View from the Bus

This has a lovely composition, and I like the soft sky. What a climb for the bus!

saw the angle of the hill , the foliage and just knew it had to be a R J . though your hills usually go the other way round . Left to right not right to left .no I didn't mean upside down .... ! .I assume you were sitting upstairs on the bus? Cos the gates at an odd angle to.... But after all that I do like it.

Yes, I like it to, it's very colour coordinated Robert! And the poor old bus must struggle as Sylvia says to get up that hill, would think you will have plenty of time to get a sketch or two or three in before the bus had even made it up that hill!

A difficult angle Robert, but I've noticed you don't do conventional or easy. A challenge well met. Could I ask whether you have used a little raw umber on the fields? I have just purchased a tube and would like to know your thoughts on it's uses....or not.

Fiona - not Raw Umber, no: the fields are basically Raw Sienna, plus SAA Aureolin, darkened with dioxazine violet; the sky is almost pure Transparent Turquoise (a tint of Pthalo Blue, with maybe a very slight touch of Venetian Red). The foreground is basically Perylene Green (which I'm not at all used to using) plus Sepia. I could just as easily have used Viridian or Phtalo/Winsor Green with Burnt Umber - I rather like the Perylene Green, though, and may use it again. You'd get very different results with a different palette,of course -I like to ring the changes now and then, but as someone has said elsewhere, the paper is what really makes the difference.

PS - there must be a blue in the fields as well: I suspect it has to be Transparent Turquoise (Daler Rowney) because I'm pretty sure I didn't use any other blue in this one.

Just my cup of tea; something different and intriguing. It certainly indicates a vertiginous slope!

This is a very unusual view of a field/ slope/clearing and the more I look at it the more I like it. The sky is clear and the light descending on the field is beautiful. I also like the wind swept trees on top of the hill. Good one Robert!

Love it. The angle is so steep I nearly fell off my chair looking at it. Another great painting.

Thank you Robert for your information on colours used. I haven't even heard of half the colours you mentioned, I'm afraid my palette is very basic......saves the confusion!

This is also lovely work, Robert, but I can see the difference between the performance of the Bockingford and Fabriano. I actually think you work is better suited to Fabriano as it shows off your love of strong greens and portraying light in an expressive way to better advantage.

Robert...Just now catching up on your work...what a pleasure, and haven't seen much of your watercolour work, so it is refreshing to do so. Struck by your comment 'When the bus had to stop.....' It is stopping increasingly for me also! Cheers.

Thea - as I say on the other painting, I think you're right about that: I felt much more at home with the Fabriano than with Bockingford or The Langton: there was just so much less struggle about it - the paper seemed to cooperate with what I wanted to do; and I had to use much less water - which was a bit surprising, given the extra tooth of the paper...... Not being a natural watercolourist at all, I was really surprised by the extreme difference the paper makes: far more than different canvas or whatever for the oil and acrylic painter. The lovely Alan also sent me a piece of 300lb Hahnemuele paper, whIch I'm saving for a special one, and much look forward to trying.

Ah, Ruth - the bus stops all too often, doesn't it? Seriously, though - next time you're on the bus, take a look at your fellow passengers; nearly all of them will be absorbed in their paper, paperback, phone or whatever; all too few will be looking out of the window.. I find myself saying to people, look, look - there's a buzzard/heron/fox/stoat .... and some of them look, and some of them thank me for bringing it to their attention; but all too many just gaze all the harder at their ******* Ipads. And probably think I'm a mad old git. (Well - I AM a mad old git: even so - try looking out of the perishing window now and then, eh...?)