Above: Shorelines, Aberlady. I. Oil on 8×5.5″ wood. Rose Strang 2024

More oil sketches in progress today inspired by the shorelines and moods of Aberlady…

For my experimental paintings and ideas I’ve been working at this size for some time and it really works for me in terms of loose brushwork. It would be a bit of a nightmare to work at a larger size with this more experimental messy approach – that would be a lot of oil paint going to waste when it doesn’t work (which is often!) and a lot of physical energy and time expended.

It’s been a while since I posted a video of my working process. I’m very forgetful of such things but people seem to enjoy them, so one of those coming up soon.

I’m also still working on my Carmelite monastery and Crusader’s tomb series (see older posts) which are very different in feel to these smaller landscape paintings. I love the freedom of my smaller landscape paintings, but I think I have something more to say as an artist so I’ll be persevering with that series over the coming weeks. It’s important to get out of my comfort zone and dig a bit deeper …