Rainy Day by Satomi McHale was awarded first prize in an art competition at Wanstead House last month. Here, the nature lover introduces her wor
It is an honour for me to receive recognition for my work. It has been said that observation skills occupy a significant percentage in the painting process; I would say I have spent more than 50 years observing the target of my creative desires: nature. I observed the magic of changing colours from sunrise to sunset, shapes and tones, from my insipid office window, being unable to enter that amazing world of creativity for lack of time.
I dreamt of that day of freedom when my hands would finally make my artistic desire a reality. That day came one year ago. That amazing world of colour and beautiful nature ceased to be a postcard but a part of my life. When I started, I was fearful of being disappointed with the results for lack of experience, but, surprisingly, observation had been working all these years!
Birds are a masterpiece for me; their colours, perfect shapes and movements are a call for the brushes and paints.
After having satisfied my first creative experience on my own using watercolour, I decided to enrich my artistic journey with technical knowledge. So, I enrolled on an art course at Redbridge Institute. However, it didn’t last long because of the pandemic, so I continued on my own. When lockdown ended, I enrolled on courses at Wanstead House every Friday with Karina Laymen, and this was a game-changing point in my creative journey. I learnt many mediums and techniques, my favourite being soft pastels, which give a great scope of possibilities and the ability to correct mistakes, due to their malleability. Since I attended that lesson on soft pastels, I fell in love with the medium.
For this picture, I used Rembrandt Soft Pastels. I took my inspiration from a picture of birds in an English landscape after a rainy day, where the drops of water left a string of diamonds decorating the delicate branches that hold this adorable couple of House Sparrows.
Painting nature is, for me, a kind of humble admiration and participation in such a perfect creation, where we can find sophisticated architecture formed by the petals of a flower, the depth of a cat’s eyes or the amazing transition of light crossing the drops of the dew sparkling many colours and glares. All of that is made possible by our own hands, through observation and technique. I strongly recommend these courses to make your creative desires come true.
The competition was organised by art tutor and illustrator Karina Laymen (visit wnstd.com/karina). The judges were Christopher Thomas, Anna Bisset, Brenda Coyle and Patrick Purcell.
For more information on art courses at Wanstead House, visit wnstd.com/house
