Although David's work is quintessentially English, he travels many miles around the world each year to keep it so. With studios in both England and Australia for over twenty years, his appreciation of the Seasons is sometimes abruptly enhanced by arriving in the Northern winter from a sweltering Australian summer! Perhaps it is these contrasts that so keenly hone his appreciation of the seasonal changes to our Landscape.
David takes us through some of the painstaking stages it takes for him to create his own style of masterpieces.
Fieldwork
Walking through the English countryside, is not a new pursuit for me - I have been doing it almost continuously since I first carried my Uncle Edgar’s watercolours for him as he tried to paint away the horrors of war in the late 1940’s. I was about eight or nine years old. The tranquility that the countryside brought to his mind has stayed with me ever since, and I hope that I convey some of that peace in my work.
So the work begins. Firstly, by briskly getting to where I want to be. No heavy emotions here, just a sence of urgency,or even panic, lest it rains, or the sun goes behind that cloud. Then, a few moments of peace. Nothing happens. Or apparently so. No, I don’t fall asleep, I’m setting the emotional pallette in my mind. Getting rid of the frivolous or extraneous thoughts that clutter up the creative channels. Then, in a strange visual shorthand that might be attributed to the hand of a troubled mind, I scribble and scratch awayon the pages of my sketchbook, producing what appears to be the most meaningless visual tangles of lines and smudges, interspersed with the odd word or phrase, little arrows pointing this way and that (the light, you see!).
In the early days, I used a little dictaphone to describe what I could see - so much more revealing than mere pencil lines! But now, with the benefit of an older and more experienced photographic mind, and armed with my squiggly "codes", I can take it all home with me, to the comfort of my studio, out of the wind and rain.
David Dipnall sketching out in the English countryside
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Painting
Now the reverse happens. I set the mood, Lights!, Music!, Canvas!, let it begin! My mind settles, and the ridiculous squiggles and smudges morph once again into dappled sunlight on the forest floor, waving corn on a hillside, sparkling sunlight on a little brook, or majestic windjammer clouds sailing on a summer seabreeze. The studio disappears, and I am once more on location. Until Audrey calls that "Dinner’s ready!".
David Dipnall and a work in progress
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Final Touches
I am often asked, "How do you know when a painting is finished?" The answer is that it is finished when I can look at it a few days after last working on it, and can see no more to be done. So the first time is a guess that it might be finished, and should be left for a while to "settle". Then follows a few days of sneak peeks, unannounced glances at it, trying to catch it unawares, even looking at it in a hand-mirror - an Old Master’s trick! Then, if we agree that there is nothing more we can say to each other, the painting and I agree to part.
Our brief, intense, love affair is over. It is finished. At that stage, I usually hate the work. I see only the mistakes, the wrong colours, the bad drawing, the poor perspective. Then, after a week or so apart, the love returns. And stays.
David Dipnall making the final touches to his work
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