Sometime last October I embarked on a course run by Paintbox tutor Owen Normand. I’ve been exploring ways to express the landscape where I live in the hope of being able to capture at least a fragment of how it feels to live here in old orchard country.

The course lasted ten weeks, was based outdoors and I could fill ten blog posts on what we covered. However, for now, I want to touch on how it was to become the unexpected foundation of a new exhibition going up next month. The work is quite a change for me and I hope you will keep me company as I tell you about how it all evolved.

You know how much I love detail and how it’s an integral part of Drawing the Street. However, I want to develop my work and push into unfamiliar territory so it was a revelation to learn about many new artists to me including the work of Felix Vallotton and his approach to painting. It was his painting ‘Moonlight’ that captivated me and drew me to this course.

Owen’s invitation to the course stated:

‘The composed landscape course is all about mood over accurate representation.’

We began with sketching outside and apart from sketching a few trees, I lapsed back to drawing buildings as part of my landscapes.

‘Try to edit, simplify and arrange the elements of your scene to create paintings that are memorable and have a lasting emotional impact on the viewer.’

One corner had caught my imagination as I saw a small triangle of light set between dark shadows beside the corner of a high wall. After several different studies, it was this subject that I chose to prepare a monochrome paint study.

Owen kept reminding us – What was our painting about?

‘Focus on making compositions with the intention of communicating emotion or mood and trust that an imaginative design can trump painting technique.’

For me it was simple: it was that slice of light between the shadows that was drawing me in and wanting me to explore what was beyond the wall.

It’s one thing knowing what you have to do, but another thing altogether getting your paintbrush to oblige! However, those words ‘trust that an imaginative design can trump painting technique’ have been a lifesaver!

I didn’t realise at the time but this teaching has provided a solid foundation in getting my new body of work together for an exhibition in the Scrib Tree Dougas, from 1st march 2021.

I wanted to do something different, something to reflect the times we are in and my feelings about it all now. The pandemic has touched us all and I have to reflect our situation in some other way than my previous work.

I will be sharing how this body of work unfolds in my next few posts and hope you will join me here.

I will leave you with a flavour of the next post…my first thumbnail sketch of Douglas and the name of the exhibition…

‘Around the Corner’

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie