This is a lesson that has taken me decades to learn, and if I am honest I am still guilty of it. When I try and speculate as to how a painting may go I am always wrong. I always imagine the outcome to be no where near as good as it actually turns out to be. You cannot rehearse in your mind what you are going to do in the painting. There was a time when the opposite was true, when I had a brilliant painting in my mind and ended up with a canvas covered in sh*t. Needless to say I am a more content painter now but it has been a long journey getting here. Painting is going well. I am trying to capture what I saw on the day which is a landscape turned up to full volume in every respect. Its a type of landscape that I particularly like which is a random patchwork of brown heathland and grass, that has yet to come through as clearly as I would like.
Netherton, springtime. Day 2