Jazz Green : Artist Journal

All posts tagged with... ‘fields’

March 17th, 2013

and yet another water log

norfolk field rain flood winter landscape

[the footpath was out of bounds, a lakeside view]

river rain flood landscape winter

[flooded meadows, next to the river, above the waterline]

winter landscape flood meadow norfolk

[flooded meadow, approaching snow island, calm waters]

norfolk landscape flood path rain winter

[flooded path near the river, no right of way]

norfolk field rain flood winter landscape

[another day, another meadow, choppy waters, no sea legs]

flood meadow rain norfolk winter

[see… someone left the flood gates open…]

March 1st, 2013

another winter stuck out in the sticks; or how i have endeavoured to evoke a fleeting sense of this winter landscape, in pictures.

what follows are some of my small sketchbook paintings (on paper) from the months of january and february.

flooded field landscape sketch painting

[flooded corner of a field, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

these small paintings will probably mean very little to those who do not live or work in the countryside, but perhaps to some of those who do, it might look slightly familiar: of dreary rain-drenched days, the flustering blustering wind which blows this way and that, or the earthy dampness of a foggy grey morning, the veil of mist or frost on fields, or days when the air is piercing and clear, freezing the landscape into a tundra-like quietude.

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[sketchbook paintings]

i am always drawn towards the skyline, where a thicket of skeleton trees or the raggedy fringe of a hedgerow meets the open skies.

and how, at this wintry time of year when this landscape seems even more bleak, earth and sky are still ever-changing in their hues (because of the weather)… on a bright winter’s afternoon when an expanse of dark brown field turns a shade of rippled bronze, or when a sulky leaden sky flattens the mired landscape with a melancholic hue.

dark dusk field hedgerow sketchbook painting

[dimly dusk, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

marsh rain landscape painting sketch

[rain on the marsh, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

it is also curious how the rural landscape in winter can give a [false] sense of being in a wilderness, because there are few houses, and in these modern times, very few people are needed to work this agricultural land.

this landscape can appear desolate at times.

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[sketchbook paintings]

remains of snow field landscape painting

[remains of snow, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

it’s always the little things that catch your eye: the vibrancy of green when framed by the gap in a spindly hedge, a puddled corner of a field glinting silver in the low sun, or the last traces of snow melting in the long shadows… insignificant, transient things.

anyone who cares to notice might want to tell you about these incidental things, never mind trying to take a picture…

suffolk winter landscape painting sketch

[snow melting, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

 field hill landscape sketch painting

[sketchbook paintings]

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[shingle hill, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

each painting ’sketch’ took about fifteen minutes, so cumulatively this amounts to only three hours of field work.

here, inside the pages of a sketchbook (or two), i was aiming to express, very loosely in paint, what the rural landscape looks and feels like on some days in winter, from observation, memory and experience. everyone will have their own point of view: nothing really changes, every day it changes.

it is interesting that buildings and people (or animals) do not interest me here, so perhaps i was only looking to seek that elemental sense of a wilderness in winter, isolating the isolation, finding solace in the solitude.

this is what i find myself returning to at odd moments when it seems i have made little headway in my other work. i hope one day to get better at expressing the thoughts and ideas in my head…

Where little pictures idly tells
Of nature’s powers & nature’s spells

June 11th, 2012

last year, i wrote that i planned to make a winter visit to constable country. well, dear reader, i did make a special visit to ‘Constable country’ in early march, which as any British person or Englishman will unhappily remind you if asked, still felt like the depths of winter. it was a bright day, on the cusp between winter and spring, the trees were still bare of leaves but the many surrounding fields were a vibrant shade of green with the sowings of winter wheat.

willy lotts cottage, dedham, constable country

Willy Lott’s cottage, Flatford Mill, March 2012

i was very pleased the two ducks stopped waddling briefly for this photograph by the glassy millpond at flatford mill, but i was disappointed the glare of the sun burnt out the white fluffy clouds. the owners of Flatford Mill (now a field studies centre) must work very hard to preserve this iconic English pastoral scene so that visitors can say how wonderfully it still resembles the famous painting nearly two hundred years later.

here is a small reminder of the painting…

the haywain, national gallery

The Hay Wain, 1821 © National Gallery, London

and here is my ‘impromptu’ contemporary reference to the hay wain

the hay wain, 2011

a toy farm trailer in a farm trailer, round about noon, early september 2011

and so began a very pleasant circular walk around flatford, firstly across a lush green meadow, meeting with some inquisitive sheep…

three sheep in a field, dedham, constable country

[in the (brief) company of wolves]

i had heard that in ‘Constable country’ there are powers in place to minimise unsightly blots on the landscape such as electricity pylons, but it was only a few minutes into our walk (after the brief encounter with the ‘wolves’) when i looked up and saw this…

electricity pylon, flatford, dedham vale, constable country

[an electricity pylon & power lines spanning constable country]

no matter; i was here for the day to walk about and maybe sketch a little, to see some ‘Constable’ scenery…

we passed by and walked around a lovely old woodland, called ‘the grove’ – and we didn’t meet any other walkers along the path. i made a note of this old, weathered tree stump (below, sketched from two angles) as perhaps being an old hawthorn as it was very tightly gnarled and twisted but was also quite small compared to the other trees. these are two very quick sketches. sketching tree forms such as this feels much like gestural life-drawing; you work within the restraints given and you try not to be too ‘precious’ about it.

sketchbook drawings of old, gnarled trees, near flatford, dedham vale, constable country

two more very quick bark/tree sketch studies, in graphite, drawn while standing…

further on, the landscape opened out and i made some notes of the field names (based on the map). the second sketch is a view looking down a hill back towards flatford mill. the third sketch is looking at the wide expanse of dedham vale, with gibbonsgate field, miller’s field and church field.

sketchbook, sketches of fields and hedegrows, flatford, dedham vale, constable country

three sketches, a winter hedgerow and some green fields…

towards the end of the walk we met a dog walker, or rather his two dogs made their keen acquaintances with us – and shortly after that i found this large piece of metal detritus on the perimeter of a ploughed field – a very mangled, flattened tin bucket – and i considered it to be the finest ‘Constable country’ find of the day.

old tin bucket, constable country

a constable country souvenir, a very mangled, flattened tin bucket (verso)

it was a very pleasant, relaxing walk (with afternoon tea taken later on in the day at a delightful Dedham teashop), but it was not possible to walk far and also find time to draw; so, i enjoyed the walking.

it was also nice to take another peek into one of John Constable’s early sketchbooks online (collection of the V&A Museum, London). Constable’s many studies and sketches were invaluable visual resources throughout his career. after Constable moved to London with his wife (and a fast-expanding family) he only returned to Suffolk for a few days or weeks each summer (which would explain the distinct lack of winter landscapes), although he travelled quite extensively throughout England due to painting commissions. on one occasion, while working on his preparatory studies for The Hay Wain, Constable required a sketch of a hay cart, and a young Johnny Dunthorne (the teenage son of a friend back in Suffolk) was duly sent out to make an initial study which Constable could work from and refine back in his Hampstead studio. i can quite understand the artistic frustration of earnestly painting a summer scene in the winter months, and many miles away from its source.

by all accounts, painting the The Hay Wain was an anxious task for Constable, a difficult and slow to resolve painting, hastily completed for The Royal Academy summer exhibition – but that is far from most people’s minds as they gaze into the romantic, pastoral quietude of the scene. i think most painters will empathise with that particular anxiety of making work for art exhibitions. add to that anxiety, that his young wife was expecting their third child (they had seven children together in total), and they were perhaps conscious of outgrowing their new hampstead home, as well as the ever-present difficulty of making an income from art to support his young family.

it was amusing to read that they had to remove a window from the property to deliver the finished painting to Somerset House (the location of the Royal Academy at that time) – although the painting was (probably) not completely finished, as – as was the custom – artists often completed their paintings in situ in the gallery on varnishing days (aware of the competition!). Constable was anxious that this painting would sincerely impart all he felt about nature and the landscape, and that it would make a good impression at a time when the fashion in painting was for the very grand, the mythical, the historical & the dramatic…

I hear little of landscape – and why? The Londoners with all their ingenuity as artists know nothing of the feeling of country life (the essence of landscape) – any more than a hackney coach horse knows of pasture.

John Constable, in a letter to John Fisher (a good friend and patron), dated 1st April 1821, shortly before completion of the painting Landscape, Noon later to become more widely known as The Hay Wain, a title first suggested by John Fisher.

John Constable was born on this day, 11th June, 1776.

see also, in constable country and on thinking, clouds in a sketchbook

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The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.