The Lost Heifers

Brightness was drenching through the branches
When she wandered again,
Turning sliver out of dark grasses
Where the skylark had lain,
And her voice coming softly over the meadow
Was the mist becoming rain.
(from The Lost Heifer by Austin Clarke)

An interesting part of this painting is the reflections of light on the stream on the left. The normal procedure, in oil painting, is to paint in the darker colours then the highlights of the reflections and ripples are finally painted on top. This is what I did in the foreground.

However, on the left I painted the highlight colour first. Its Windsor Lemon Yellow, a transparent rich yellow. It was applied with solvent only and by the time I was ready to ‘draw’ in the shadows and reflections, the solvent had evaporated.

The Lemon Yellow highlights are better, I think, in this situation. The transparency gives a subtle  inner glow which I don’t a ‘whitish’ colour would achieve.

Here’s the video. See you soon.