Back in the studio...at last

Have been a bit too busy of late, not enough time to paint, not enough time to get into the studio. But I was determined to get a couple of studio days in before the madness of Christmas, and today was one. Because I hadn't been into the studio, I felt that I had lost momentum, so I was not overly ambitious for the day. I thought I would focus on the far away trees image.  I wanted to do this conposition in a square format as I thought it would work better. I started with this.

Emerging picture Far Away Trees copyright Aileen Grant

 This was just charcoal and rubbing out.  Looking at it again now, there's a lot I quite like about it.  I think the elements are carefully placed, and I may have lost some of these nice shapes later.  This is how I developed the picture, using inks and white acrylic.

Emerging picture Far Away Trees copyright Aileen Grant

I wanted to take this a little further, and I had not used any oil bar, so I thought I would try a new dark grey oil bar I had just got.  And more acrylic, etc.

Far Away Trees copright Aileen Grant

I am in two minds about whether this is better with oilbar or not.  It does make it very black, and I lose some of the interesting marks. But it also increases the drama of the picture.  I decided to have a go at the motif in colour.  Just an initial lay down of colour on a board with some textures on it.

Far Away Trees (Colour) copyright Aileen Grant.

I used a very limited palette of 2 blues, crimson allizarin, a little lemon and white.  Anyway, this needs to dry now before I put another layer of colour on.  Interesting...
I had some paint left, so I thought I'd start a colour study of another thumbnail.  It's also kinda interesting.

Skye Ridge copyright Aileen Grant

 As well as the oil paint, I used a blue oil crayon, drawing into the paint.  I really like the effect achieved on the far away hills of Skye.  It'll be a challenge to decide how to take this to the next stage and not lose the interest.

By this time the light was fading in the studio, and so I decided to finish with another black and white picture. This one was based on my recent Lochcarron sketch, using charcoal, ink and acrylic - no dark grey oilbar this time.....

Dark Hill, Lochcarron copyright Aileen Grant

I was quite pleased with some of this.  What I liked was the way the marks turned out on the distant shore, at the foot of the dark hill.  For the first time I think I have managed to use marks to convey the feeling of the landscape, without being too literal.  Progress... perhaps...

Just watching pictures of Iceland on the telly.  Looks amazing.  I want to go there!  I want to paint there!



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