Nick Schlee
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Drawing to Painting
Abstractions
Three aspects of a landscape
The Excited Line
A Scroll in the Country
Basildon Park
Bridging the gap
A walk in the country
Avebury and Ridgeway
Brighton Piers
Ridgeway Landscapes 1991 - 2006
Thames Paintings
Book 1 - Paintings 1987-2008
Book 2 - Drawings from 1958- 2010
Book 3 - Drawings to Painting
Book 4 - Abstractions
A walk in the country
When you stop walking and pause to look at the
countryside around you it is difficult to find one
particular section of the view that typifies the
whole. On the Ridgeway it is the sweep of eyes
across the distance that excites and astonishes.
It is the physical need to move the eyes across
the terrain and the sky rather than concentrating
on one area that gives the thrill.
The painters problem is how to capture that
experience in a picture. So often the visual
interest, the elements of pattern and contrast lie
in the distance and not in the immediate
foreground and it is difficult to find a solution
to accommodate this fact. Painters in the past
have often cast a strong shadow across their
foregrounds forcing the viewer to ignore it and
concentrate on the view from the middle
ground.
Another solution is to confine the picture to a
close-up of the distance where the pattern and
colour is strong enough to give a strong
structure to the painting. It is as if one was
studying the distance through binoculars. The
result is to put the viewer in mid air as though
in a low flying hot air balloon. You seem
magically transported straight to the area of
interest. At the same time your eye for detail
and contrasts are heightened by the very fact
you can concentrate your understanding of
how this distant landscape works because
there is no need to explain the space between
where you are standing and where your eyes
are looking. It is an uneasy experience.
Nick Schlee, 2010