in love with barley fields

I’ve had some time this week to paint, using the village hall that our art group is held in during term time, for a studio

It got rather hot in the heat wave we just had, but was fine in the mornings as there are two big ash trees to the east of it.

I’ve been photographing the spring barley which is only just starting to drop its heads. last week it still had rippling waves of light as the wind blew across

then the different times of day worked on it in different ways

so my first attempt this week had the close up of barley heads but the field and the sky as well

I discovered that it was easier than I had thought to give an impression of the long whiskers or haulm

I find that dark reds and browns are needed to base vegetal material, and that with my new schminke acrylic paint I’m getting the translucence

needed for dark layering

the evening light and shadow gave me another colour for the barley

evening blues where the trees shadow the edge of the crop

this one had a ground base of green

with many layers of blue and brown for the deep shadow

then yesterday, walking at seven am to avoid the daytime heat

the light with the background trees was liquid and made the trees fade to indigo

the I got even braver and painted just a small section of the trees and the barleyfield

with a highly textured gesso to catch the brush strokes and the paint

this was the final result

also I’m trying to do more of the ink drawings

and one of the images that I drew in June resulted in a painting today

buttercups and the dog

I’m learning a lot about painting technique, all this is new for me

here is the blocking in, starting to use the palette knife for sections

and then part of the top painting is palette knife. with the acrylic paint which dries so quickly, the thicker application with the knife gives something to work wet into.

I’m having such fun