I ventured out with Molly last week to Steer’s Field, Ranmore, one of my favorite places to walk and paint. I set up and started well but soon lost my way. I was quite clear about the how to approach the sky and distance but fell away when it came to middle and near distance. The vegetation is too complicated to work out when you are tired and Molly is saying hello to every dog and their owner.

Here is the scene:

And this is my attempt Plein Air:

As you can see its not got a very good tonal range and I’m having difficulty with the trees and fields.

So I set about working on the same picture from home with the idea that I can use any techniques learnt when I go out again.

Here are three stages in the picture’s construction:

The finished picture:

My colours have a wider cold-warm range, there is more tonal contrast and I’ve included detail but without going down the ‘every leaf and grass blade route’. There are problems with the foreground trees but hey I can’t fix it all on one go…

There is a blurred feel about the painting but when seen in the ‘flesh’ then I think it works.