nickschlee@waitrose.com
www.nickschlee.co.uk
While our house and studio were being rebuilt after the fire burnt it to the ground we moved to a flat with a wonderful view 40 meters from the bank of Pangbourne Weir. The trees around the the Thames were mostly in the distance so as a result the pictures I drew of them were not detailed. Instead it was exciting to watch how the light and season changed them from moment to moment.
Sometimes they were delicate or dramatic flat silhouettes, sometimes very chunky and sculptural. I had to keep the oil pastels at the ready on a table at the window to record a particular image in a very instant. Sometimes they were so dull a subject that they could easily do without comment from me.
Obviously the reflections their colours made in the weir waters contributed a great deal to the pictures. Sometimes glass still, sometimes shattered by the wind and current and, of course, the nature of the clouds in the sky. Such variety. I have not yet worked up these drawings into large oil paintings because my painting energies were being used up to explore the effects of dazzling sunlight on the river surface when the fast moving Pang met the slow Thames. Sometimes the fractured results were often enhanced by the contrast of a calm inviting backwater that lay so near the excitement.
However if time ever permits I will choose sketches that epitomise particular aspects of distant trees in particular lights to enlarge and give the images the importance that size can render.