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1 minute read
Spring
The changing landscape and colours were probably most abundant during the Spring months. Splashes of yellow from the rape fields, and the sparkling colours of the apple and cherry blossom trees – as well the brighter, fresher light – produced a variety of irresistible images.
I visited Windermere and Derwentwater in the Lakes, as well as the North Yorkshire Moors and Wolds. Stokesley, just south of Teesside, was a delight – some very interesting areas around Clay Hill and Roseberry Topping offered some very striking skyline shapes, possibly from old mining or quarry works.
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I also visited the Rosedale Abbey area near Helmsley in North Yorkshire, which had many reminders of working communities from centuries ago. I was camping again now, and was able to explore a greater variety of locations – including a very interesting copse of trees near Windermere that seemed to be very reminiscent of those Cezanne fir trees he painted in the South of France.
The light had changed now, far more fresher and cleaner, and these trees seemed to want to be painted, just springing out from the side of a hill adorned with bluebells. I felt that a lot of the images I painted tended towards abstraction – and as a ‘spin-off’ from the project, I could imagine some of the images interpreted into abstract works done in the studio. Maybe one day…
In some ways, I feel that many of the paintings painted throughout all four seasons, are indeed quite abstract – in as much that they are not always topographically correct or accurate, but more of a translation of the feeling of being in the landscape; so that the process itself becomes the subject of the work.
Not so much a rendition of a particular view, but more of an interpretation of it.
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Desolate road near Rosedale Abbey, Spring 20.5 x 26.5 cm
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Clcokwise from top left: Top of Windermere, Spring; Rosedale Ironworks, Spring; Near Helmsley, Spring
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