Winter weather, daylight and gathering resources

This is also the time of year when I make my last field trips to gather resources I’m going to need for paintings to be made during the worst of the winter. Right now I’m keeping an eagle eye on the weather, hoping for an extra few bright, dry days, when I can get out there and fill my sketch book with enough material to keep me busy once the weather has really closed in.

It’s not that I live in the most northern part of the country, but rather that I do much prefer to gather my painting resources during the sunnier, warmer days of the year, whenever that’s possible. This is when there are lots of other people outside too, going about their business and doing what they do. My paintings almost always contain lots of people, and I like to sketch these people from real life, although I do change the way they look so they’re not too recognisable.

To me, including people in a painting brings it to life, without any people in the scene the painting can appear quite post-apocalyptic!

So dry, bright days mean lots more people to sketch, and I’ll have warmer fingers to sketch with too!