Essentials Cafe

The Duke of Westminster, during a visit to Lord Manvers at Thoresby Park, was surprised to find one of the grandest houses in England in the midst of a forest, Sherwood Forest, where " Norman kings once hunted, and Saxon outlaws plundered." Vast and ornate, Thoresby stands in the heart of a forest, which the axe and the plough have not yet invaded; a palatial residence, far removed from busy scenes. Thoresby, beyond a doubt, is one of the stateliest of the many noblemen’s mansions, which are scattered over this island ; it would be the fitting habitation of Royalty, and its situation gives it an advantage and a charm, which. scarcely any other residence in the country possesses. This one has sat on my computer for weeks, and I have tried just about every setting there was in essentials, some would do the sky fine, others the building, but the problem was the gate which I had deliberately included, it is a detailed gate, and I wanted it to remain detailed, yet retain a painterly effect to the rest of the picture, finally I went for detailed watercolour using the camel oil cloner brush. This image was a challenge for any programme and E4 did it, it was just me not sure which setting to use for a complex image of this type, were there are broad flat areas of colour, together with very detailed areas.

Wow, what a place! Great painting, and I just LOVE the gate!  I'd kill for one of them. If this was my painting I'd be wishing that blue van wasn't there.

But hey, life isn't perfect!  Looking at the mixture of components in this one Tolouse I could imagine that it would have been a hard one to paint.  You've done a great job.

Thanks Dianne, the blue van was driving me crazy, but this is the back of the great house, and tradesmen do call, I waited for ages but the van stayed, but fortunately this place is just up the road, so I can go back and do it again one day, which I most certainly will.

the walls look about vertical to me Ric, where is the wonky bit? If you mean the gate, if I straighten the gate it would affect the building, and as I wanted the gate in the pic I was on wide angle so there is lens distortion there too, the whole thing is a compromise. there is only one way to photograph any architecture properly, and that is with a monorail technical camera with rise and fall, tilt and swing movements in the lens and film planes, a ground glass focussing screen with a grid, and a big tripod with a spirit level, all of which I can do, but this is only a sketch, and I am going back when there are no vans there, so didn't bother about the van, but did remove several people.

Now I'm really confused, in your earlier posting Ric you said the left hand side was wonky, and now it is the right hand side.