Mist

This painting began as a study for a larger work of Eilean Shona but while painting it the light suggested a park, which it then became instead. A few paintings follow this course if there is something particular about the first few layers I put down, this occurs more often with the smaller oils. Overtime my painting technique has changed from a technique using colour in stains of thinner paint with lots of turps to painting more wet on wet with opaque paint. The aim of both techniques is to convey shifting light in a spontaneous manner. In this painting there are many ambiguous marks, which could be rain falling or branches running close to the picture plane. There are other marks in white, which are more gestural and could be birds or leaves and debris caught in the breeze. Sometimes these are the types of marks I want to make instinctively, ones I want to repeat, like a language built up over time.