Friday, February 25, 2011

Say not the struggle naught availeth…

Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem, famously quoted by Churchill during the darkest days of World War II, is apt for many of life’s struggles, in particular the verse that reads:

For while the tired waves vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.

My struggle yesterday with the landscape did, I believe, gain a painful inch today.  Rather than driving off in search of a grand subject, I put down my sketching stool outside my own front door. 

Below is my preliminary sketch.  It consists of no more than a few guidelines to point the way. 



Above is my finished painting.  Compare today’s painting with yesterday’s.  I’ll let you be the judge.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know whether I dare say that I prefer the one from yesterday. It just draws me in. Sorry :(

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