pochade box | Helen Colledge

Towards the end of 2013 I had a phase where I went out painting every day, no matter what the weather. Sometimes it poured down and I had to hide under a tree with rainwater mixing into the paint on my palette. Other days it was incredibly windy and, on days where we were away from home, I would sometimes find myself in a busy place trying to hide from passers-by.

Only a few of the paintings weren’t duff (duff, adjective, meaning inferior, worthless; from duff, noun, meaning something worthless, first known use: circa 1889) which made me question the value of forcing yourself to paint, regardless of what’s in front of you. The best results seem to happen when you feel excited about what you’re doing, rather than trudging along as if you’re practising scales on the piano, but maybe the trudging is necessary in some mysterious way. Perhaps it prepares you for the times when you feel enthused and stores up skills that you can call on then. Who knows, really? Painting is a very mysterious business.

I managed to do this plein air experiment for 54 days in a row until the weather became so relentlessly awful that I gave in. People had become used to seeing me trundling up the hill with my pochade box every evening and had been speculating as to what was inside the peculiar wooden case, which looks as if it should contain something with dials, wires and antennae rather than comparatively dull oil paints. I never did work out how to answer the question: “What’s in the box?” If I told the truth people were invariably disappointed because they’d imagined something far more exotic. If I made up something or refused to say I felt guilty for being, perhaps, pretentious.

Out of all the 54 days I mostly painted in oils, starting with small 6″x8″ pochades and then swapping to watercolour for a while when I ran out of materials. Finally I did some bigger 9″x12″ paintings – still fairly small in the grand scheme of things but it wasn’t really the weather to hang around for long and I wanted to complete the pictures in one sitting before the light disappeared.

Some of the results that weren’t on the “completely duff” pile are below:

day 10, Howgills in evening light, oil on canvas, 6″x8″

day 15, evening in Settlebeck Gill, oil on paper, 6″x8″

day 32, looking west from Winder fell, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 33, dramatic skies seen from Winder, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

Settlebeck Gill sun, shadow oil painting

day 34, strong sunlight and dark shadow, Settlebeck Gill, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 43, smoke and winter sun, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 46, saucer clouds seen from Winder, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 47, yellow skies, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 51, sunset with soaring clouds, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

day 54, alien landscape at dusk, oil on canvas, 9″x12″

Several return trips to the dreaded but beautiful valley have been made. Small oil sketches only capture aspects of the scenery so I’ve been assembling a set of painting gear that can cope with large canvases. In the meantime, this is my small-scale set-up. You should be able to click on the pictures to get a larger version.

view of Crosdale with pochade in foreground

The painter's pochade box

The real fellpainter ... or is it?

The last light of the sun can appear incredibly red at times. This evening’s attempt was not an exaggeration of the hue, although toning it down would have made it look more believable I suppose, and the foreground didn’t quite work, but I was pleased that the hills had a bit of form at least. When the light does this it’s so exciting if you’re actually there in the valley. The hills are thrown into colossal, solid forms that do resemble the famous Wainwright ‘elephant’ quote.

Crosdale hills, basking elephants appearance

elephantine hills basking in late red sun

On a different evening I tried to catch the earlier evening light with its violet and gold hues and had some small success. The foreground, in particular, continues to elude me, although the white brightness may be more true to life than most of my previous efforts.

Because I am trying to catch how the scene looks and feels in what may only be a matter of minutes the paintings are really hit-and-miss affairs. Most of them are complete disasters and one or two, like these, have just one aspect that captured something I was aiming for.

evening colours fall on Crosdale

Some of the best views and lighting effects always seem to happen when I’m trudging down the lane. If only it was possible to paint in the middle of the road. Not that I’d be happy with a middle-of-the-road painting. Disasters along the way don’t seem as bad. As Thomas Edison said: “I haven’t failed; I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

The lane

Helen Colledge

adventures in a painted landscape

Tag Archives: pochade box

54 Days in a Row

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