What a beautiful early winter day: crisp and cold, and perfect for a little Christmas shopping.
We started with coffee and pizza at Plaw Hatch, the excellent farm shop we love to visit in Forest Row, and then we took the dogs on to the Forest. We virtually had the heath to ourselves, which was just as well as they have been a bit cooped up and there was a lot of running around.
After that, we headed to Tunbridge Wells, which was beautifully decked out and filled with lots of tempting gifts and treats.
I had some time with my sketchbook so decided to do a gouache rendition of the landscape. I wanted to try it again with a limited palette; I think the brown I used is too red, and it would look more effective if I stuck to the indigo-emerald combo.
I decided I didn’t want to use the reference picture, and I didn’t look at this painting either, so it was more of an abstract, simplified or stylised landscape. I think indigo might be my favourite colour, and it was lovely to use. I used a really wet wash with the gouache, and I like the texture so I didn’t want to cover up the foreground with grasses.
