Moorscape 1 by David Whitehead

Beautiful scene, lovely rainy sky.

A really great painting David, it says everything about the moors, I love the way you have the clouds shedding the rain, the light wall against the dark moor is just that kind of light that gets you reaching for your waterproof. Superb colours so true to the moor and giving a great sence of distance away to the horizon. That great tree, so typical anchors everything, great job.

Yes a very realistic feel to this David, better get the waterproofs out!

I like this a lot, and you raise a very interesting point in your comment on it, too. I tend to paint a scene as I remember it, with a bit of help from sketches. I do work from photographs, but never religiously because I don't see the point, and it makes my work very tight. On the other hand, I was almost accused a while ago of not painting a scene "properly" - I'd moved a hill, shifted a tree, simplified a building. I don't know if I'd have got nearer to the reality if I'd painted from life - but I do find it very hard, physically, to do that now. Perhaps the point is not to assign place names to impressionistic pictures - although there's a positive appetite to know where the scene was, as you've suggested: "I know that view" - good: you take me to it, and I'll say that's where it is....

Beautiful graded washes David.

Lovely muted colours, a very pleasing painting.

Thank you all for your comments, glad it strikes so many chords! Yes, it&#39;s an imaginary scene but each separate element exists somewhere, and has just lodged in my minds eye, or sketchbook, from regular moorland wanderings.<br /><br />It is most heartening that this picture evokes the feel of the moors in others, it makes it all worthwhile. I once overheard a couple discussing a painting of mine at our art society exhibition saying &quot;yes, it&#39;s watercolour, but gritty, not pretty&quot;. Since then I&#39;ve taken it as a motto, I suppose.