Hepworth Wakefield Garden

A series of small plein air watercolour studies of The Hepworth Wakefield garden. These were done after I’d completed the Wakefield Covid-19 series. I wanted to get that project out of my head as I kept on seeing Wakefield as a continuing series on un-painted scenes and wanted to stop.

The change of medium (water colours) and subject matter (nothing but plants and flowers) plus the relief at being able to paint outdoors again produced some suprising results. I enjoyed the freedom in the imagery even though, at first, I struggled with the medium (I was used to acrylics and having the option to paint out things I wanted to change). With watercolours I found I was getting muddy results until I learnt how to slow down and enjoy thinking about the brush strokes more. I then enjoyed the spaces between the brush strokes and the movement that helped create.

I am very grateful to The Hepworth, Wakefield’s Cultural Gardener, Katy Merrington, who kept me company and told me about the plants. She kindly mentioned me in a piece she wrote, which you can read here Katy Merrington

Towards the the end of July I realised the paintings were becoming another project so I thought it time to stop. Also the gallery was reopeing on the 1st August 2020 so it seemed fitting to mark the end of another period of lockdown.

For the last 3 paintings I changed format from landscape to portrait. I wish I’d done that from the start.