Before the Rain — Beneath the Surface

There is something about the air before a storm. You can often tell that the weather is changing before the first drop of rain has fallen.

Before the Rain didn't begin with a particular place or a landscape I was trying to recreate. It began in my imagination with the storm cloud and the feeling of watching a storm approach.

For me, it is often the change in the air that comes first. The colours begin to shift from those of good weather into stormier hues and something that felt settled only a short time before starts to change.

I love the drama of it.

When I began painting, the storm cloud came first and everything else developed beneath it. I wanted the scene to feel vast, so the rolling landscape gradually appeared to give the painting depth and the cloud a sense of scale. The fields stretch away into the distance while the weather fills the sky above them.

Perhaps that scale is part of what draws me to storms.

They make me feel small, but I don't find that frightening. There is something strangely reassuring about remembering how small I am compared with nature. Things that have been occupying an enormous amount of space in my own thoughts can suddenly feel quite different when I stand beneath a huge sky and watch the weather changing.

My worries can sometimes feel a little like the rain. They arrive and occupy my attention, but they don't remain forever. Weather changes and eventually moves on.

As the painting developed, the tree on the right became increasingly important to me.

I imagine its branches beginning to move as the wind reaches it. They may be pulled and shaken and some of its leaves may be carried away, but the tree isn't separate from what is happening around it. It will be affected by the storm.

And afterwards, it will still be there.

I think there is something very human in that.

Being steadfast doesn't mean that difficult things happen around us without affecting us. Sometimes they shake us considerably. They may change things or take something with them, and afterwards we may have to find our footing again or rebuild parts of our lives that no longer look quite the same.

But we remain.

Perhaps that is why I don't look at the approaching storm in this painting with fear. I am more of an observer, watching the weather gather and knowing that what I am looking at is only one part of its journey.

I also know what comes afterwards.

There is a particular freshness after a storm. The air changes again, the rain has altered the colours of everything and gradually the landscape begins to settle.

But Before the Rain isn't that moment.

The rain hasn't fallen yet. The tree hasn't begun to bend beneath the wind and the storm is still gathering.

Everything is waiting beneath that enormous sky.

That was the moment I wanted to paint.

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