A Year in the Park
Through the seasons in Hackney Parks 2012 – 2013
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| Click to see all autumn paintings | Click to see all winter paintings | Click to see all spring paintings | Click to see all summer paintings |
I started this project in October 2012 with the idea of painting every day and finishing a painting every week for a whole year. I felt I needed to up my game and become faster and more prolific and spend less time worrying and more time actually painting and trying to become more fluent in the use of paint. I wanted a landscape project as a change from concentrating on the figure and because I had never done any landscape painting before. As I am a Londoner nowadays, the parks are the nearest I can get to landscape and Hackney’s Parks are second to none – no other London borough has as many. Sadly, looking back, I wish I had included more than the three closest to me but there is so much to see in each one and I liked to spend time every day in the park, walking, looking, sketching and taking photos on my digital camera. At the end of the year I realised I had only visited Hackney Downs, London Fields and Springfield Park. Every day offered new opportunities for painting – different seasons, subjects, light, weather, effects, many of them fleeting. In the winter I was lucky enough to experience snow – even sunshine on snow! Every day was a fresh challenge and it was a rewarding exercise.
H L MEW PAINTINGS 