Hay on Wye comes to life once a year with the Hay Festival and to my shame, I have never yet been able to get there. I put it down to a life of single parenting with three jobs and have promised myself that one of these days I will go, with my easel, and will set up and paint in situ with all the hustle and bustle going on around me. I imagine it would be a fantastic few days out.
But things as they are – and let’s remember things ALWAYS change, I decided instead to paint Hay thanks to @HayBuzz’s suggestion via Twitter.
I began trawling through dear old Google to find “the iconic image” of Hay and came up with this one.
Well, it’s right up my street – pun intended! The last time I painted a view like this I was still living in Spain and painted these rather mad pictures while there. So I wasn’t entirely phased by the idea.
I sketched out the houses as I wanted them to appear – you know the routine now as it follows a form. Here’s my sketch :
And from there it became a bit of an adventure …
I decided to use a limited range of colours so that the hues didn’t strike out too strongly against each other. Even though the photograph shows multiple tones of greens, there is a lot of talk among very highly qualified artists that a painting should use the minimum number of colours possible so that they all blend and echo each other rather than striking too great a contrast.
I decided I would explore this idea and I have to say I rather like the result :
Of course the foreground could have been very straight forward and simply ending with the bushes but I felt that in order to echo my quirky style I should finish the foreground with a few flowers and hidden critters to remain in keeping with what people have come to expect.
I hope you like my version of Hay-on-Wye – all comments gratefully received, cards available from £2 each, prints from £45 each and giclee prints from £90 each – please find them all on Etsy or get in touch with me directly via Facebook, Twitter or Email.
Lots of love!
But things as they are – and let’s remember things ALWAYS change, I decided instead to paint Hay thanks to @HayBuzz’s suggestion via Twitter.
I began trawling through dear old Google to find “the iconic image” of Hay and came up with this one.
Well, it’s right up my street – pun intended! The last time I painted a view like this I was still living in Spain and painted these rather mad pictures while there. So I wasn’t entirely phased by the idea.
I sketched out the houses as I wanted them to appear – you know the routine now as it follows a form. Here’s my sketch :
And from there it became a bit of an adventure …
I decided to use a limited range of colours so that the hues didn’t strike out too strongly against each other. Even though the photograph shows multiple tones of greens, there is a lot of talk among very highly qualified artists that a painting should use the minimum number of colours possible so that they all blend and echo each other rather than striking too great a contrast.
I decided I would explore this idea and I have to say I rather like the result :
Of course the foreground could have been very straight forward and simply ending with the bushes but I felt that in order to echo my quirky style I should finish the foreground with a few flowers and hidden critters to remain in keeping with what people have come to expect.
I hope you like my version of Hay-on-Wye – all comments gratefully received, cards available from £2 each, prints from £45 each and giclee prints from £90 each – please find them all on Etsy or get in touch with me directly via Facebook, Twitter or Email.
Lots of love!
No comments:
Post a Comment