Demos at Caster & Nettleham

I seem to have had a run of demos and workshops of late. The latest two this week were at Nettleham just outside Lincoln and at Caster just outside Peterborough.
Both were very well attended with enthusiastic artists.
I chose to work from a pencil sketch in my sketch book

Pencil sketch - Barnack

I prefer to work from a tonal drawing rather than a photograph. I helps me to concentrate on tone rather than colour.

Using Atelier Interactive Acrylics I worked with a fairly limited palette of
Yellow Ochre
Cadmium Yellow
Cobalt Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Quinacridone Magenta
Crimson
Burnt Umber
White

 My main objective was to paint a landscape without using greens and at the same time create a harmonious picture.

Demo - Nettleham

I worked on it for an hour and a half which was probably too long as it started to tighten up. When it was finished and framed I felt the overall painting didn't hang together well enough.

The next day at Caster I decided to try the same painting again but this time I dropped the use of the Cadmium yellow.

Demo - Caster

This I felt worked a lot better also, I didn't spend as long on it. My main crit of this one is that I used too strong a dark for the bare tree on the left and maybe I could have got more light in the water but rather than fiddle I did a second painting after the coffee break .

Thanks to Robert Paskin for the photo

I don't like to repeat the same painting but for me, this time it was a valuable exercise. Maybe it's something I should ask my students to do. Paint the same picture twice using different colours.