those colours behave will buy me a few more minutes when
I can’t really see what I’m doing. This intimate knowledge of
how paints behave, their opacity and transparency, colour
temperature and so on can be learned quicker with fewer
well-chosen colours. The apparent range of what three
colours and white can produce is astonishing. Fewer
pigments will also give a stronger sense of coherent colour
across the painting.I’ve seen other artists create small paintings on location
to make larger studio works. What information should I try
to record in the initial studies?
I’ve spent my life trying to learn how to do this but I do
know a few things. A big painting isn’t a big small painting
but an entirely different creature. A little piece of
observational painting, made quickly on the spot will have a
natural sense of unity about it that stems from being
painted in one mood and a single impulse. It will also be
knitted together by the relationship between the size of the
brush and the modest dimensions of the painting.
You might step across the whole image in just ten
brushstrokes. Painting bigger is done at a different pace,
often in many wets building up layer by layer. I’ll need more
information to complete the big picture and will probablymake several visits to a location and gradually accumulate
a mix of quickly-painted little studies together with some
bigger drawings, both linear and tonal, which will really
make me look. Back in the studio, decisions can be made
about how best to use all this material. The trick is to try to
keep the painting fresh and not let it become too earnest.
I don’t mind if things go wrong and I can re-paint quite
broadly, even if I’ve invested a lot of time and effort in
getting a painting to near completion.How do the seasons affect the quality of the light?
Don’t wait for ‘good’ light. Mid-summer colour can be a bit
strident and flat compared with the subtleties of painting
through the winter. Partly helped by a low sun, there’s a
richness in the landscape colour of bare earth and trees
and the milky colour of a winter sky which can be quite
haunting. The veiled quality of springtime trees before the
leaves close the view produces a landscape of great
transparency, and the slow burn of a fiery autumn is
something else to celebrate in paint.Richard will be exhibiting at the New English Art Club Open
Exhibition, 16-25 June, Mall Galleries, London SW1.
http://www.newenglishartclub.co.ukLEFT Dinghies
coming in, oil on
board, 25x30cm
RIGHT Verona, oil on
board, 23x30cm63 Your Questions_Pikesley.indd 65 10/05/2016 14:24