More Windows ...

Turnbull Winter (work in progress)

This is a terrible photograph, I'm afraid. The studio light is reflecting far too much on the most recent layer of paint in the sky and skewing the balance of colours. Still, it serves to demonstrate that I'm back on this painting.

[Slightly better photograph uploaded 11 October 2010]

The painting is, in fact, giving me all sorts of problems. When I left it last time (can it really be June since I worked on it?) I knew it had become far too tight and fiddly and I was particularly unhappy with the trees. All of which put me off doing more to it: I didn't want to continue in that very descriptive manner, I knew there were many more windows to be put in (Windows! Why did I choose to be a painter of buildings?) and I didn't want to have to measure them and apply bits of masking tape.

I realised today that I needed to deliberately spoil the tidiness that was keeping me back, so I put in the new windows in a much more careless (carefree?) way. Irregularities can be made good as the picture goes along and while they're too dark at the moment, they can be knocked back easily enough later.. I've also painted over the trees, using a mixture of tools - rags, crumpled paper, a painting knife and a fan brush. The intention is for that to provide a better underpainting for the next session.

Finally, I used some of the paint mixtures on the palette to make thin layers mixed with white to film over parts of the sky. I've been doing that each time I've worked on the picture and it's starting to produce an effective glow.