Butchers Arms - Priors Hardwick

Oh I don't know - the way the washes merge on the roof is very effective.

This is lovely, quite attractive.

Because I think I know the style you're are painting in, perhaps I can offer a little feedback on this one. I think it could do with a little more white paper, possibly in the centre of the painting which always adds sparkle and light (Judi does this a lot). I have also found that putting the darkest detail around the top of the building and then letting it fade away to white paper gets a good effect and introduces light and stops the painting getting too bogged down in detail. Then if you do introduce some darkness into the foliage at the base of the building there is a good contrast in tone. You have some good lost and found edges which gives the painting interest. You might find it more effective to use more pigment in areas rather than having a watery look all over the painting. I think you could have got stronger under the roof line and chosen other small areas of the painting to emphasis. However, it is a very pretty and nicely painted work of which you should be pleased. I hope you don't mind me offering a bit of input but a lot of what you are experiencing in your painting is what I experience too - lots of very difficult decisions!

Thanks for the constructive comments Thea, I understand exactly what you are saying here and will endeavour to incorporate them in a second version. Unfortunately I still tend to get carried away working all over the painting, often applying pigment to areas I did not intend to. May I ask if you use tube colours or pans in your work and do you change palettes for different subjects?

I do use tube colours, but have no objection to pans. As long as you keep both really wet they work just fine. I don't change my pallette from painting to painting, but I do add in colours sometimes, like permanent rose if it is for flowers. I will also add in mineral violet if I need that shade. Otherwise I use fairly typical pigments that are usually in most pallettes. I do use carmine extensively and always use the Holbein one as it is the best shade. I do very little mixing on the pallette and if I am using two or three colours together the most they get is a quick swish so that you can still see the component colours. Mostly though I let the paint do its work on the paper. When I painted the duck at the base of the wine bottle, I had no idea what the paint was going to do and it very nicely merged at the bottom. Trust the paint is what I say as when I try to micro manage the paint, it always looks laboured and over-worked. Hope this helps.