September afternoon on Flanders Moss |
View from top window towards Bannockburn (unfinished) |
This is the second part of the composition project. When you are asked to do a painting straight off without preparatory line, tonal or colour studies. As usual my first impressions were all wrong. I was drawn to the tree as a dark shape and only realised over working on it that the tree and background are medium in tone, and that the garden hedge (there is a road there too) are just as important. Not complete yet, but today (26th September) took it from messy tonal study based on a greyscale photo to colour. It has been through several stages of tonal and colour and adjustment of composition already.
It started to work today when I stopped thinking so much and let my brushes take over. Tree needs a bit more so does the hedge, but now I think I have the composition all right, good as it is going to be for now, and the colours near enough.