Today is one of those times to share my love of a place and how to try to infuse my reaction to the landscape into one painting through the colours and textures rather than necessarily a true representation of the scene.
For many years my family has had an affinity with Pembrokeshire in Wales, my mum spent summers there as a child and inevitably it was introduced to me and I fell in love with it too. The coast is wild and the colours of the rocks sit firmly in my preferred choice of palette – those greys, purples and turquoises that I love so much.
For many years now we have consistently stayed at a cottage called ‘Craig yr Awel’ translated literally as ‘Rock of the Breeze’ and it has been the place of many celebrations and special times as a family. It’s a cottage that sits high on the cliff looking out over Whitesands Bay just outside of St. Davids and watching the sea from the summer room at the back of the property will always be one of my favourite things to do.
Therefore when I had been considering how to sum up my affection for the area, I needed to try to combine all these things into one. I wanted it to be about the colours, the textures and the house but without making it too prescriptive to allow the viewer to place their own reaction to the scene rather than having it written out for them.
There were lots of experiments done with collage, with painted on textures and with colour choices:
These experiments all culminated in the final painting:
It takes lots of liberties with composition and realism but is most definitely a summary of how I feel about the location with just enough detail to describe the house. I hope you enjoy it now that you know a little bit more about it and that understanding some of the process that goes into a painting is helpful in your own interpretations too. Sometimes it’s not all about getting a realistic image, a creative response can work just as well.
Tomorrow is the last day of DAW – can you believe it? I’ll be doing a live broadcast at 17:00 (UK Time) on my Facebook page to raise a glass to thank you for all your support during our time together but don’t despair there are still lots of exciting things to share with you and I’ll outline them tomorrow so you can add them to your calendar, until then take care, Ali.
