Confusion Reigns

Haven't been able to get out this week, that is until today. I'm posting this largely as a way of venting my frustration with the day's effort. Went up the coast to my usual stretch of cliff and set up. The cloud cover was already in and I decided on an approach that would push the colour and attempt to make the foreground jump with colour as a means of creating recession. You can probably guess that the lack of painting time this week has meant an excess of thinking time and that I've built up a little checklist of the things I intended to achieve on this, my next outing. I'm afraid that it turned out formulaic but not just one formula in play. The lack of light had me struggling to give appropriate form to the cliffs and I got hung up on introducing each and every colour that I convinced myself I could see, then decided to tone some of them down. Just goes to show that the thinking and planning is best done with the subject in front of you and being able to make choices in light of the prevailing conditions.

Desperate to get a positive out of proceedings, I lighted on the fact that I was able to produce a real range of colour from my limited palette of Indanthrone Blue, Naples Yellow, Venetian Red and Titanium White. I'll keep plugging with it for a while longer.

Souter Cove - Oil sketch on canvas board 12" x 10"