The View from All Hallows

Ranks of cumulus heading east build into tottering towers that by lunchtime produce a passing shower. From the churchyard at High Hoyland you look across the valley where Cannon Hall lies to the moors of the Peak District beyond.

I panic with a subject like this. My line drawings of plants give me some chance of understanding the subject but these clouds are changing shape and colour every minute making it impossible to work across the sky in detail, cloud by cloud.

For obvious reasons (i.e. the chance of smudging wet paint as I work) I start with the patch of blue, top left and work downwards and sideways, rather like writing a letter. I can't improve on cerulean blue for the sky itself; the clouds I mix from combinations of various blues, the odd spot of alazarin crimson and yellow ochre or raw sienna.

The ripe corn is a wash of raw sienna. I'm gradually beginning to prefer raw sienna to yellow ochre as it gives a transparent, rather than opaque, wash.

High Hoyland church is an ideal place to sketch at the weekend (and on bank holidays): besides the interest of the art exhibitions in the All Hallows Gallery which opened in the church earlier this year there's a chance to take a break for a cup of coffee and a cake.