Painting Description

Netherby is a very small village close to the unit that we had rented in an old reclaimed Flax Mill. For two weeks in the summer of 2011 we drove through this tiny hamlet on our way to the supermarket in a nearby town, Beaminster. This part of Dorset, only a few miles from the English Channel, is indented by many valleys that host streams that run down to the sea. Quiet and remote, on the way to nowhere important, this scene speaks of village life many years ago. I painted this rendition when we came home to Canada, preferring to spend my precious time in England gathering information that could become the basis for numerous works, many never to be realized.

I felt that the important aspect in this painting was the tranquility of the scene. I am always happy when I find in a setting a “piece of business” or focal point on which I can focus, like this bench. Although I keep trying various painting surfaces, I seem to return to a heavily gessoed masonite as the right texture on which to drag and prod the paint.