In the fields

Painting outside is a different experience to the controlled set up of a studio, however it is that climate of things being partially beyond control and the possibility of bearing forth the surprising and stimulating, the unbidden as I think of it, which make working out in the landscape unique.
It is with that sense of risk which may result in something that moves my painting on that drives me to paint directly from the landscape.That risk could result in failure and frustration too but learning from the experience is certain.
The painting here is a small sketch painted on the plain that is the Vale of York. After a long search for something that I felt I could engage with I stopped on the outskirts of Boroughbridge and looking west  I found a large open field of barley with another field of oilseed rape against the backdrop of the North Yorkshire moors. The skies relatively clear when beginning the painting quickly changed to something much more threatening necessitating speedy painting to get something of the sunlight on the foreground contrasting with the darkening background.
When painting here I was reminded of the late work of Vincent van Gogh; his paintings of "vast stretches of wheat under troubled skies", in particular the double square format canvas ' Wheat field under clouded sky'.The colour of the barley and rape I was looking at had a similarity with this work and I had this thought in mind whilst painting. Of course I can't compare my painting to Van Gogh's piece or have any idea of his experience whilst painting but I had a little sense of seeing something not so far removed from the landscape he painted.

PA684 Troubled sky over Rape field. Oil on canvas: 25 x 41 cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter