Weather Diary: Day/Post 17 Coloured greys

Into June and no surprises as far as our lovely British or more specifically Scottish weather is concerned. Rain, grey skys and wind!
We did have a really good day out along the Aonach Eagach ridge last Saturday and that put me in good form for the rest of the week. On the drive up to Glencoe the weather didn't look too promising,it was grey and really quite cold but around about mid day it cleared leaving blue skys, puffy white clouds and bright sunshine to enjoy. Immense views in every direction you care to look. The snaking ridge has been inveigling my inner eye ever since. More of this later.

Looking back along part of the Aonach Eagach ridge

Bidean nam Bian

Mountaineer in the making!!

All this getting out and about has been a real tonic and the remaining residue of memory is proving fairly productive in the studio so far. Not really a residue more like an over flowing vat!! (That's the optimist in me.)
In my last post I was bemoaning the fact that I find it difficult to respond in paint to these mountain landscapes. Well today I feel I've had a small but potentially promising break through.

I started the day not entirely sure what or how I was going to proceed. The grey skys were a starting point in the morning....they got me thinking about colour and grey, coloured greys in particular.

10am 7/6/2012

Colour mixing was the order of the day. Over the years I have been experimenting with colour mixing using a fairly traditional approach which stretches back to Impressionism and beyond. Increasingly though I have been introducing other colours which come ready mixed...turquoise and azure blue for example. It was interesting then to come across the real colour wheel...I'll be ordering some transparent yellow and magenta tomorrow. In the meantime todays mixing looked like this...