stacks

i'm slowly working my through an online course demonstrating various ways of interpreting landscape whilst exploring a variety of materials 

as ever, there have been exercises that on first glance held little or no appeal but i've done them all anyway, knowing enough about myself to recognise when i am getting in my own way

these little landscape "stacks" did not fall into that category at all 

so much fun to do

the first ones i made (not shown here) were done using the colours suggested in the course

i struggled with them, both the colours and the landscapes themselves, and in the end was completely dissatisfied with the results... over the course of the day i began to wonder if perhaps the problem was that i had no understanding of a landscape that looked like that 

the next day i changed the palette to one of the north and began again

i know that land, how it looks, what the sky is like, the water - where the colours are and where they aren't

much, much better

these aren't meant to look exactly like a properly laid out landscape; it's more a "stacking" of the elements, though the sky is always be placed at the top - it's a layering of colours and playing with marks

responding to something you see in your work as you go and enhancing it further if you want 

water, rocks, hills, trees, grasses, flowers - whatever, wherever

and in the end they're to be torn horizontally and re-combined, looking for new connections, different landscapes, sometimes adding more painting or drawing

again following what you see and any impulses that arise from that

i'm not ready to tear these ones though - i think i need to make a few more first

but for now, it's "stacks" like the one below that need my attention first!