Progress on the Lavender field 2 of the lavender series painting

This painting has been moving along quite slowly. The weather hasn’t been great, and with the lack of good natural light, progress has been even slower than I would have liked. Still, I don’t mind too much, it’s all part of the process. I’ve been thinking a lot about creating a small series of lavender field paintings. I really enjoyed working on my first one; it felt very therapeutic, using lighter brushstrokes and allowing myself to be creative without sticking too closely to a reference photo. I have even painting outside whilst the weather was good and warm. It was really enjoyable.

The painting has now reached what I call stage two. Stage one is all about blocking in the colours, and stage two is where I start adding some details, although without becoming too strict or controlled. There’s still plenty of freedom at this point, and the painting goes through a few different phases. One of them is that awkward moment when everything in the painting suddenly feels a bit ugly and a mess. That’s always a hard phase to push through, because it’s so easy to want to stop and leave the painting as it is, caught in that love–hate feeling with the work.

Let me know if this also happens to you? I would love to know how you overcome this.

My first lavender field painting was surprisingly popular, with quite a few people wanting to buy it. That encouraged me to paint more lavender fields, while also giving myself the chance to experiment and learn something new. This time, I’m using texture paste to create relief in the painting, something I’d normally do by building up thicker layers of oil paint.

Below some photos of progress on the painting - stage 1