Time to Make Hay

Time to Make Hay, 14 x 18" oil on linen

I love seeing a good herd of hay bales out in a field. ;-) 

Billowing clouds above, warm sunshine, the fragrance of cut hay. 

The actual painting of this went pretty quickly, and was a lot of fun. Prior to painting I did a fairly detailed pencil sketch, followed by a watercolour study. 

I sometimes rope my farmer dad into being my technical advisor. Being out in all weather, and farming all his life, he's got a good eye for skies, and can sometimes give a good dose of reality to my rural landscapes. In this painting I ended up adding more bales than I had originally drawn because it apparently looked like a pretty sparse harvest!