Forfarshire 1928

James McBey made this watercolour painting titled "Forfarshire" sometime around 1938. The limited colour palette and subtle mark making give it a wonderful dreamlike quality, like a memory of a landscape. The wispy washes of watercolour are thinly applied to the paper surface, with the white of the paper acting as a kind of light source, glowing through the translucent layers of pigment. You can see this effect in the sky, where the blues, purples and greys seem to hover over the land below. The artist uses a limited range of soft, muted tones, predominantly greens, pinks and purples. See how the artist lets the colours bleed and blend into each other, creating soft transitions. There's a kind of misty atmosphere to the work as a whole, maybe a little like you find in some of the landscape paintings of J.M.W. Turner. Ultimately, though, it's McBey's distinct vision and his sense of colour and form that draws us into this scene. It’s like you are standing on the edge of that very field!