Clitheroe – oil painting of the town

This is my new picture which I am currently working on. I managed to record its beginnings.

In this short video see how my town is emerging from nothingness of the canvas. Through lines and shapes, strokes of a brush, splashes of ink; I am forming, creating and bringing to life a town, my town, formed from a white cloud and confusion of my thoughts and ideas.

I really felt like GOD, having total control over this scene, left purely to my imagination. It is so empowering and scary – I can do anything with this picture and my intentions are good – I want the summer, the sunshine, energy and buzz. But it is easy to turn the image into a gloomy, terrible world, and then these buildings, bushes, trees and people will be locked forever in the hell of my mistake.

STAGE 1: Oil painting, establishing colour scheme.

I’ve spent hours painstakingly mixing paints, trying to find the right colour. My aim was to leave an impression of summer afternoon with its strong sun lights and contrasting shadows.

The colour was really important but I couldn’t decide on a colour scheme. Because I wanted the feeling of  summer with plenty of sunshine, going into a yellow–pink scheme felt like the most suitable direction.  But the nuances are so difficult – too much yellow, makes it too fresh for a summer, adding too much orange will make it look tired and dark! I used vibrantly deep Ultramarine Blue for the shadows which colour, derived from purple seemed the most appropriate. However, red and orange hues would give a feeling of an evening. I also thought about green but I don’t really like green after all, not in its pure form as such colour would remind me of a Spring. Yet, I wanted to show summer with its hot, bright colours based on yellow and ochre, pink and peach.

STAGE 2: Enamel

Now it’s finally time for fun!: enamel. This is the time when my hand goes free, it has a chance to improvise and relax. This is a time of FREEDOM. This is also a time to make quick decisions when the enamel runs down from my palette knife.

I have settled to leave the surface of the buildings in a pink, peach kind of colour. I have then added bright, light blue and pink lines, highlighting the tops of the roofs and edges of walls. Blue and pink are contrasting, nearly complementing themselves so the combination should create a contrast I desire. However, those bright lines weren’t that visible, they blended with the light colour of the buildings. I’ve added medium blue (Cerulean)  and it started showing some visible changes.

Adding yellow only on the buildings’ side and white on the top of the roofs would show highlights on those shapes. The navy blue is going to go in the shadowy places, tracing the outlines of buildings and windows.

Not too much, it could be easy overworked!

Clitheroe, Oil and enamel on canvas. 100cm/80cm

The enamel work was fun! But I needed to be quick, the paint is running off my tool uncontrollably.

This painting is being painted for an open exhibition at Stewards Gallery in Clitheroe Castle, titled ‘Town v Country’.

It’s nearly finished. I am going to wait for it all to dry and using some dry brush technique – layer of rubbed paint on the top of existing image – I want to leave the town in the sunny mist.

What do you think? I would really appreciate and welcome your constructive feedback. Please subscribe to my blog to learn about my art techniques and colour.

Details of the exhibition to follow.