Harvesting in Fyfeshire 1927

James McBey made this watercolour, "Harvesting in Fyfeshire", sometime in his life, and it feels like he got right in there with the process. The washes of colour aren't too fussy; they're applied wet-on-wet, letting the pigments bleed and mingle, like a quick sketch from life. There's a beautiful looseness here, a sense of improvisation. Look at the way the trees are just kind of suggested with these quick, gestural marks. It’s not about rendering every leaf perfectly, but more about capturing the feeling of being in that place. The thinness of the paint really lets the paper breathe. And that blue sky! It's almost like a Turner, but with a lighter touch. I see a bit of Whistler in the way he simplifies the scene down to its essence. It’s that conversation between artists, each building on what came before, finding their own way to express something new, that keeps art alive, right?