Evening glow, Wicklow hills

This painting turned into a sunset almost by accident. The scene is a collection of elements, like somewhere you come across while walking the dog. The details are hidden in the shadows leaving you guessing about what is in front of you. These shadows always cause problems when painting over several sessions. The darker colours dry flat and subtle differences between tones are lost. ‘Oiling out’ is the solution to the problem but the previous layers must be thoroughly dry or you will lift the paint. ‘Oiling out’, basically means rewetting the painting and I usually use Liquin applied lightly over the dull patches. At this stage the painting has a multitude of semi-dry patches which are featureless and I find I am tending to overpaint these already detailed areas. I will wait a few days, apply the Liquin, see what emerges from the shadows and maybe apply a few more details.

This painting, to date, has taken about 3 hours. I videoed the process and will have to edit it down before I apply ‘time lapse’ to reduce it further to a ‘non boring’ 10 minutes.