Wastwater

I've been playing around with watercolour landscapes recently but thought it high time I returned to the oils for a little while!

The last couple of days I've been working on these two little 7x5 inch oils, one is a commission and the other for my amusement only. I've based them on a couple of photos I took on a days watercolour painting workshop at Wastwater last February.

I hope you can get a feel of the weather that day from the paintings, It's hard to believe that they were both taken on the same day! The day started with a blizzard then cleared to reveal glorious views of Wastwater before starting to snow again late afternoon, I've never painted watercolours in the snow before, it certainly gave a whole new meaning to the term wet on wet!

For those of you who don't know Wastwater it is on the Western side of the English Lake District and has the most jaw-dropping views of Haystacks, Great Gable and as shown here, the Wasdale screes.

Wastwater is also the deepest lake in the Lake District so if you see it on a wintery day such as the day I was there it looks almost navy blue it is so deep.

The second little oil below depicts the same scree but a little later when the sun came out. It is still not quite finished in the foreground, I worked on this last night and just didn't get my values right, the light maybe and not concentrating?, however I've wiped out the wrong values and will re-paint the foreground.... why I love oils!

Little Sophie on the day doing a spot of sunbathing before the snow returned!