Coppiced Trees

Coppicing, in case you don’t know, is a practice of woodland management, whereby the thees are harvested of their branches and the stump left to produce more wood. Its an ancient practice in Europe to produce renewable wood for all sorts of purposes from wattles for housing and baskets to charcoal production.

This is a small painting, 11″x8″, and was painted in about an hour. 3 colours are used, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber and Prussian Blue. White is also used, but no black. Solvent (White Spirits) is used at the beginning and at the end, in fine lines. Otherwise its a dry painting method. Not using black is something I’m experimenting with at the moment. I’m also interested in producing a soft image which is strong and vibrant. In the past I made strong images with light and shade and black was a big part of this technique. Because there is no black used here, I’m trying to give strength by having a rough textured surface in this soft image. If you click on the above image you will see an enlarged version and note the underpainting is not completely covered by final layers of paint giving a ‘daubed’ effect.

‘Oiling out’ is important as the underpainting is very matt and when dry, this gloss difference between underpainting and final paint layers is too distracting. The layer of oil medium unifies the surface.

Here is the video of the painting process. See you soon.