The artist discusses an oil painting of Offwell Valley, Devon, showing how the landscape changed in a year, including a tree with fuller foliage. She describes the blue underdrawing marks and layered colors for vegetation, and wrestles with whether to finish it as a painting or leave it as a drawing, which viewers already love.
So this painting is interesting. This is a follow-up to a commission I did a few years ago at the Offwell Valley in Devon, and it's a painting where the original was completed, and then I went back the following year and to the same place and see how— I saw how it had changed in the following year. And it was really interesting because it was like this tree, for instance, was a lot more covered in leaves than I'd previously seen it. And this also shows how I started painting. So you can see these blue marks of the underdrawing, and then I sort of flesh in these other colored areas to sort of indicate other types of vegetation and you know, tree bark and things like that. And now looking at this, I actually feel maybe it's time that I actually got on with this painting. I might actually finish it. But then again, you see, people often really love them just when they're as drawings. So sometimes I have this dilemma of whether to allow a painting just to remain as a drawing, or whether I should get on with it and, inverted commas, finish it as a painting.
