Welcome Comments

I was surprised and gratified this evening to find a comment by Béatrice Cloake on a painting I posted in the Gallery back in September (the Elephant Hole Cave). It's really very pleasant to get comments however old the painting may be - I have plenty much older than that one - because, quite apart from one's natural gratitude for a kindly word, it makes you re-visit the painting and take another look at it. I was pleased with that painting, insofar as I'm ever really pleased with anything I do, not because it was a great triumph but because it represented what I saw on that day even though, perforce, I had to work from photos and sketches: it would have been impossible to set my easel up there - it was hard enough to reach the cave without breaking a leg. If you can struggle through to the picture, you'll find I've offered a tip on painting green vegetation - with which I know many have trouble. Basically - the earth tends to be dark - so lay your darks down first in thin paint (this applies to oil and acrylic) and add your greens, with suitable variety, in brush strokes over the top. You can cover a lot of ground very quickly that way, just using brush strokes (ie, shaping the strokes to the forms of grass, leaves, twiggy bits), highlighting those areas that would catch the light. This will give you far quicker and generally more convincing results than you'll get if you try laying down light colours on white canvas, working darks and shapes into it subsequently - because that way, you're more likely to get very thick paint, and lots of mud - especially if you have any uncertainty about your light colours and try adjusting them as you work. This won't work in watercolour in the same way, of course. But you knew that..... Anyway: don't hesitate to comment on older work if you stumble across it - there's no statute of limitations at work here, and comments are still appreciated even if the work is years old.