Recently, the weather has prevented me from going out into the surrounding areas to paint, mainly for fear of being blown off a hillside by the storms! A permanent rain cloud seems to linger over Aberystwyth recently, meaning I have had to spend much of my time sheltered within the confines of the house. Because of this, it has been really hard to be able to find inspiration for my work.
In our house, the only landscape I have visual access to is the small section of hillside, which is framed by the gap between two houses, from my bedroom window. I am actually really grateful for this tiny proportion of landscape I have and find myself looking at it several times a day to see the effect the daylight has upon the hills.
Earlier this week, after not much progress at all (due to the relentless rain and wind),I decided to make the most of what I did have and that was my view. However, I wanted to try and paint a time of day that I hadn’t ventured to do before: twilight! I knew that, to do this, I would mainly have to work from a photograph (which I never find very inspiring) but with no improvement of the weather, it was worth a try!
Before starting my painting I decided to take a new, more structured approach to planning my compositions- by drawing the scene in detail with charcoals. Charcoals have always been part of my preliminary sketches however, they have always been rough, five minute thumbnail sketches. I wanted to be able to determine the structure of my composition before painting. By using charcoals to create a monochromatic image, I was able to see how the highlights of the scene would correspond to the rest of the painting to create a successful composition.
By taking more time to consider the elements of my painting through drawing it in detail first, I found it much easier to create the finished piece. I had been able to spend longer planning the composition and understand how the different elements would interact with one another as a whole. This is definitely something I will start to do more, to help me configure my future paintings. I guess a couple of weeks stuck inside isn’t too bad after all…but bring on the summer!! 🙂
Adalia Mynett 