Stourhead Gardens

I sold this painting just before Christmas 2021 and it was great to think of someone liking my work enough to wrap it up as a Christmas present for someone they cared about. It was a massive boost as an artist. Not the money because I hadn’t priced it high, but the fact someone would put my work on their wall and look at it for years to come.

That said there are a few elements of this painting that I would do better if I was painting it again today. There’s not enough shadow and shape on the bridge and as this is a focal point of the painting there should be more detail and emphasis on it.

The grass would also benefit from more detail. I’ve learned since this how to give grass more of a detailed effect by using different gradients of darker and lighter greens. Particularly in the foreground some individual blades of grass would have worked well and would have created a sense of depth in the painting with the detail fading out as the eye goes deeper into the painting.

The gesso of the undercoat was a bit sloppy and as a result the lines of the primer show through the canvas. I’ve learned to take a little bit more time when priming now and to make sure that if lines do show they are not in the centre of the piece where they are the most obvious.

Pleased with the trees though some darker areas would have improved them. I like the painting as a whole but as an example of the kind of work I was producing a year or so ago. I could do better now.