Part 4: Project 4: Painting Outside

Research Point: 4.4.0: The Golden Rule and The Rule of Thirds

My findings for this research point can be found by clicking here.

Exercise One: Painting a Landscape Outside

For this exercise, I was to pack up my easel and paints, and find a nice spot outside to paint. From this, I decided I would prefer to create a piece with an autumnal atmosphere and that warmer, earthy hue which seems to take over at this time of year as I feel this best suits my personality and developing technique.  I tried to find areas which had interesting features that I could try to emphasise within my piece.  

Preliminary Sketches

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I began by creating quick tonal sketches of a few different areas of interest before narrowing this down again to create some colour studies.  I settled on three areas which I felt had the most to offer; one view held a fence in the foreground, a railway track in the middle ground and a cottage in the background.  I felt this would work quite well in assisting with the visual division of the grounds.  The next view was simply of a fenced area with a field behind it.  The final view was of a railway bridge which, once I had seen it, totally drew me in.  Whilst this held a lot of perspective, which I know is not my strongest point, I felt it was the most interesting and that the tunnel could really draw the viewer in.

I finally settled myself down and set up my materials and equipment and began to paint.  I started by creating a rough line wash painting to map out the key points of interest.  I decided to allow nature to assist me with the creation of the lines for the divide in the cobbles by turning the support sideways and allowing the paint to make its own way down. 

I found that the paint dried rather quickly due to the wind (as well as numbing my fingers!) and this actually worked in my favour as I was able to complete the whole piece in one setting as I work quite quickly naturally anyway.

I then began building up my layers of colours and applying the brushstrokes in the direction the tunnel was moving to assist in creating the illusion of depth and the movement of the brickwork.  I then created the suggestion of cobbles by laying the paint on with the brush thickly and in a sideways motion. 

Finally, I tried to link the colours within the piece by using the base colours and mix in other base colours to keep them related and to echo throughout the piece.

Overall, I rather enjoyed the experience of painting outside and whilst slightly unnerving to paint in front of others, found there were not many passers-by around me, or perhaps it was because I was too in the zone to realise.

I found the cold somewhat uncomfortable and know it would have been a different situation completely in the summer.  The light did not really change much over the time of creating the piece due to how quickly I was able to work, however, I tried to emphasise the tonal contrasts as much as possible.

Final Piece

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