Alastair Gilmour New Inn Nocturne 2017, oil on canvas, 10x12in (25.5x230.5cm). On show in our online gallery at www.painters-online.co.uk
This month’s website gallery image is by Alastair Gilmour who writes:
‘I’ve been painting street scenes in my home town of Lechlade for nearly three years. My aim is to capture the real atmosphere of a Cotswold market town. I look for strong contrasts of light and dark, so a nocturne was perfect. New Inn Nocturne 2017 started as a plein air pencil sketch in which I quickly recorded the main blocks of light and dark and the proportions of the buildings. The painting was finished in the studio, using several reference photographs taken during the sketching. For this piece to be successful, I had to maintain a balance between the rich transparency of the dark sky and buildings and the thick opacity of the highlights. So, after blocking in, I glazed the roof and sky in a mix of ultramarine blue and Payne’s grey, and the buildings in a burnt sienna and raw umber mix. I used Liquin as the glaze medium, glazing each section around six times, leaving the painting to dry after each glaze before repainting the highlights in ever-thicker dots of titanium white. The diffused light effect was achieved by feathering with a No. 2 flat. Fine details were applied using several riggers. One useful thing I discovered when painting signage is that it’s more important to get the shadow right than the actual lettering! A final glaze, using a tiny amount of transparent yellow over the whole painting, achieved the desired colour harmony. The painting took about 10 hours to complete, but three weeks to finish allowing for drying time.’