The Old Runcorn Bridge

It is a wonder to me that suddenly you see that there is a painting before you. We were driving back over the new Runcorn bridge over the river Mersey, over half way across, looking at the old bridge. The light of the late afternoon sunshine reflected off the mudflats and river pools. Paint!!! It took me ages to get to my camera app on my phone. I thought we'd be over before I could, and I managed three or four poor quality photographs (you can see one of them here, and the other in Photographs/Outdoors). They held enough to take me back there on the Monday morning, as I sat down to paint.

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I felt excited about painting. I wanted to paint. Out came the A2 paper to do the big scene justice. Oh, no!! Suddenly, all my energy and enthusiasm drained. I'd missed a lot of sleep during the past few days due to noisy night-time neighbours and a birthday celebration. I felt very tired. Perhaps, it would be better to leave it alone..?

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But I wanted to paint. Come on, Picasso, you're not! Get the A3 out (how small does that look to me now!) and have a practice go. And so I did. And glad I did, spending a lovely morning, remembering a grey, low light over the water  in front of a lit up, beautiful, old bridge. I'm pleased with the bridge, done from eye. It's all done from eye. Though not much else. How do I do that? To be fair, it's turned out better looking in the photograph than on the actual painting. How do you make planes fit together naturally? One way, I figured was to add the lighter areas first, then the darker. I'd wanted grey and not used payne's grey.

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Theory! I decided theory or a bit of study was what I needed. I picked up Hashim Akib's Vibrant Acrylics book, opening it at the Landscapes pages. It showed a bright setting sun through woodland over water and offered a step by step approach to painting it. So, next time, I'm going to use the section as my study aid. Hopefully, it will re-inforce the good things I do, gifting me new ways and combinations, helping me remove bad habits. And then, I'll do a few more 'lessons'.

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One thing I won't be doing is giving up painting any time soon! That's for sure.