I've not posted for quite a while as I've been busy working on gallery commitments and doing a lot of studio and plein air work. I visited Edinburgh last week on a painting trip. We had lovely weather all week and I got some work done that will be in my exhibition at The Torrance Gallery, Edinburgh later this year. I'll post more details about that soon. Here are some of the paintings I made, in situ, and also a few that I photographed properly after I got back. Thanks for looking.
The above painting was made contre-jour, with the sun glaring in my face for most of it, and also under the shade of trees in Prices St Gardens. This meant the panel I was painting on was really dark and I had to guess the values and colour mixes to some degree. I did occasionally turn the panel round into the sun to check what I was doing. In the past, paintings I've done in similar situations have failed terribly, ending up far too pale and washed out (as a result of me overcompensating for the panel looking so dark) but this time I was wary of that, and I keyed everything darker than what I would normally to counterbalance it. I was very happy with the result this time.
I really love the above spot for painting in Edinburgh, looking towards The Mound. It's fairly quiet and you can some very nice light effects.
I have resisted painting "The Castle" ever since I started painting Edinburgh, mainly because it's overdone and obvious, and this is the first time I've done so. On this occasion it was getting late and I couldn't find a spot to paint. I had planned on painting the West End but when I couldn't find anywhere I decided to bite the bullet and paint the castle. I didn't want to just do a portrait of Edinburgh Castle though, so when I saw it from St Cuthbert's churchyard through the trees, it appealed to me a lot more. It's hard painting anything in such flat light but I think the trees and path gave this one some depth anyway.
I was tired after driving for 4 hours to Edinburgh. This was the first painting I made, from the comfort of our hotel room, facing out on to Princes Street.
