Working In Series

This is my biggest painting to date, at 20 inches square.

It is another view from the eleventh floor at Glasgow University library, worked from photographs taken just as the sun was rising.

It combines three of my favourite things - Glasgow, libraries and just before sunrise - as well as letting me play with my inner abstract artist.

It is very much based around the opposition of blue and orange, using a lot of greys produced by a mix of the two as well as the occasional sneaky yellow umber. And it plays with the grid structure created by the shape of the canvas, the architecture seen through the windows as well as the windows themselves, and the furnishings inside the building - both seen directly and reflected.

There are therefore several distinct layers - the hills in the background, the University buildings, the window structure, the reflection of the floor below and the shelving of the eleventh floor as well as the barrier I'm standing behind both in reflection and edging into view on the right.

Complicated stuff - and would not have been possible if I hadn't painted this one first. And it, in turn, was based on an idea from the first 28 drawings in 2011.

Each painting in a series leads to the next - questions get thrown up, answers arrive that enable more ambitious workings, simpler ways of doing things become evident, colour can be played with as well as scale, technique, medium, you name it.

In landscape painting in particular both Sickert and Monet used pretty much the same drawing to really experiment with colour/mood/paint application - and in doing so created some of my favourite paintings. What better guides are there to follow - I'm a believer at looking at the why, the thinking process behind paintings I adore and letting that guide me in what I do.