Description

I decided to use one of my precious few canvases to paint something formal during the lockdown, to hone my skills as a landscape painter. I love painting landscapes, and while I’m surrounded by the dramatic scenery of Andalusia, I want to capture more of it!

I’ve painted blue trees and the deep yellow land before, so I knew that would work. However, the red sky and water are new. They actually started off pink, but very quickly turned to cadmium red.

I felt like I needed to be disciplined and get every detail of the painting down before I could experiment and have fun. Once the canvas was completely covered in paint, (I was trying to use the right tones while using the wrong hues) I started to play a little with my brush strokes. I swirled around in the wet oil paint, to un-refine my brush marks – but not too much!

It’s these touches that give the painting life, that makes it more expressive and interesting to look at.