Gordale Scar

The path to Gordale. Acrylic on gesso primed board. 247mm x 352mm.

Painted with a palette of cobalt blue, french ultramarine, cadmium yellow pale, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber and titanium white. At this stage I think the painting is finished. With a watercolour I usually reach a point where I know that the picture is done and no further brushwork will improve it. However, when working with opaque medium such as acrylics or oils I find it much more difficult to finish a work. There is always the temptation to keep fiddling, adding an extra dab of colour here or there. I find the best way to get over this is to leave the picture alone and put it to one side for a week or so. Looking at it again after this time will usually show if something else needs doing to it.

A typical early spring day in the dales. Grey sky, grey rock and grey green grass! This is Gordale Scar near Malham in the Yorkshire Dales. On a weekend in summer it can be very busy with visitors, but if you pick your time early in the year you can have the place almost to yourself. From this viewpoint, just outside the gorge the vista is still quite open. As you walk up the path the gorge gradually narrows until, as you round the corner in the centre of the picture you enter the cathedral like atmosphere of the inner gorge.