Another Track to the Farm

Charcoal sketch of Norfolk barns
A charcoal planning sketch, to establish composition and tone before painting
Barns, Fields and Sky. A two colour palette using Ultramarine Blue and Brown Madder. Watercolour 15ins x 22ins.
Barns, Fields and Sky. A two colour palette using Ultramarine Blue and Brown Madder. Watercolour 15ins x 22ins.
If you find a good composition it can often serve well in many different ways. In my last post I showed a demonstration painting that I did at a watercolour workshop in Northwold. The composition was loosely based on a painting I found in one of my books about Rowland Hilder, and was called The Track to the Farm.

A few days later I was nearer home in the village of West Winch just outside King’s Lynn. I was demonstrating for the West Winch Art Group, known as the Wednesday Afternooners, as they meet on a Wednesday! I decided to reuse the Track to the Farm, but this time I gave it an entirely different treatment by changing the palette of colour from the cool Prussian Blue based hues at Northwold to a warmer French Ultramarine Blue based colour scheme. I also reduced the number of colours even more to give a very atmospheric feel. I used just one blue, French Ultramarine, and one red, Winsor & Newton’s Brown Madder. Brown Madder is one of the lesser know pigments, formulated these days from quinacridone. It is a warm, slightly purple red and only appears brown when used very strongly with little water. Diluted it is a soft pink which combines well with Ultramarine to give warm purple-greys.

Keeping to just two colours can give great atmosphere to a painting and it also makes you concentrate on tone, the light and dark values that are so important.

My thanks to all the Wednesday Afternooners for being a great group. Very attentive and asking lots of good questions. The only difficulty with demonstrating at West Winch is that the church hall, where the group meet, in on an incredibly busy main road, the A10, and getting out of the car park unscathed was a major job. But we made it!