Castle Howard looking towards the Mausoleum.

After some sad news yesterday about an old, dear friend, I felt that I must do something today with him in my thoughts. We traveled to Castle Howard again to paint something, not sure what and also, I was testing a new pochade box design. We settled on this view thinking we were looking at the Temple to the Four Winds. We liked the fact that the daffodils were still in bloom and that the top of the lake helped with the composition. The earlier sun disappeared soon after starting to paint though glimpses of blue could still be seen. It was gusting quite hard making fine detail work difficult, nevertheless perhaps not a bad thing as the painting more seems more impressionistic. Later when checking the building we realized it was in fact the Mausoleum. 
Dedicated to DM.

12x10 oil on canvas, plein air pochade box painting.

Beginning to sketch out the composition.

I liked the way the pochade box worked. It holds just one canvas making the height slightly less than usual, hence it looks slimmer and is a little lighter in weight. Forgot to bring a palette knife unfortunately but managed alright. The painting took approximately an hour and 15 minutes.