For this exercise, I wanted to chose a photograph that would appeal to my taste both in the actual landscape, but also the colours used within it. This being so, I wanted to choose a warm landscape with a rock formation and receding hills, and so when I typed in English landscape into Google, I searched through the photos until I found one that I liked.
The first step that I took was to experiment with the composition, cropping the image shifting the image and changing the focal points, as there was a tree and a rock formation in the middle ground, that could both potentially be the focus of the piece. Within these experiments I also produced tonal studies and colour studies of the ideas that I wanted to explore. After experimenting with using a portrait frame rather than a standard landscape, I began painting in the portrait frame, but did not take to the composition, and so I began a new painting in square form using the squaring up method from the previous exercise which helped quicken the sketching process.
After sketching, I began painting using very rich, autumnal colours to give a warmth, but also depth as I had a degree of aerial perspective to convey within the painting.
With the painting which is shown below, I believe that I may have been influenced by the photograph than I should have been, often checking for detail, but with that, I do believe that my colour choices and style were my own, as I changed certain shades to work with my own preferences and simplified the landscape in order for the composition to not look crowded with too much detail and marks.
SOPHIE FAWCETT'S OCA LEARNING LOG 