Badger's HoltHow Peter began painting rural scenes is simple, even surprising.By : Deborah Susan Jones : EditorNot
long after Peter
had moved into his new studio in the heart of the
English countryside the inevitable urge to explore took hold, and this
scene was triggered by a visit to Ludlow, crossing the river Teme, and
exploring the wood on the opposite bank of the river.The signs of Badgers, and what they'd been up to, were prevelant. . . . . . . .It
had been snowing, and there were many fallen tree branches and the
entire scene was quite "Christmassy" and demanded a creative response.It
presented itself as a near-monochrome scene and the snow was a very
feathery texture, and I had to tip toe around to avoid disrupting the
pattern of the snow."I
instantly had a view of the Badgers, and the surrounding scene,
harmonious in colour and tone with the slight hint of colour in the
undergrowth which, for reasons I still don't understand, were an
unusual Indian Red colour (a color from an artist's palette) and it
flew in the face of my usual technique, of putting a dash of local
colour in the foreground, often on the lead character in the scene, but
in this case, just used to emphasize this unusual undergrowth
appearance, and relying on the striking two-tone black and white nature
of the Badger's appearance to compensate for the decision to put the
dash of subdued colour in the background only."A
very early piece in my "Rural" portfolio, I'd certainly never imagined
I'd be prowling around a wood, in the freezing cold, picking my way
through delicate snowfalls and stumbling over fallen tree branches and
getting my feet caught in dead branches in the undergrowth, all
cracking and snapping as I tramped through the scene towards the big
fallen log.So,
there you go, a bit of a transition from jumping on aeroplanes to
Hollywood to crash through a film poster in ten days to meet a deadline
at the Cannes Film Festival, to scrambling around the English
countryside in mid-winter!"Who'd have thought it?"Not me, for sure".Deborah Susan Jones : Editor
