I saw this roe doe and fawns early one
morning. They glanced up momentarily from
feeding when they spotted me.
Work in Progress - what I'm painting this week!
I'm now working on my paintings for my Summer exhibition which runs on 26th July-11th July.
I like to work on all the paintings for an exhibition at once because I work with oils and it can take a long time for each coat of paint to dry. So, whilst I'm waiting for one layer to dry, I can be getting on with another.
The base coats pictured here will form the background for each painting, the pale blue colours give me a light base for water and sky, the ochre colours will be perfect for stubble fields.
See below photos of these paintings as I develop them.
Watch the progress of this Pheasant painting.
Hare and Leverets - from field study to finished painting
The gallery car park at Fotherdale has become something of a nursery for hares.At least four litters are born here every year.
The does leave them under the hedgerows around the car park – away from predators but conveniently visible from my studio window - and I often spot the leverets patiently waiting at dusk for their mum to come home.
For this painting, I had to watch carefully to capture the moment when she looked in on them.
It's nice to think they feel safe here. And of course, coming so close, they really have been asking to be painted.
Diary of a painting:
14th March: Having decided on the composition of the hares, I decided to use the field opposite the gallery as the background for this painting.
20th March: The outline of the hare and leverets is sketched on in pencil. Then the background is blocked in. I drags the tones from the background over the outline of the hares. This makes the hares sit naturally in their backdrop when completed.
27th March: Further fine detail is added to the background, including light grass fronds. Paint is applied thickly to the subjects in the diretion of the fur to give texture.
4th April: I paint darker tones on the hare and start to mark out where the lighter tones will be on the leverets. I work from dark tones up to the light tones to give a three dimensional effect.
1st May: Finished at last, seven weeks later! This stage is the longest of the whole painting. All the final detail has been put on, including seed heads, stubble in the foreground and the last thing at all - the whiskers!
