Chair in a Field of Yellow Buttercups

 

Awhile ago I painted two chairs in field, followed by two chairs in a field with aspen seeds. This painting is in the same field but with a different chair and a different look to the field which was covered in small yellow flowers called buttercups. One reason there are so many chairs in this field is that the Harley street neighborhood has no park, benches, or picnic tables anywhere, so the local residents took matters into their own hand. I saw about half a dozen chairs along the tree line in the shade. This is the third version of the painting, it was made a few days after the first two versions seen below.

Chair in a Field of Yellow Buttercups, version 3, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2022 (No. 3181)

 

This was the second version of the painting, the colours were bright, but the value contrast and texture work was unsatisfactory. I tried to depict shadows into the background but it turned out muddy. The wood of the chair had to be much darker than the field in the background. In the third and final version that is shown above I adjusted the colours and values to give it more luminosity, and downplayed the background shadows.

Chair in a Field of Yellow Flowers, version 2, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2022 (No. 3176b)

 

Here is the first attempt which captured the chair and general composition but started to unravel fast! I just tried a few things, then went straight to the second version. In the third and final version, I used my trusty hogs hair brush to apply the green grass on top of a layer of hansa yellow medium (PY97), and the green was mostly made from phthalo green (PG36) and iso yellow (PY110). The first two versions included perylene green (PBk31) but it darkened the value too much. It is not often I repeat the same scene, but this was a deceptively complex painting.

Chair in a Field of Yellow Flowers, version 1, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2022 (No. 3180b)