A couple of plein air paintings in London
(1. Widegate Street - just a few yards away from London Liverpool Street station. (I'll probably go back for another session and add some people - while also adjusting a few angles)
(2. 50 Glebe Place, Chelsea:
Painting in London can be brutally difficult at times - especially on a Saturday in the West End. However, painting by painting, I'm building the confidence to "perform", talk to the public, and think on the spot.
Painting in plein air is an entirely different process to painting in the studio. In the studio you have consistent light and all of the time in the world to make decisions - hence why studio paintings always look amazing.
In plein air, you're dealing with difficult weather conditions, time constraints, the general public, lorries parking in the way of your subject, people knocking into you, strong gusts of wind that result in you chasing your brushes down the street, urgent needs for the toilet, security asking you to move, dogs stealing the muffins from your bag, people taking pictures, the list goes on... It's NOT just a case of painting, it's everything else that comes with it.
Yet still, painting in plein air is better. And to be honest, I sort of relish the austere environments.
It's also worth mentioning, that the colours of the environment vs the colours you see in the paintings appear different in places, only because of the glare caused by my terrible phone camera. The warm colours in my paintings were more true to the environment than they appear in these pictures.