The Humber Bridge Under Three Different Skies

With one eye on my preferred Landscape Of The Year venue, today was a day to paint another bridge under three different skies. Unfortunately my rejection email came through partway through the painting, so I won’t be on the telly for at least another year. If there are any judges looking, this is what you missed out on.

I used my normal three sky colour schemes, so from left to right it was:

• rose dore, Indian yellow and cerulean bkue
• quinacridone magenta, Mayan blue genuine and transparent yellow
• Winsor red, raw sienna and French ultramarine

In previous three sky jobs I’ve also used a blue if Winsor blue green shade in the left panel but I didn’t bother today. At one point I tried adding white highlights in gouache but wasn’t impressed by the results, so wet the marks and dabbed them off.

Really there’s not much to say about this painting. I put in the sky and water first, not reserving any whites. When they were dry, I mixed neutral colours for the bridge and water ripples, then slightly bluer neutrals for the far shoreline. As finishing touches I added in some vehicles, wet and dabbed off some of the bridge towers to create some fog and tried and failed to add white highlights to the towers and cables. And that was me done. It all felt a bit rushed, just like this post, but that rejection was painful.

Looking at the painting now, the skies are nowhere near as good as those in my painting of Kingsferry Bridge. The clouds in the left and middle panel are too blobby and not willowy enough. And I’m not keen on the paper towel marks in the panel in the right. Still, this is good enough to go up for sale. Just because I’ve done better before doesn’t mean this one doesn’t have its merits.