Posted on 6 Comments

Hay Fever

Painting of Stroud Market
Painting of a Stall at Stroud Farmers Market
Hay Fever
Here’s another footnote to last week’s post about the inspiration provided by markets. It’s the last, I promise. Sometimes, I feel the need to take a break from one sort of subject matter to paint another. I’ve painted quite a few landscapes lately and so I relished painting what I call “people portraits”, or paintings with people in them. Unfortunately, these sorts of paintings they don’t sell so easily as landscape paintings, I don’t know why.  So painting people paintings is a bit of an indulgence. Saying that sometimes I need to change what I am painting to keep my style fresh. Too much of the same subject and my painting goes off a bit. It was the bottles that called to me. So many of them in the sunshine. I was attracted to the light and colours in this composition. Painting all those bottles was wonderful, slow,  self-indulgent joy. It took quite a while and I swear that everything bottle is slightly wonky but it still works as a painting because its about light and colour, not perfect bottles. The stallholder looks slightly embarrassed to be sneezing, surrounded by a colourful forest of bottles. I liked the stallholder’s green top too as it nicely complemented the colours of the bottles. There’s also a green jacket on a chair back, to the left of her, repeating this theme. I simplified the composition, removing certain element that distracted from the bottles and shadows on the purple table cloths. I have a great deal of sympathy for the stallholder in the picture as I have developed hay fever this year. I may have had it before. I assumed that hay fever meant you sneezed and had runny eyes when you went near the grass. How little did I know! I had sneezing, itchy eyes, itchy throat and felt altogether rotten and very fatigued. It made me very ill. I thought I had a virus or a horrible cold. Eventually, my mother suggested it could be hay fever. I bought some over-the-counter antihistamines. Miracle Cure! So now, I consciously head for the coast to avoid the tree pollen, grass or whatever is out there that I am allergic to.  

6 thoughts on “Hay Fever

  1. Those bottles use the most space in the painting, but that stallholder makes it come alive. Great art!

    1. Oh, you describe so well Hein! Thank you.

  2. Yes, I agree. The sneezer makes the picture, even though the bottles are gorgeous. Beautiful I have never been to Stroud market but I have heard only good things about it.

  3. Thank you, Ceri. My husband suggested she might be drinking a cup of tea instead of sneezing, but I went with the sneezing, lol!!

  4. Superb how you painted all this bottles

    1. Thank you, it was a “labour of love”!

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