Beside the Lake

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)

The yellow blobs of paint in the foreground needed to be recognisable as daffodils. These ‘explain’ the yellow blobs in other areas of the scene – they must also be daffodils.

I truncated the daffodil stems in the foreground to suggest we are looking over them and along the lake shore to the gate and further into the scene.

As usual I’m using various elements of the composition to draw the viewer into the painting. Diagonal lines, repeated shapes and colours. Like the strong yellow of the foreground flowers repeated in the reflections in the water and further to the sunlit trees in the distance, reinforced by the patch of bright sunlight in the top right corner of the painting, or the ‘scratchy’ line of the fence wire leading us to the ‘scratchy’ gate or the ‘zig-zag’ route through the daffodils to entice us in.

There are 3 colours used in this painting, Indian Yellow, Alizarin Crimson & Ultramarine Blue plus black and white. There is no medium used, only White Spirits. The size is 16.5″ x 12″ of primed un-stretched canvas which will be laminated onto a stiff board when the painting is dry.

Here is the video of the painting process. To view in realtime change setting to .25. Quality can also be set up to 1080HD.