“The Haywain” by John Constable RA is one of the most iconic and easily recognisable paintings in the world. Apparently it is the most reproduced image of all time. The original is a large oil painting which presented me with many challenges if I wanted to include it in my ‘Inspirations’ series. My watercolour above was originally meant to be a sketch for the main painting later on. It gave me an opportunity to work through the challenges. As it was meant to be a sketch I deliberately left out the haywain itself to save time. But although I was still considering this as a sketch I took my time and concentrated closely as I wanted to do justice to the original masterpiece and the great man himself. I had to work from background to foreground which is standard watercolour practice. Constable is rightly famous for his knowledge of cloud formations so I worked carefully with my sky, sticking as close to his original as my free flowing watercolour would allow. It turned our quite well as did the background landscape. This was not as detailed as the original but the painting was now beginning to take shape. As I moved forward the painting just sort of ‘flowed’. It’s hard to explain but if you have ever painted you will know what I mean – everything went perfectly and easily and suddenly it was done. Constable was criticised in his own lifetime for his ‘snow’ – the white highlights on his paintings. I had used a bit of masking fluid on the mill pond but made my ‘snow’ by scratching out with a sharp craft knife. For once I was very pleased with the way it had turned out. I feel I have captured the flavour of that beautiful landscape and got a good density of colour enough even to rival an oil painting. My only regret now was that I had not included the haywain in my ‘sketch’. But surprisingly all was not lost. It transpired that Constable had also added his famous haywain as an afterthought. He had to send back to Suffolk where his cousin did several sketches of haywains for him. When he received the drawings back he was able to use them to complete his masterpiece in his London studio. This means that it is more than possible that his original painting waited in his studio unadorned by the famous haywain until he received the drawings and would have looked similar to mine. I have never redone the painting with the haywain in place but maybe I should one day! What do you think? Glenn
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