The days at RSPB Arne are whizzing by and this last weekend was no exception. A good number of artists , would be artists , photographers and ”just interested’ to see what is going on joined us.
The common interest is, of course , our surroundings. And this weekend these certainly both challenged us and surprised us. The tidal system caught me out completely – not in a ‘dangerous’ way but in terms of me painting certain aspects of a painting whilst missing out the water/mud flat whilst waiting for the tide to recede further – and it did not – it came back in. Apparently this is all due to the Isle of Wight. Who’d have known? However other things made up for it.
The painting that needed the tide to go out remains unresolved but I am hoping tomorrow will enable me to get on with it . Painting en plein air does mean each time I am in the same spot everything can look very different – not least the tide – the position of the sun, or no sun, the weather conditions generally and so on.
Fingers crossed for the coming final two days at this location. It is an awkward composition with those tree stumps, with deer damage, potentially not working in the foreground . WE shall see. Also, although green is my favourite personal colour , this does not follow through to painting with it. And this painting is currently too green. Something else that will need sorting if it is going to work. Interesting looking at the foreground green of the painting and the actual tone of the grass around it tells me there may be a tonal issue as well. Rather a lot of issues I think.