Now I’m laying down more colour, referring to my sketch, but also the memory, and beginning to let the marks and colours tell me how they want to be in this version.

Here’s the first stage of my new painting. Laying down some marks and gestural colour. This is in acrylic on A2 daler board.

Here’s the sketch I made for my original painting of a French garden in 1994. I’ve made a new version yesterday and today. I’ll share the stages next. I’m calling my new version ‘ Yellow Garden.’ The temperature when I made the original sketch was in the 40s. There were blue damsel flies in the dip over the first rise near the tree. It is interesting to make new versions to see how my marks and colour have changed.

Here is the soft pastel drawing in stages that I made today based on a sketch of some trees by the river that I found as a motif in Hebden Bridge at the weekend. There are colours in nature that you wouldn’t believe even before spring has properly arrived. I sat on the river bank and made a study which this was taken from and I will share with you as well. My friend said there she liked the pinks in the leaves even though they weren’t really there, but they were to me!