The Moat at Elstead

Not a terribly exciting image but it has some things going for it. It's of The Moat behind Elstead.

I took off for a couple of hours this morning to see if anything convinced me to paint it. After strolling around The Moat for a bit (remaining unconvinced) I decided I had to do something rather than pack it in so I sat myself at the far side of the pond, looking back on the little sandy beach.

It's not a bad representation the scene but it looks a lot better in the thumbnail than it does enlarged. Lacking crispness and a bit muddy again but I'm happy with it considering I wasn't that motivated.

It's a lovely spot, very relaxing, ducks paddling, ripples rippling, a couple of biplanes droning overhead on the way to the Dunsfold airshow. In the end, as always, it didn't really matter what I came up with, it was just nice to be out and about painting.

I might just treat this and another I did at the time as sketches and have a go at a studio image later.