Mountains are often best painted when you can’t really see them – that is, you can’t see very much of them as they are mostly hidden in cloud. This lends an air of mystery, and you wonder what else is hidden within that mass of clouds. That is most definitely the case with this watercolour of a string of common eider flying up Kongsfjorden in Spitzbergen, with the backdrop of Alpine-style peaks partly hidden behind streams of cloud. Even if you can see everything clearly it often pays to lose some part of the mountain in cloud, shadow or a squall.
This is one of ten paintings I have in the exhibition at Patchings Art Centre in Nottinghamshire, from Saturday 27th August to Sunday 2nd October. The exhibition features artists from the Search Press art books stable, and will include demonstrations by most of the artists. I shall be doing a demonstration on Saturday 24th September, which will be online. It is always a great pleasure to work with Patchings with their unfailing high standards, efficiency and generosity.
It’s been a busy summer, with a holiday in Pembrokeshire in July with the family, including the grand-daughters who kept us so busy. It was great to be with them, though lion-taming is much easier. After that I was badly in need of a holiday, so then spent some time in Snowdonia. There I found it far too hot to climb high mountains – jumping into rivers was a far more sensible idea, and I took things at a slower pace than usual. This actually helped the standard of my sketches and I was pleasantly surprised at the results.
By the way, if you want to make a splash see the October issue of Leisure Painter magazine for my feature on creating surf splashing over rocks.
A wonderful informative cheery blog David and a beautiful painting. Thank you !
Thanks for your kind response, Gill – enjoy your painting! David
How will I be able to have access to the on line demostration on Saturday 24th september?
Regards, Belen Rowlands
Hello Belen, I don’t know yet any details of the set-up for my online demo, but will put it out on a blog as soon as I do know. Best wishes,
David
I look forward to every revelation of your paintings. Always learn somthing new. My problem is looking at a scene or drawing and determining the proper colors. Don’t suppose there is any way of teaching that
Edward, Thank you so much for your kind remarks and for a very interesting question. I can’t really answer you with a short comment, so what I will do is devote a forthcoming blog to the subject of colour selection, and I will almost certainly write a piece on it for Leisure Painter magazine, as it is such an important aspect of painting and really needs a more comprehensive response. I guess you might live in the US, though so we might need to find another way of letting you see the article if you can’t see Leisure Painter. Best wishes,
David
Yes, I live in California, so don’t have access to Leasure Painting. But will watch for anything on the subject.
I don’t see any blogs from you. Am I off the e-mail list?