How does Bigger Trees Near Warter elucidate its Background?
Although Hockney has lived in Los Angeles since 1978, he always returned to spend Christmas at his mother's house in Bridlington. From 2004 onwards he spent increasing lengths of time in Yorkshire; the rolling chalk hills around Bridlington became the focus of his art. In 2006 he made a series of nine large landscapes of Woldgate Woods, returning to the same spot between March and November to chart the changing seasons. Each of these works consisted of up to six panels.On a trip to Los Angeles in February 2007, looking at images of his Woldgate Woods paintings, Hockney had the idea of working up the same scene over a much bigger scale. He had to work out how to complete this project without a ladder and in the small space of his studio in Bridlington. "The enormous 19th-century oil paintings like The Coronation of Napoleon in the Louvre were made in specially designed studios."  Because of space considerations, Hockney had to avoid working on a ladder or on scaffolding:  "The trouble is that with something like this you need to step back. Artists have been killed stepping back from ladders.""Then I realised it was possible to make a single picture that size," he says, "using computer technology to help you see what you are doing. I thought, my God, it would be enormous, but that it would be good on the end wall of the largest gallery at the Royal Academy. I'd found a way to do an eye-catching landscape for the Summer Exhibition. It was quite a challenge."Only six weeks after his idea in Los Angeles, the painting was completed. The first three weeks were spent organising the project, "The logistics were quite something." His usual procedure when working in the landscape is to load a pickup truck with paints and materials and drive to the location. In addition, a special rack had to be constructed capable of storing 50 wet canvases.The painting itself was essentially completed in a three-week period in March 2007. "The painting had to be done in one go. Once I started, I had to carry on until it was finished," says Hockney. "The deadline wasn't the Royal Academy. The deadline was the arrival of spring, which changes things. The motif is one thing in winter, but in summer it's one solid mass of foliage – so you can't see inside and it's not as interesting to me." The solution was to sketch a grid showing how the scene would fit together over 50 panels. Each individual panel was painted in situ and as they were completed his assistant, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, would digitally photograph them and then make them into a computer mosaic. With this mosaic he could chart his progress, since he could have only six panels on the wall at any one time. Gradually, with the help of the constantly updated computer mosaic, Hockney built up the picture.
Hockney also spent time just looking at the subject he was going to paint. "I'd sit there for three hours at a time just looking, lying down practically so I looked up."
landscape the Louvre canvas The Coronation of Napoleon Royal Academy York Summer Exhibition Los Angeles Woldgate Bridlington