September

This is a simple painting. Small, and just illustrating the changing of the seasons. The most difficult part, for a beginner, is the curving track which leads the eye into the painting. Not the painting of the track, but its shape. It establishes scale and distance. You will remember the classical image demonstrating perspective – the straight converging railway tracks, meeting at the horizon. Adding the curve establishes the angle of the plane of the ground. Now the lines are converging but the shape of the curve is also obeying the laws of perspective. Think of a quarter of an oval and not a circle.

Circle and Oval

The colours (discussed in previous post) are Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Cerulean Blue and Raw Umber (plus, of course black and white). Also, a tiny bit of Cadmium Red for the tractor. Much of the mixing of the colours is on the canvas, especially in the sky. As you will see in the video the colours are placed in an almost haphazard way. This is to create a ‘randomness’ in the painting which helps avoid regular patterns which we instinctively do, and this does not look natural (see here).