the colours of May most of the wild flowers in May are creamy white – cow parsley, guelder rose, bird cherry – with blues – the bluebells and the forget-me-nots – and red campion, although there are still plenty of yellow dandelions of course. but the fields are dominated by the strident yellow of canola, or rape-seed, through April and May. accompanied by the sickly sweet smell, and much spraying of chemicals however, I decided to make the most of it and managed a couple of paintings that are almost pure colour. the first a small board, an old early painting gessoed over – lots of nice texture. starting with the horizon and my new regime of runny paint .. I arrived at this, fairly free with marks and spots of balancing reds and blues and scrapes and scratches the brightest colours more or less hidden – cerulean just peeping through the yellow in a close-up. meanwhile Cakes lane has been a froth of green and white here is the bird cherry, almost like a wild lilac, with its own scent although last year I was reluctant to engage with all that green in paint, I thought I’d give it a go this time. starting with some drawing all those wiggly branches and the blue sky … hard to know where to start on the greens .. but I used a lot of other colours and contrasts and textures .. quite happy with this. it’s a canvas 50 x 50 cm. as for the bluebells – isn’t it frustrating trying to photograph them! the blue always looks so faded. what I love is the wood with the pale green light between the tree trunks and the soft new beech leaves I tried to paint them last year, and got an interesting abstract design but too dark and formal, not enough happening with the paint, so I got it out, threw various things at it and worked back in I have so many more tools on my belt now. all that blue called me back to the yellow, and a bigger version of the canola/rape field. more colour under it, bolder! I really had fun with mark-making and with the colours I put back in over the yellow at the end close-ups show you better it would be an abstract if it wasn’t for the horizon strip I saw this a week or so later when the yellow had abated might be the next painting. meanwhile however I am trying to finish a load of pots I made last summer – have managed the bisque firing, and am glazing for a firing this week. then there will have to be another later, there are plenty of bisque pots up there. Post navigation looking back at April’s big paintingat last, back to the kiln One Comment Great blog, as ever 🙂 Reply Leave a Reply to TrishCancel reply This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.