Cornwall

Padstow Harbour Painting Completed

/ davidrpharmer / 6 Comments

This is the completed painting of Padstow Harbour in Cornwall, a very well known and popular place. It is a fishing port and consequently well known for good sea food restaurants. The well known Rick Stein comes from Padstow and has his own restaurants here, not to mention a very good fish and chip shop, and I believe he also had his own cookery school where he trained people in the fine art of good cuisine. Some years though since I have been here, and my information may be a little old.

The reference shots for this painting go back a few years, and I may have mentioned already that I have painted this view before but some years ago. I sold it so can’t compare and in those days was a bit careless about photographing my work. As I remember though this painting is very different to that one

I used a different palette for one thing. Not long ago I bought a new paintbox called Graphitint by Derwent, and I rather like them. I am not here to advertise and I haven’t been asked to, but I used some of these colours on the buildings around the quayside. What these paints do, and there are a dozen of them, different shades, is to granulate, so in other words, the pigment doesn’t dissolve completely but hangs in the water. When the water dries the pigment stays on the paper, usually in the tooth of the surface, and provides a sort of gritty effect. That may not sound attractive the way I’ve described it, but it works very well for stonework on buildings. The colours are a little muted but I don’t mind that. Other people can judge for themselves.

Otherwise quite a time consuming painting, working on the boats, which is quite enjoyable for a while, and then I need to rest. The reflections took a long time building up the depth of colour, and eventually I needed some coloured chalk for the very deep shades

Anyway the painting is finished. It will be in time for my redesigned web site, which I am looking forward to seeing one day

Now perhaps a short break from painting whilst I consider my next subject

Partway through the painting of Padstow Harbour

/ davidrpharmer / 2 Comments
The Under Painting

This is the stage that I have reached so far, namely the under painting on which hopefully to build

I have chosen a different colourway to anything I have used before, mainly as an experiment and perhaps hopefully to learn something. If it doesn’t work then I may have wasted a painting. I did this painting between 15 and 20 years ago, and just used the local colours. This time I wanted to inject some sunshine and maybe some mood into the painting. The photographs if you remember my last post, were taken in flat light, so no shadows and frankly rather dull

I used a base coat involving a mix of phthalo blue and viridian for a green/blue which I used for the sky and also for the sea in the foreground. I moved from sky colour to a peach for which I mixed orange and yellow and added rose. I quite liked that colour for a change. The sky moved to peach for buildings and boats and then back to sky colour for foreground sea. Remember I haven’t done this before, so could turn out badly

I have started to work on some of the buildings using blue with burnt sienna plus a dab of raw sienna to look like lichen on the roof. I have also drawn in some masts which I missed when I did the initial drawing

That is as far as I am so far. Other things demanding my attention as usual, but I quite like doing a little at a time. I may have said that I am completely overhauling my website which is time consuming but I think will be good when it is done. More of that another time

Painting something again

/ davidrpharmer / 5 Comments
Padstow Harbour

I sometimes have to stop and think what to paint next. Often I have a list in my head, but when i come to the end of that, then I have to think of what I need in my website

One of my lockdown tasks has been to sort through many years of reference photographs. So many years that many of them were turned into prints rather than being stored more conveniently on the PC. The collage above of Padstow Harbour is a typical example

I painted from this probably ten years ago. I have been to Padstow in Cornwall on several occasions, and I like the harbour there very much indeed. I have painted several different shots, and I am pleased to say that they proved popular. The painting from the view above, sold on its first showing and after that I moved on to other things.

Looking through these photographs reminded me of it, and I thought I would like to tackle this shot again, but of course differently. My style has changed between then and now, hopefully for the better. Not necessarily so, as sometimes I look back at old paintings, and wonder how I got a particular result, and could I do it again

On this occasion, I am going to do a similar composition, but work the changes hopefully with different colour combinations. Last time, as I remember I did local colour which was fine, but now I might try something a little more ambitious. I needn’t tell anyone if it fails

I shall start on some sketchwork soon and after that we’ll see what happens