My Latest Watercolour Painting
Other new watercolour paintings can be seen in the gallery, New Paintings.
My main focus for the year was to sketch and paint outside. My goal was to record the nature on my doorstep, and in the surrounding woods and fields throughout the year in the form of a diary. The universe had other plans for me so the idea will have to remain something to achieve in the future.
I walk, or try to, every day not just for exercise but to gain inspiration for my paintings from the beautiful, ever changing landscape in which we live. For the past sixteen years this has been one of my favourite walks around the fields and footpaths surrounding the village. I believe this brook is called "Belchamp Brook" but I may be wrong, in which case a local will contact me with the correct name. It's a clear stream of water which runs noisily over pebbles at its base. In Spring the banks are covered in Primroses and I've seen snakes basking next to it in the sunshine during the summer months.
I love the winter landscape with it's elegant tree shapes and low angled sunlight. On this particular morning I discovered how many colours there are in mud - as I sat in it to sketch the scene! Perhaps that's why the painting is so colourful?
Actually, the way the painting turned out surprised me; it has a mood, a quality that I certainly did not feel at the time. This makes me wonder; do artists paint their emotions or feelings toward a subject deliberately or do they come out subconciously - or are they merely interpreted by others according to how they themselves feel? What do you think?
Eleanor