Early this year when I was researching vineyards in the South East of England, I came across an organic wine-maker in East Sussex. As you may know, I have made it my mission the last few years to paint the national trusts too... So you can imagine my delight to find that my two favourite topics for landscapes at this time could be found within one painting.
I had thought to capture the vineyard at dawn, but when I started doing my sketches, I felt only a magnificent sunset would truly do this topic justice and give the advantage of working with extraordinary reflections and dramatic skies. The site retains an almost fifth dimensional theme with it's sumptuous colours and textures.
Thank you so much to the Balmer family for being so kind allowing me to photograph on their private land and educating me on the history of wine making in England. I would really recommend a visit to the Sedlescombe Vineyard and tasting their heavenly wines. If you would like to pay it a visit, this is the website. https://www.englishorganicwine.co.uk
Above are the different stages in making this painting.
1. I applied a thin layer of white paint and then worked in the sky, followed by the lay of the land.
2. I roughed in the composition to create a base underpainting.
3. I started to work up the basic composition. I soon realised that the posts were obstructing the view, so shortened them, and then slightly changed the perspective.
4, 5, 6. I started roughing in the vines, creating depth and perspective, always making sure it worked with the golden section and circular flow of the composition. This was probably the biggest challenge. I worked up the castle, but not the moat.
7. Once I had created the composition, I then worked to create the light at dusk. This again was a challenge, but I found lots of reference imagery of bodies to work with. You will see that in the final piece, the castle becomes much more orange in colour, reflecting the light of the setting sun, but enough light to maintain the detail.
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