Painting with Courage - taking risks!

Courage, I felt, was a word in this post's title that deserved a capital letter!

Many paintings that I admire, I feel to have been 'painted with courage', as if daring to fail was a deliberate choice for the artist. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it may probably be the best way forward for me. I feel I am often far too careful and predictable in my choice of subject and painting methods, and really need to freshen even shake up my approach. A calm and deliberate approach is what I'm trying to get away from now, so I think I need to become more of a risk taker with my paintings and not worry about how a painting will turn out, but let the painting surprise me!

The following painting titled 'Corner of the Meadow', is a 10 x 12 inches oil on board, and I think it shows my love of broad chunky brushstrokes, painted loosely with no under drawing and little blocking in. Just straight in with the lovely juicy oil paint using big brushes and very little mixing on the palette, allowing 'stray' colours to come along and join in the fun!

'Corner of the Meadow' 10 x 12 inches oil on board 

The painting was deliberately 'under finished' you might say, I wanted to see what happened if I painted with a little more courage than usual. No fiddling or messing, no trying to get each bit 'just right'. The painting itself really looks far better in real life than this photo shows, and I am quite pleased with it. Soon I will post a photo of the painting framed, but first I will have to get a decent camera as this was scanned on my old flatbed scanner which now gives poor results.

The second painting below was painted entirely from memory, as I was trying to capture a feeling not portray a place, it was like painting with my eyes shut, no details available to me, just half memories, a 'glimpse' of the landscape I had witnessed.

'Where the Moor Reaches for the Sky!' 8 x 12 inches oil on board

I remember driving across the Yorkshire moors on my way to Whitby, the heather covered moor stretching towards a heavy rain threatening sky! 'Where the Moor Reaches for the Sky', again painted using blocks of colour quickly applied does capture what I saw and felt. Under a heavy sky lay the raw nature of the moorland, swathes of colourful heather, rocky outcrops strewn across the moor, while the sheep making their way along a well trodden path were added just as an afterthought.

Their is no subtle blending in these 2 paintings, no careful attention to accurate description. They are like a glimpse of nature, as if you'd turned your head away quickly and tried to remember what you had just witnessed. What you would remember I think would not be the detail, but blocks of colour, flashes of uncluttered memory, the important bits.