Milly in her studio

What materials and tools are essential in your landscape practice?
I use a kidney scraper, large flat brushes, masking tape with spray paints, oil paint sticks and tubes.

How do your preliminary studies feed into the final painting?
My preliminary studies are to work out my composition, which I sketch on to the canvas.

Do you work from sketches, photographs, memory, or a combination, and how much freedom do you allow yourself to depart from the original source?
I use a combination of sketches and photographs which I start the painting with, then I turn them away and continue reacting to what’s on the canvas.

Your work balances abstraction with a strong sense of place. How do you decide when a painting has moved ‘far enough’ from representation while still retaining its landscape identity?
Keeping the horizon line is always a strong indicator of a landscape. When the painting is working, it is usually after going through messy layers and then regaining the structure. 

Growing Season, 100x100cm, oil on canvas

Could you talk us through a painting that didn’t go to plan?
If I feel a painting is not working I will turn it upside down and sketch another composition. Painting over texture and different paint layers makes for more exciting marks and colours when scraping away.

How do you problem-solve when a landscape feels unresolved, overworked or stuck?
I always paint a few canvases at a time, stopping them at various stages, which allows me to think about the painting with fresh eyes. Quite often the solutions appear many weeks later after leaving them on the studio wall. Living and working within the landscape you paint must be hugely influential. It allows me to react to the weather and different light conditions. 

How does the rhythm of farming life, seasons, weather and labour, shape your working routine and creative mindset?    
When the farm is at its busiest seasons, Spring and Autumn, there are always lots more going on and the landscape changes every day. I emerge myself in the landscape with walks and take photos that are used later to jog my memory back in the studio.

What has been the most important learning curve in your development as a landscape painter so far?
Keep my mind on the message I want to focus on while painting and experimenting with new processes.

Germination, 100x100cm, oil on canvas

Was there a breakthrough moment, technique or shift in thinking that changed your approach?
When I realised there are different transparencies and saturations of oil paints it opened up a whole new perception of creating the illusion of space and depth in my paintings.

 Finally, what are you currently exploring or hoping to push further in your landscape work?
I am currently exploring the farmer within my landscapes, not only the marks and patterns he leaves behind in his work, but how much he becomes part of the landscape at different times of the year.

Are there new ideas, scales or directions you’re excited to pursue next?
Every farm has a human element, often many generations have worked on the landscape. I like to paint the buildings and landscapes in an abstracted way that focuses on the personal things that mean something to the farmer and his family. 

Abstract landscape painter Milly captures the marks and patterns made over time by all those who live and work in the fields. For more information visit her website.