The Old Man Of Storr

It’s a double painting day today. This time I’ve gone for a conventional landscape for the first time in a while.  It’s the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye.  I’ve been up to the Storr and it’s the most wonderful isolated spot I’ve ever been in.  Strongly recommended.

Most of the painting only used French ultramarine, quinacridone magenta, burnt sienna (making its debut) and transparent yellow.  Burnt umber was used in the rocks.  I used the Terry Harrison technique of painting the rocks in nice vibrant colours first, then painting over them. Wealth thick mix of French ultramarine and burnt umber and finally scraping the dark stuff off with. A credit card. some granulating fluid was used in the greenery and in the pinky middleground.

It’s another painting with pros and cons.  Big successes were the sky, the (soft for once) background and the vibrancy of the colours (transparent colours are the way forward). Also worth mentioning the shadows where I used a complimentary primary (quinacridone magenta) rather than taking the easy route with Payne’s grey or sepia. But the rocks let the painting down. That’s a bit of a bummer when they’re supposed to be the star of the show. I don’t know what went wrong.  Maybe I laid the dark on too thickly.  Or maybe I shouldn’t be doing this on rough surfaced paper. More experimentation is needed.

Overall, this is a reject.  After covering it in a purple looking glaze as an experiment, I’ve cut it up to use as collage material.