no, just the right amount, to mis-quote a line from Amadeus. I had been wondering what is it that I don’t like about the painting I had just done. There are several issues. One is there is just too much going on in terms of its colour range, its kaleidoscopic. Secondly, I often get the feeling, not only with my own paintings, that they are made up of many parts, like a jigsaw puzzle that often jar when viewed as a whole. These issues are created firstly by the choice of photo and secondly by the way I translate them. With this in mind I have chosen a landscape that is made up mostly of greens and I have chosen to simply block in the painting to begin with but really look at the range of greens in the image. Another question, if your more interested in the abstract qualities of the landscape, why include the sky?, I will keep an open mind about this.
Alwinton. Day 1