So I was planning for this to be an abstract. It isn’t, but it is quite impressionistic and is the most abstract canvas I have ever done (mind you, we are on approx canvas no.6 in 20 years) so not too bad! Monet has definitely influenced this and the slabs of Rothko

So I’ll talk you through it.

Here is the image I was using as source material

So I moved on to laying down colour. And putting in the mountains. I tried to concentrate on giving more of an impression than the normal detail I would do. I quite like the feeling of these and the shape of the sections.

I then tried adding some blocky boulders in. But these seemed to have a mind of their own and stop being shapes and took on some light, shade and form. I then added a load of colour onto the bottom section quite thickly and dragged the colours through. I didn’t like how this worked though and overpainted it several times.

So I scrubbed and laid on more colour and tried out different brushes and palette knives until I sort of got the effect I was after. I smudged the colours in a little as the marks were a bit too defined. But I still struggled to get the front face of the lichened rock to marry with it’s top surface. Any cracks or facets to the rock were hard to get the impression of though.

To suggest facets to the rocks, I dabbed some lines on the rocks with the edge of the palette knife and it seemed to work really well.

A close up of the rocks.

A close up of the mountains.

I love the close up of this part of the painting. This is nicely abstract but with enough detail to be interesting.

The rest of the painting is OK, but I’m not overly enamoured with it. There is a lack of depth. However, as an experiment I am really pleased with the outcome. If I now felted this study, I really would be able to make this more abstract – so perhaps that should be the next step.

I will reflect on this piece how well it has worked and will write this up tomorrow whilst on the train.