone and the pencil didn't run or discolour the oil paint. So far I am glad to report - no nasties have appeared, (such as the alcohol based marker leaching through the finished painting).

Ok so its not strictly in the Dales National Park but near enough...

Flascoe Bridge, Austwick - Pochade

Flascoe Bridge, Austwick - Pochade 8" x 6" Oil on Board

Flascoe Bridge near Austwick is a wonderful example of a stone clapper bridge, a very basic bridge type of large stone slabs on stone piers. It was supposedly built in the later middle ages (15th Century) over Autswick beck, and the adjoining ford provides vehicular access along the green lane which connects the small hamlet of Feizor to the massive metropolis of Austwick.

While I was sat there, a number of dog walkers brought their pooches for a paddle in the beck, and with the heat of yesterday all of them were thankful for a refreshing dip; making me think about a larger version of this.

This was painted en plein-air yesterday, however I threw in a figure strolling across the bridge, and when I got back to the studio to scrutinize what I had done it became apparent that the figure didn't look right, so off he went... I think the touch-up went rather well!