Taking Colour for a Walk: Painting in a French Garden

In this episode of It’s a Colorful Life, I’m painting plein air in a beautiful garden in France. At first glance, the garden seems almost entirely green, but spending time looking more closely reveals an unexpected range of colours hidden throughout the landscape.

This is one of the reasons I love painting directly from nature. A photograph can flatten a scene, whereas being there allows me to notice subtle changes in light, colour and form. I use one of my favourite approaches — “taking a colour for a walk” — picking out a colour in one part of the landscape and following it as it reappears elsewhere.

For this sketch I experiment with fluorescent acrylic inks, paint sticks and Inktense pencils, building layers of energetic marks and colour. Starting with the fluorescent inks rather than my usual blue ink also gives the finished painting a slightly different feel.

It was an interesting reminder that even in a predominantly green landscape, colour is everywhere when we take the time to really look.