Collectively these paintings are intended to address the scale of Runnymede and the fickleness of spring weather here. Most of them take a wide view of the place - one of the ones I haven't started yet will actually contain a 180º field of view. In all of them, the landmark building is dwarfed by the mead which is in turn dwarfed by the sky. This first one, showing the Founder's Building of the Royal Holloway University lurking on the horizon, takes the tightest crop. It shows one end of the building almost a mile away but still dominating the Staines end of the mead. I have given the building a character which is half animal by exaggerating its owl-like shape and half paternal - it dominates in a supervisory way, not a threatening way - and it becomes part of the landscape as there is no boundary visible between the building and the line of trees on the horizon and because the trees and falling light by turns echo and reflect its shape. Both the hedge bounding the mead and the landscape have been reduced to simple cloud-like bands of layered transparent colour. The sky reflects this as we almost stare into the sun; it is a gentle, warm haze which may or may not be lightly clouded and it gives the painting a calm, almost feminine feel.
This painting is perhaps my favourite of the three although it has proved to be a bit of a git to photograph; it has lost a lot in translation from the painting - perhaps because the painting hangs so much on faint directional brush strokes and the interplay between opaque and transparent paint. It shows the Air Force memorial although this view doesn't exactly exist - I had to wear my x-ray spectacles to remove several trees. In the real world you can only really see the very top of the tower from this viewpoint. I love its dynamic feel and, again, the building is given animal qualities. It stands proud atop the hill with its back to the wind and wings spread wide. The wings of the building have missing edges and, combined with the treatment of two areas of trees at either end of the building, this makes them truly wing-like. There is an ambiguity about the building's relationship with the wind. Is it just standing there, joyfully feeling the wind on its back? Is it actually whipping the wind into a frenzy? Or is it exhorting the landscape to rise up and join it? In the flesh, the building belongs to the ground but dreams of the air as is appropriate for an airmen's memorial. In the painting, the colours mean it belongs to the sky and it appears to be trying to lift itself up, taking the hillside with it. Key to achieving this is the use of two different sets of not-quite-verticals in my rendition of the building.
This painting is late in the afternoon on a four-seasons-in-one-day sort of day - pretty standard April weather in Southern England. The two lodges are hunkered down below the tree-line at the edge of the mead, taking what shelter they can from the wind whilst basking in a sudden burst of sun. They are reduced to a beautiful combination of warm browns and I am delighted with their economy. You'll need to click on the picture to see the bigger version to appreciate it. I may post a close up later.
This painting shows the colours which I am using to tie the series together most clearly - the sky is pthalo blue and zinc white, the clouds are based on an indigo made from pthalo blue and vermillion which is largely scrubbed away, contrasted with lemon yellow, indian yellow and raw umber with highlights in impasto flake white. These colours are the foundation and common link between all of the paintings.
I am really looking forwards to doing the next three!
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