Summer grasses and barley on the cliff top

This painting was completed at Catterline, a tiny fishing village on the north east coast of Scotland. In the height of summer, Joan Eardley would work continuously and intensely on her view of the natural environment by which she was surrounded. Eardley would often include the grasses and flowers blended in with her thick impasto colours of pale blue-green, gold and white. As she claimed to enquiring critics of her work, 'As a matter of fact my greatest influence is just looking at nature. I never look at other painting at all.' (c.) The Eardley Estate