And moved a bridge.

From a photograph, this is a not wholly representational image of the day an enormous crane arrived to lift the new bridge into place. I began with a pencil drawing to outline the shapes in their various positions, and then shaded those in with dilute paint on this 16×12″ blank canvas.

I gave it a wash of dilute fluorescent orange pouring paint to start; sponged that down a little before it dried, then began filling in the shapes. The vast majority of this is almost free-form, but the bridge and the crane definitely are not. It’s clear that the crane needs some attention, but I’m quite pleased with the bridge – formed just enough to be what it is but not descending into unnecessary detail.

I’m not sure what the structure is round the base of the crane but it feels rather intrusive and I think I may knock it back a little, or reduce its size. The sky though; I really like the sky and I’m telling myself to leave it alone because, as it is, it’s energetic, turbulent, and vibrant and I suspect I’d end up killing it.

23rd November.

This was its helter skelter phase.

The crane was huge but not quite as huge as this. I’ve deliberately placed the impression of a close-up view of it – a vast sky-scraping ladder into the clouds – into the longer view to reflect the impact it had on us.

I don’t think I’m done with this yet [and if you’re seeing weird wavy lines on it, they’re not in the painting, it’s something to do with screens], there’s a wee something – like the telegraph wires – that will provide the lift. The subject is the massive crane that arrived in the field after stopping traffic from, I understand, Hull to here, and in this image, has just lifted the bridge into place. It reminds me of a rocket on a launch pad and I’ve exaggerated its relative size to reflect its psychological size. I can’t tell you the restraint I’m exercising in not writing NASA on it. #WaterSolubleOils #Painting #OCA #OCASA #Landscape

That detail I was looking for …

The yellowish colouring is most likely due to the poor light and a string of Christmas lights.

26th November.

26th November. Hey ho. Should have stuck with the first iteration. This last version is a dead weight of clunky effort, although I do like the drone. I’m wondering now if I can get rid of the crane and reinvent the sky a little.

There we are. The crane is a little less substantial and somehow less, but also more, realistic. And the sky has become biblical! I need to try for some continuity behind the crane, which is never easy but now even less easy with a medium that’s happy to join in for days after it’s been put in place. It maybe needs to be a tad smoother and I found some brushes today that might just do the job. I made the sky by flooding the upper 3/4 with water, leaking black, blue and white paint into it, then soaking up superfluous fluid and finally scrubbing the clouds into shape. I may have said this before, but we do some rather remarkable skies around here. This one is an imagined composite that wasn’t present on the day of the reference photo.

28th November. After faffing around with pencils, tiny paint brushes, and a variety of paint media and finding none of them lifted the colour of the crane, I remembered pastels. These allow me more control of the business end, and they also remain bright if the substrate, the w-s oils, is relatively stable. It was.

This version is w-s oils with pencil sharpening the edges, but it’s still quite lumpy and rough, which may have been due to the low temperatures in the studio rendering it close to solid! I had the radiator on for myself but not the other 20+ hours in the day and it drops below 10C in there sometimes.

I was persevering with paint here and began putting on ‘text’ to bring the crane into reality, but the paint still lacked discipline, even with the tiny brush I’d found. This was the point of desperation I’d reached when I spotted my massive box of pastels. Superb consistency, bright colours, relatively easy to draw with. The result is below with a dab or too of fluorescent orange pouring paint at the skyline and through the bridge girders bottom right.

I may will do something with the counterweights at the base as they too were largely yellow. This thing was nothing if not colour-coordinated.

I’ve finished this off with a decent layer of soft pastel. It gives me the strength and intensity of colour I need, and even given the size of the pieces, it’s easier to draw with than a paint brush. Now the counterweights are in place, it seems to me this is all but done. Quite a challenge!

© Suzanne Conboy-Hill 2025