After the harvest

PA707 After the harvest, near Ellingstring, North Yorkshire. Oil on canvas board; 31 x 23 cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

Trees in a cornfield

PA704 Trees in the cornfield, High Ellington, North Yorkshire. Oil on canvas: 51 x 71 cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

Drawing and talking with my friend Chris

DR134 Portrait of Chris. Charcoal on paper: 56 x 38 cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

A drawing of my friend Chris Tandy, someone I have drawn a few times and spoken with many more. For me familiarity helps greatly with drawing a person, then both the person drawing and the sitter can be relaxed in the roles of looking and of being observed. Rather than insist on Chris keeping rigidly to a pose which may be appropriate on other sittings, I carried out this drawing whilst conversing with him. During this time I watched how the face moved and built up a knowledge of his facial expressions and postures so that I could have some idea if my drawing had an element of 'truth' to the sitter about it. With this drawing I stopped at the point where I felt that something was being given back to me, it's difficult to be coherent on this subject as it is inherent in the facture as well as the illusory image. I have an experience that sometimes, perhaps after struggling with the structure of a portrait, the drawn marks suddenly coalesce and a presence starts to look back at me, the inert drawing becoming seemingly capable of communicating. This was the point at which I put down my drawing materials and thanked Chris.

Farmland in the Vale of York

PA688 Farmland in the Vale of York. Oil on canvas; 26 x 41 cm  Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

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

Burnt Landscape

PA682 Burnt Landscape, North Yorkshire, Oil on canvas: 36 x 51cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

Walking on Pendower Beach

PA653 Winter  walk, Pendower, Cornwall. Oil on canvas 25 x 36cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

Coast path to Portscatho, Cornwall

PA678 Coast path to Portscatho. Oil on board: 18 x 30 cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter

Cornish Cottage and Sea

PA675 House at Pencabe, Cornwall. Oil on board; 25 x 45cm Neil Bolton Fine Art Painter  sold

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