Midsummer Dream
A ‘constructed’ painting, this is an imaginary scene. Well, a scene made up of several bits of beautiful sunny landscape. In Ireland this is a rare commodity and now, as I paint this picture, the wind and rain is battering the house.
Because of how the composition was put together, several scenes were ‘buried’ with layers of afterthoughts. In a few days when I look at the video of my painting process, with fresh eyes, I will probably see several places I should have stopped painting. However it was good fun to do and a good learning process.
As usual the palette was limited to 4 colours, Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Umber, Permanent Rose and Ultramarine Blue, plus black and white, of course. Also similar to recent work I have not added any medium to the paint, just White Spirits to thin it and make it flow.
I will post the video in a few days. See you then.
PictureS 
There is ‘something’ different (in a good way) about this piece. I, of course, speak from the perspective of a beginner and would never be so bold as to think I know much – I learn from you. With that said, there is, to me, an indecisiveness (again, in a positive sense), in the ‘flow’ of the painting, specifically with the highlights in the left foreground trees, as if, maybe, you were overjoyed by the sunshine (not such a bad thing, considering the climate, right?) I submit that you didn’t overpaint, but did it just right, I love this piece, and in my humble opinion, it stands out among your best. Cheers, Scott
Thanks Scott for your considered thoughts. I am always struggling to maintain a sense of reality and not drift too much into the ‘dream world’. When the final layers are applied much of the world is obliterated by foreground. The video of the process is the only evidence that it existed. Every painting is a journey and sometimes the final destination doesn’t tell of the places we’ve been. Its why I video the painting process as part of the ‘art’, a bit like performance art.
I always learn something from your videos, and from your finished paintings. Thank you for sharing your process and your art
Absolutely beautiful and someplace I’d love to be… right now.
Thanks Trapper. I know what you mean. A little escapism, now and then, is OK. Now back to the real gritty world 🙂
love the fullness of the colors, gives a real sunny feeling in our for the moment dark grey sky…..
And the grey skies have retuned here as well. Good bye Cadmium Yellow, for the moment at least.