Light Over Dark

Last week, Hazel and I went to the big Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain. There are lots of wonderful pictures there (as well as some rubbish in the last room) and I got some new inspiration for my latest painting 'Dear Reginald Owen'. Instead of working up the Hollywoodland section in pale sepia tones (inspired by the photos of the 1930's) I am going to experiment with painting the first layer in very dark browns (I am still keeping with sepia at the moment) and then moving onto light , more transparent colours for the subsequent overlays. I am going to try burning oranges and cold blues for these two, though it might be a terrible idea, but one can only experiment. Whatever happens, my aim is to have started on the actual canvases by the time Ted Coney's Family Portraits reopens in April.