Painting details

• Dimensions: 46 x 33 cm
• Materials: Oil on canvas

Dartmoor Landscape Oil Painting Of Soft Rain On The Moor In Devon, England

Soft Rain On The Moor is a Dartmoor Landscape painting. Dartmoor National Park is a vast moorland in the county of Devon, in southwest England. Ponies roam its craggy landscape, defined by forests, rivers, wetlands and tors (rock formations). I was painting an En Plein Air of Laughter Tor and the rutted moorland in front of it. The Tor is near to Princetown where Dartmoor Prison is situated.

Working in my car due to the periodic showers and had the windscreen wipers on intermittent and managed to run my battery flat. Due to the remoteness of my location, I was in for a long wait for the breakdown person to jump start the car. In many ways this was a blessing because there was quite an extraordinary light towards dark which inspired this and painting. I made some quick watercolour sketches as the light was dimming. It was dark and stormy by the time I was rescued, sitting waiting in my car with only the lights of the prison visible. Not something I wish to repeat but, loved the paintings that came from the experience.

Dartmoor is always full of inspiration for me. The uncultivated landscape dotted with dramatic granite Tors and ever changing weather is and pristine. It is brimming with myths and legends, captures the essence of a primeval landscape and perfectly expresses a sense of our ephemerality in the face of nature’s enduring vastness”