Painting the bridge across the lake at Stowe Gardens on a hot day on 29th July 2026.
I started the day at 11 am and found a suitable view across the lake beneath the trees to give me some shade. Before I started the most amazing thing happened on my blank canvas. The light and shadow from the trees caste amazing dappled shadows of the canopy onto my canvas.
The scene across the lake is always very beautiful and reminds one of Monets garden at Giverny. I have my own local version here at Stowe so feel very lucky to be able to access it any time during the year. I was working in oils on canvas board. As always lots of lovely people engaged me in conversation, a couple from Kenya, a painted who had just moved to the UK from Soth Africa, a family who used the gardens to meet up at. Lost of lovely conversations that is one of the joys of painting outside. I was particularly taken by a tree on the side of the lake that I used to anchor my composition of my painting.
The scene that day comprised of lots of greens, low chroma oranges as the grasses were dried out by the 4 weeks of sun and subtle pinks in the lakeside grasses and flowers on the pond. Its always a very complex subject trying to control the values within the scene and a true challenge. I will rework the painting in the studio as painting in full sunlight is very hard to see colours properly.
