Some New Painting

Moving away from the Childhood Memories theme, I am responding more to my environment and thinking about the history of the place and the effect of the activity of humans on the environment. The area around Aysgarth (the name means clearing in the wood)is quite wooded and has a nature reserve woodland with much thoughtful planting by local landowners. The area above the Upper Falls is quite distinctive with its raised roots on the trees that grow close to the River Ure indicating a change in water level. This is quite seasonal and can also be quite dramatic with the waterlevels rising and falling in response to the amount of water coming down the valley. During the summer I did some drawing of the are above the falls and have started to work them up into paintings.

I like to work in sketchbooks and will use any spare paint to create a background in the sketchbooks so I can develop inmages with a common colour relationship and also to use up any acrylic paint that would otherwise be thrown away or washed into the water system.

I am fascinated by the shapes of the roots, the compositions that they form. I have been working in oils here on board. I sketch out the composition with oil bars and then develop using brushes, two stages of the same painting can be seen here but is as yet unfinished.

This is a larger one that I am working on, I am quite enjoying the mood that these are developing with a surreal quality due to the emotional colour selection and flattened perspective. I am leaving this here as they are still in the early stages and will post again in the New Year. Thanks for reading. Julie