The old Windmill at Broad Eye - Plein air sketch. by Alan Bickley

Your sketches are always a pleasure to look at Alan and this is no exception.

Fantastic sketch. Love the colours and the lines; obvious really!

Work like this is a pleasure to the eye because it has a freshness and vitality that more finished works often lack . Interesting colour that paynes grey Alan I do remember Ron Ranson using it very effectively and I still have a book of his I bought as a child ; I've stared using a Ranson hake again very liberating indeed . You've got me thinking about paynes grey , I was looking at a couple of the great James Fletcher -Watson landscape paintings and he mixed a beautiful tree foliage colour using raw sienna and paynes grey for the light areas and burnt umber and paynes grey for the darker areas producing a beautiful tree colour . Thanks to you Alan I'm going to give this a go in tree foliage colours 😊

Beautifully worked Alan

Lovely Alan, Dermot I am not familiar with James Fletcher-Watson, but I do tend to use Paynes Gray with Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber which dependent on the mix can produce some lovely greens, I have also tried it with Yellow Ochre

Good colour and shapes here Alan.

Great sketch Alan.

Superb sketch Alan and in your car! Amazing! Very interesting to read about the use of Payne's Grey which seems to be a"marmite" amongst many professionals. You either love it or hate it and how many times have I heard that one must not use it. I use it all the time and there's nothing wrong with it.

Thanks everyone, so that's a thumbs up then for Paynes Grey, used with caution of course.

Excellent use of shapes, Alan. Superb piece.