Terry Hird
This current series of paintings is a slight departure from my established landscape style and working method. The interpretation, graphic mark making and contemporary colour palette are new – although the landscape genre is still the underlying driving force.
My paintings are a celebration of place, particularly those areas of remote upland that I visit frequently and know so well. These selected locations are imprinted within my memory and I can’t resist visiting them time and time again to paint and sketch. On this occasion it was refreshing to begin a series and slowly introduce more graphic, colour hightened elements – linking abstract linear marks in the foreground with a traditional distant landscape.
Initially the concept was to illustrate a thought inspired by the idea of a drone film clip. The visual began as an aerial view of one of my favouritie locations – high above – then focusing down on the meadow below. The drone and camera were to zoom in on the meadow almost burying the drone into the undergrowth of grasses, clovers, weeds and bugs (which took on monolithic proportions in the close-up) in one continuous unbroken sequence. My idea was to combine two elements – the beginning and end of the film clip in one frame, minus the bugs of course.
The paintings in this series are executed in Acrylics and the substrates used (Mountboard and Masonite) are all underpainted in Cadmium Red mixed with transparent gesso. The images are roughly outlined in charcoal on the red ground and painting commences by blocking in the larger areas of colour and adding more detail as the work progresses – working from dark to light. The near foreground elements were the last to arrange, carefully controlling the placement and relationship of each individual mark. Finally and in-keeping with all my work, the paintings are titled and signed in red on the mount.
See more