Project 4; Movement

I'd struggled for a while to come up with an image I was happy with for the "movement" project, and my sketchbook has many of my efforts at trying to find a satisfactory image. But the image that kept getting stuck in my head was "Cataract 3" by Bridget Riley that I saw on the cover of "Art and Illusion" by EH Gombrich. The rolling effect of the image was fascinating, and every morning I could see the same rolling effect on the hills visible from my kitchen window, caused by the rising sun casting long shadows in the dips and rises in the side of the hill.

I decided to make the effort to capture this effect, so early one morning I got up and out of the house, with my car packed with painting supplies (and my flask of tea!) and I settled myself down to paint the effects of the rising of the sun. I also made three studies of the light and shade effects and the colours for my sketchbook so I could refer to them later, when finishing the painting off in the house.

The photo here is of the layer of paint that was layed down on site. I applied it very thickly with a painting knife, and used acrylics for their faster drying time. The shadows here are very dark, and also there is a very abrupt edge between the light and shade, but I aimed to soften this effect with further work on the painting.