ASSIGNMENT ONE PAINTING

Before I started working on this project, I looked carefully at the assignment criteria and I was confused when it said ‘don’t be too ambitious at this stage’ and ‘your painting should be representational’ and I chose an easy way to express myself; I started working on landscape painting. I started working with oil on white ground canvas sized 75x60cm. I tried to show an old stone barn in Wensleydale, where I live. I made some sketches and I started working outside because it is close to my home. I did not do too much of colour study because I know the green palette very well from the previous exercises; most of them were light and dark green. I needed to finish the painting at home because of the weather conditions, and at home, I do not have the natural view so I imagined it and finished it in the colour from memory. I know every detail of the field and I can always imagine drystone walls and barns because I live and work on the farm. When I painted the sky, I did the first wash in ultramarine blue and cerulean blue, and some other blues. After a few days where it was nearly dry, I added some clouds and made the blue show through the clouds. When I was painting the clouds and the barn I used some zinc white and titan white. Whenever i used the white, i never just used white; I mixed it with other colours like yellow, blue to create a warm effect and grey to create a cold effect. I did not add too much black, but when I did it was always mixed with blue so it did not stand out too much from the green. This was my first proposition, and I had some time to reflect and i think i can do another one.

Second proposition: I used oil on canvas 61x61cm. I found a picture that I took of White Scar Dam, and I thought I could paint the simple landscape from my photography. I did a sketch before i started painting, and this time I chose to add yellows, burnt umber, yellow ochre, burnt sienna to my palette and I chose those compositions because I like the contrast between the water and the yellow grass. When i painted the sky, i used similar techniques as in the previous painting and I tried to use the same warm colours for the grass and clouds. This highlighted the dark blue water most, which was painted with six different shades of blue. I am not sure if I can use both works for this assignment because I think this assignment is for introducing myself, may I ask for your opinion about which one is the stronger and weaker painting? If I need to choose, I’d choose the second painting.