Lancashire

Storm over Winter Hill

I got caught in a fantastic storm on a recent walk over the moors. Lashing rain and hail with dramatic clouds trailing over the wet moorland. I’m hoping to produce a few paintings based on photos like this one, above.

Darwen Tower 1, originally uploaded by David Pott.

Here’s one for all the people from Darwen, Lancashire (Darreners I think is the correct term). Its Darwen Tower from the flanks of Higher Hill with Tockholes in between.

Earnsdale Near Tockholes, originally uploaded by David Pott.

A low raking sun provides plenty of wonderfully bright, warm and colourful highlights contrasting with cool, dark areas of shade.

Earnsdale, near Darwen, originally uploaded by David Pott.

This was a watercolour sketch completed on site last month. Its impossible to get a ‘finished’ painting when outside. Nature just changes so quickly, the clouds are constantly changing and, on this occasion, the sun was setting so quickly that anything more complicated would have needed photographic reference.

Rivington Sunset

Originally uploaded by David Pott

Today has been a showery and warm day with big, dramatic clouds scudding across a very clear blue sky and occasionally dropping heavy showers on the parts of Lancashire beneath them. The clouds themselves are towering pillows of whiteness underlined by dark grey bands that produce the rain. When the rain falls from beneath the clouds they trail dirty veils of water behind them.

With the youngest child in bed, and the rest of the family playing computer games on the Wii, I packed my sketching equipment and headed up towards the high moorland at the back of Horwich, seeking out the dramatic views that I felt would be produced by the weather.

I wasn’t dissappointed. Anvil shaped thunderclouds made slow but majestic progress from Snowdonia, past the Wirral and alond the Sefton and Fylde coasts where they met the setting sun, silhouetted with the outline of Blackpool Tower below.

I came home with two or three quick sketches, countless photos (like the one at above) and a sense of marvel that nature can create so many rich and contrasting hues in a single sunset.

Hopefully I’ll be able to paint several oil paintings from the sketches, small watercolours and photos I took tonight. Sadly I don’t think any of them will match the original version!

Winter Hill Clouds

I’ve been told many times that, on a clear day, you can see the Isle of Man from the top of Winter Hill. I had begun to wonder if that wasn’t just an urban myth, passed from generation to generation of ramblers.

Now along comes www.viewfinderpanoramas.org - a useful site that contains computer generated panoramas  of views from many mountains around the world, with a special bias towards UK panoramas

Here’s the panorama it generated of the view from Winter Hill. And yes, you can theoretically see the Isle of Man in perfect conditions.

If you’ve ever seen the Isle of Man from Winter Hill, will you let me know? Better still if you can send me a photo!

This painting has existed in several versions and has developed over a very long period of time - approximately 2 years. Sometimes it takes several attempts to get a painting just right and this was one such painting.

The original view (i.e. the real life view) doesn’t have the tree in the left middleground area. It took a long time for me to realise that real life was artistically ‘wrong’ and that I need to make some improvements! With the addition of the trees, the viewers eye now has a lead-in to the painting which makes the composition much more satisfying.

I’m in the middle of a painting of part of the moorlands near my home in Lancashire. The moorland landscape is deceptively complex. On first glance it is almost minimal in its simplicity: hills, grasses, heather and sky. On closer investigation you can see the marks of human habitation and usage through thousands of years. Bronze age cairns and barrows, ancient paths and trackways, more recent stone quarries, coal mines and isolated farmsteads are all visible when you take the time to look and to learn the history of this landscape.

On a practical, artistic, level painting the moors allows an artist to experiment with landscapes that are so elemental as to be virtually abstract. Textures of grass, contours of hills, wild racing clouds and the scratching of crumbled walls, sheep paths and old excavations allow for bold brush strokes and expertimentation. Colours are muted, but rich reds and ochres add depth and vibrancy. Softness is provided by the ocean-like expanses of grasses.

Sometimes, I create a painting that just isn’t quite right. Sometimes I know straightaway why a painting isn’t right, sometimes it takes months before I realise, sometimes I never find out! Here’s a painting that I finished earlier this year but never felt was quite finished:

Its been in my studio since I finished it and last week it caught my eye. And as I looked at it I just knew extact what was wrong with it. So I repainted the foreground in a warmer, darker shade. Now the sense of distance between the foreground and the reservoir is just right and I’m finally happy with the painting. Here’s the new version:

Now the painting has a visual impact and integrity, and, importantly, it accurately reflects the the original mood of the painting. It’s my original vision of the real, original scene. And that’s the most important thing for an artist. I hope you like it too.

I’ve been spending some time on the Lancashire coast at Lytham St Annes. The horizons are broad and dramatic. The distance from the dunes to the sea can be nearly a mile at certain times of the day, and to walk out into the vast flatness of that landscape is to feel very insignificant and small. The light was so bright and pure the scene seemed almost to vibrate. The girls are my twin daughters.

When painting this kind of landscape I find it almost essential to include a few figures within the composition, to give that sense of human smallness, otherwise the human eye has no visual clues to give reality to the scale of scene.