Bluebottles in Black

Oil on canvas over board
100x60cm

Unusually for me, this has no emotional or story-telling content. It’s about the shapes, an exercise in monochrome, with hints of burnt sienna, green and crimson.

It’s based on a gathering of bluebottles seen from the water surface level, but as always there’s a degree of play in the brushwork. It looks much like brush and ink but is in fact a loose inky oil paint applied with liberal use of turps and carefully orchestrated abandon.