A Summer Painting Day in East Sussex

There are painting days when I head out with a particular view in mind, and others where the best approach is simply to explore. This was very much the latter.

I drove down to Stonegate in East Sussex, having picked out a few potentially promising areas on the OS map. With a mixture of fields, footpaths and waterways running through the countryside, there looked to be plenty worth investigating on foot.

The weather was warm and slightly sultry, with that soft haze you sometimes get on a summer's day. Above it all were some wonderful loose clouds, bright but softened by the atmosphere rather than sitting sharply against the blue.

After parking up I made my way through a farm, accompanied by what seemed like hundreds of bleating lambs. I stopped for a quick chat with the farmer, who explained that they were just beginning to be weaned, hence the extraordinary amount of noise. They were incredibly sweet and walking through the middle of them all was a slightly surreal start to the afternoon.

walking amongst the weaning lambs

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b7aca2_20629bd9e52a4d77aaf511c16f29dec1/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

the myriad bleating lambs, a true countryside soundtrack?

I carried on through the fields, stopping and starting a few times while deciding what was worth painting. This is often half the battle with painting outdoors. A view can initially look promising but not quite hold together as a painting, while another can suddenly reveal itself after walking another hundred yards (or not as can often be the disheartening case!).

set up plein air capturing the countryside scene under the soft sultry light

Eventually I settled on a view across the grazing fields. What caught me was the softness of the whole scene. The light was moving gently across the landscape and the hazy summer sky seemed to hold everything together. I set up there and painted a small oil study, trying to keep that sense of open space and quiet light rather than getting caught up in too much detail.

The resulting painting became 'Under Open Skies', below.

Under Open Skies, oil on board, 8" x 8"

Later in the day I carried on exploring some of the nearby footpaths and bridleways. Turning a corner on one of them, I was stopped almost immediately by a winding track disappearing beneath the trees.

the charming english scene before me as I turned the corner on this bridleway near Mayfield, East Sussex

By then the evening light had begun to cut across the path, catching the foliage and throwing broken shadows over the ground. It was one of those scenes that felt almost too perfectly English: an old country track, deep summer greens, sunlight coming through the trees and no real indication of where the path might lead.

I painted it there while the light lasted, keeping the brushwork loose and concentrating on the pattern of light and shadow running down the track.

That small plein air painting became 'Memory Lane' , a scene I liked enough to develop into one of my limited edition prints.

Memory Lane, oil on board, 5" x 7"

Days like this are a good reminder of why I still enjoy setting out and painting outdoors without too fixed an idea of what I am going to paint. The planned viewpoints can be worthwhile, but quite often it is the unexpected view around the next corner that stays with me.