Believe it or not, these two are more or less the same view of Crummock Water! The little bay in painting one just wouldn’t come in painting two – trouble with the palette knife again. This time I wasn’t cold or wet as I was wearing four layers underneath a waterproof. Thus there was only the wind across the lake to contend with as well as the palette knife. We were quite high above the lake and I was a little nearer the lake in the second one. The clouds have action but the form is strange. The colours of the foreground again eluded me, but I was beginning to come to terms with the ever changing light, especially the tonal difference of sky and lake. I still don’t understand why the colour mixes were so elusive. The provided palette for the week was Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt, Cerulean Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red. Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow and White, none of which are strange or new to me, and while I missed my Burnt Sienna, it wasn’t crucial, especially for the greens. The palette itself was white, but so was the canvas. so the mystery lives on.
The knife was beginning to be more controllable, the sweep of hills and mountains being easier to express with a single stroke. I’m rather pleased with this mountain. There is a sense of it sweeping down to the lake, with scree slopes, and wooded valleys. But that wretched promontory, (another right-hander) just wouldn’t go right.
I distinctly remember a few strokes I put on with the palette knife upside down and me behind the easel. These wrong-handed landscapes are a bit of a trial…
It does seem that the palette knife deals well with sweeping mountainsides but causes problems with fiddly bits. I like the image of Rachel’s solution.