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Magdalen College from the High Street is an original oil painting by Nick Grove.
It was a dull, wet day in Oxford, and I hadn’t walked far from the car before taking refuge beneath the awning of a local café. From there, the view towards Magdalen College immediately caught my attention. With a coffee in hand, I selected a small panel—one of my preferred formats, large enough to build a convincing painting yet manageable in a single sitting.
I chose a vertical orientation to include both the reflective pavement below and the sheltering awning above. With no desire to linger in the rain, I worked more freely than usual, blocking in the composition quickly and allowing wet-into-wet passages to describe the movement and sheen of the scene.
The palette remained restrained, dominated by muted greys and softened colour. I reserve stronger pigments for moments of emphasis—traffic lights, for instance, offer brief points of intensity that bring the surface to life. The result is a direct, honest response to a fleeting moment of shelter, observation, and light.
