Water

Southsea Pier Sunrise in Watercolour

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Sunrise over South Parade Pier in Southsea

A favourite place from my childhood. We were taken there and allowed to play on the gaming machines, which were not very sophisticated in those days. I remember putting in one old penny which was the pre-decimal currency, so value today, one half of a new penny. The aim was to flick a ball bearing round at speed and see where it landed, hopefully in a slot which gave you a payback. As I say, extremely unsophisticated

This painting relates to the reference photograph which I posted last time, which I was kindly allowed to use by Vicky Stovell of Smiley Sunshine Photography.

I used few colours. Cadmium Orange, Ultramarine Violet, Dark Mauve and Cobalt Blue. I combined the blue and the violet for the sky as well as the wet sand at the bottom of the picture. The uprights for the pier were in deep, deep shadow so i used the dark mauve, instead of black which I avoid where possible.

In order to get the bright sun image, I held a tissue in place with one finger, and then applied the first wash. There are probably better ways of getting that result, but that was the best I could think pf at the time

This painting will be going in my September exhibition at Denbies Wine Estate, so hopefully will freshen up the collection

I have another Istanbul painting in preparation so will post that at a later date

Langstone Mill in Evening Glow

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A favourite place and a favourite subject. My boyhood was spent in the area, and Langstone was a favourite haunt. There was and is, a lot for boys to do here, bathing and canoeing, digging for shellfish and running from aggressive swans when we interrupted them on the nest. It is an historic place. It was the ancient port serving nearby Havant, the main town about a mile inland. I say ancient. Coal was still coming in here from the north, in the early part of the twentieth century. Today it is just a delightful creek, used by sailors and photographers, and of course painters.

The tower is what is left of the c18 windmill. The sails were removed in the c19, and the building left to rot. The building to the left of the tower was the original grain store, and the one to the far left was the tide mill. In the 1930s the mill was rescued by the famous artist Dame Flora Twort and restored for residential use. The architect was Ernst Freud, well-known for his work in Germany and later in London.

Langstone Mill has a connection with Neville Shute, the novelist, who lived here during the last war, and did some of his writing here. Shute was an aeronautical engineer, and was a director of a company making aircraft in nearby Portsmouth

I have painted this subject many times. On this occasion I tried something slightly different, and used Quinacradone Gold which puts a glow in the sky, which you get with early evening. Then I added the long shadows which hopefully finish the effect

Canals of Venice

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Venice Drawing

Today my colleague in paint, Elaine and I set up our joint exhibition at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford. I have to say that it did look good. It will be on for four weeks, and now one has to forget about it, which is never easy, as it is so tempting to check one’s emails

Having said that my exhibition work is over for a while, I am reminded that on the 29th July, our local club, the Pirbright Art Club are holding their summer exhibition. We call it the “Railings” as we hang our paintings from the iron railings around the old village hall. It does look quite effective

However all my best stuff is at the hospital and will be until mid August, so a bit of a problem

There was a Venice picture which I wanted to do, and I have attached the photograph as well as my line drawing version of it. I am going to try and complete this by the 25th when we have our “auditions” for this exhibition, so at least it will look as though I am trying to support our local show.

The photograph, I found startling, with the brightness of the colours and the deep shadows, both complimentary and both fascinating to attempt. Some lovely deep oranges and some texture work with these bright colours, should be very satisfying to do. There are too some really good architectural shapes, such as the Gothic window which I hope to give more prominence. I have omitted the window next to it, shown in the photograph. The architectural iron work of he balconies is a study in itself

Anyway that is my next task, which promises to be fun

Dewdrop on Leaf Exercise

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Dewdrop on Ivy Leaf

Now that my exhibition work is finished pro tem and before I go away for a while, I thought I would look at some exercises that I have been meaning to do, yet never found the time

This one I owe thanks to Susan Neale who did this demonstration in the Paint magazine some while ago.

She mixed the leaf colour with indigo and lemon watercolour. I have to say, one of the most accurate dark leaf greens I have seen and I have included a real leaf in my picture to compare

Using her own words, more or less:

  1. Using the dark green mix, paint the leaf shape with a no 7 brush. Add the veins using a mix of white gouache mixed with the lemon yellow ( I did add a little of the pale green too)
  2. When dry, draw the dewdrop shape. Now with dark green colour add the shadow area at the top of the dewdrop. Soften the shape with clean water and allow to dry
  3. Paint the cast shadow at the base of the dewdrop, using a darker shade of green
  4. To finish, using the white gouache, apply a rounded dot to the top of the bubble and a highlight to the bottom end

 

As for my attempt, well, could improve with practice perhaps

A useful little detail if you can master it

Close up of dewdrop

I won’t be posting anything for a while so don’t get upset if I don’t respond

Fishing Boats at Beer in Devon

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Fishing boats

Years ago we went to the delightful little fishing village of Beer on the south Devon coast. These colourful boats were drawn up in a line on the beach, and I photographed them in several frames, as I have shown here

I painted them once and showed them. That painting sold. A year or two later, someone picked the painting out from the web site, and commissioned something like, so I painted something similar but not the same

At a craft fair recently I bought the frame in the photograph. The beading is Italian, heavily distressed and in a driftwood finish. The mount is split into four spaces, and is obviously intended for photographs.

It reminded me of something I had seen not long ago at an exhibition. An artist had used a frame like this using a long painting, which looked very effective, I thought. It obviously needs a long horizontal subject, which reminded me of the line of boats at Beer, so I am going to try it out. It may not work, as the spacing of the boats may be wrong, but I will try it anyway

If it turns out well, this could be my twelfth and last painting for the July exhibition, so we shall see

Zoom in

Venice Painting Completed

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Venice Painting Completed

The finished painting with San Giorgio Maggiore in the background, which I enjoyed doing, although trying to hit the right colours was testing to say the least

I have already mentioned the mooring posts. In the photograph they looked red in the evening light. This turned into a glazing exercise, wet on dry, although nothing like as tricky as the hull of the gondola which I will come to in a minute

For the posts I started with a Burnt Sienna wash which is pretty safe. When the paint had dried, the pigment had disappeared. I applied another coat of the same colour, followed by a coat of Permanent Rose which should have given these posts a nice evening red glow, but still pasty. I had been waiting to use quinacridone red, of which I have a fairly limited experience, so perhaps risky. The colour worked well, I thought, giving me what I wanted. I used Indigo for the strips of bark hanging onto the wood. Indigo makes an alternative to black which I avoid if I can

Now the real challenge, to use that overworked word, was how to treat the hull of the gondola. I may have said before that gondolas are black by regulation. The finish is of a very high gloss, the sort one sometimes gets on pianos, in fact it used to be called piano finish. I think polyurethane was involved which may have been universally banned by now because of health risks.

Black gloss in certain lights obviously won’t look black, because of the other bright colours it picks up in this mirror like shine. If you remember the original photograph that I worked from, the vessel looked a sort of bright copper colour.

Again this was a long and drawn out glazing exercise. At least five coats as I remember and twenty four hours natural drying in between each coat. I used Quinacradone Gold, Burnt Sienna, Van Dyke Brown, Transparent Brown and Permanent Rose

I looked at it in the morning from a distance. I think it worked but I will have to put it away and get it out again another time, before I can make an objective view

As always comments are welcome

Venice Painting so far

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Venice painting to date

 

Not the best of photographs I am afraid

The sky is much pinker than the picture shows but try as I might, I can’t stop the camera leeching out the background colour. Also too much camera distortion making the posts lean inwards which I will try to correct on the finished version

What I did to colour match the original photograph, in which the sky and most of the water is a deep salmon pink, was to brush all over first with a red-orange mix, which did dry quite pale. I then built up with dilute coats of alizarin crimson until I reached the depths of colour that I wanted.

When that was hard-dried, I started on the background buildings, the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, always a favourite. Being in deep shadow I gave all the buildings a wash of French Ultramarine, and then another one. When that was really dry, I painted the rooftops and brickwork in Burnt Sienna.

The mooring posts I started with Burnt Sienna, but I wanted them to be more red than that. I glazed them with Permanent Rose. They were still too brown, so went over them again with quinacrodone red ( it doesn’t matter which way I spell that word, it always seems to be wrong). This was getting nearer the shade

I now had the colour relationship between the foreground posts and the background church. I felt the church could go darker still, with another coat of Ultramarine, and this time bring the wash down a little way over the water, to cast a shadow. There is one small building in front of the church, which I think is the customs house, which in reality stands well out on a promontory coming towards us. I missed this out with the last coat so that it didn’t disappear altogether

That is as far as I have gone as yet. I still have to darken the posts and finish the gondola, probably with some indigo on the seating. How I tackle the hull, I still have to work out, so we shall see.

Venice Tonal Sketch

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Venice Tonal Sketch

The exhibition at the Guildford Institute has been running for a working week now. There have been a crop of complimentary comments, otherwise fairly quiet. Not unexpected ,as although the Institute is a delightful venue, it is not a very busy place, and I tend to get more publicity than sales there. Having said that, I usually sell something even if it is after the show

Now is the time I have to think about my next solo show which will be at the Royal Surrey Hospital in July.  This is held in the Peter Thompson Gallery, which is quite a busy place. Taking the worst case scenario and assuming I sold no paintings whatsoever at the Institute, I still wouldn’t take the same collection to the hospital. I will take some but also freshen the gallery with some new stuff which I will work on between now and July. This sounds a long way off but there are holidays in between, so I cannot slacken the pace

I need a couple of Venice pictures which are always popular, so I am working on the view above.  The lovely church of San Giorgio Maggiore near the mouth of the Grand Canal is always a favourite, and I have painted it several times before, but not this particular shot. It always sold in the past, which I know is no guarantee for the future.  Everyone wants the same view so the test is to provide the same image, yet giving it some twist that stretches the artist at the same time.

I am going to give this painting some different colours which will make me think. This will be an evening scene, so a reddish sky which will reflect on the water. The church will fade into the background, and the foreground will be taken up with this solitary gondola. Gondolas are traditionally black. I think there is a regulation which says that they have to be. But it won’t have to look black. The high gloss finish will reflect the colour of the water and the shadows on the water, and also include the dancing highlights

This will certainly test me, and I am not at all sure that I can pull this one off. However it will be interesting to say the very least, and an experience I shall learn something from

As always I will post my progress stage by stage

 

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Salt Mills of Trapani: the finished painting

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dscf3567

The painting finished, and that now completes my quota for the exhibition coming up at the Guildford Institute on the 13th. Something of a relief that I am in time, and only have some framing left to do.

For the conical roofs on the mills, I used a different red. Quinacridone Red which I haven’t used before, makes a nice deep pinky red and was virtually an exact colour match to the photograph. Indian Red is not dissimilar but I remembered buying the quinacridone some while ago for some purpose or other, so thought I would trial it. I quite like it by way of a change

I then went on to run a dilute shade of the same colour down the sides of the mills themselves which again brought the masonry colour closer to the original in the photograph.

The stones along the walkway between the salt pans, were quite bright in the sunlight, so I used quinacridone gold instead of raw sienna

There was little else to do. I deepened the blue in the foreground. Sadly little or nothing to put there, so I have made the reflections more pronounced in order to break up the expanse of blue water  I could use red for my signature. I will think about that

But life does not stop here. I have another exhibition coming up in July at the Royal Surrey Hospital, which is another favourite venue. This time I shall be sharing the space with my colleague, Elaine. She does more abstract and adventurous stuff than me, so our paintings seem to compliment one another

Taking a pessimistic view, with no sales at the Institute, I shall just move these paintings to the next exhibition. However there would be one or two changes that I would like to make anyway, and I would like to include some more paintings of Venice which are always popular. I have come across a very good source of photographs that I can work from and leave the next one with you

venice-san-giorgio-maggiore

San Giorgio Maggiore, an old favourite which I have painted before but the light and colours on this shot are delightful

We will see what I make of it. Suggestions by the way, are always welcome

Salt Mills at Trapani: the part finished painting

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salt-mills-part-finished

Well, I am moving along slowly, which is the best I can say

There have been quite a few problems over the last couple of weeks, which have demanded my attention. Sadly things that I enjoy, like painting, have had to take second place. Still, every now and then, I creep back to my easel and manage an hour or so. I treat painting as r&r at the moment, and there is no doubt that it soothes the troubled spirit.

I have called this the part finished stage. perhaps more accurate would be to call it the part unfinished stage.

I have put in a Mediterranean sky and water. Phthalo Blue and Cobalt blended seem to work quite well for this. Again I have worked up the distant background in the same colour only deeper, which I think gives it a more faraway look

I have been putting detail into the three mills and adjacent buildings. I have been trying to gradate the tone from one to the other to create the feeling of distance. The nearest will require more work, as this one will have to look really sharp. Detailing the sails will be testing, knowing how much to put in and how much to leave out. I want them to look accurate without looking like a photograph. Oh well, if it were easy it wouldn’t be fun, I suppose

Ironically, the furthest mill presented the least difficulties when it came to painting the sails. Just a flick of a wet brush and that was it. I still have to think about the middle one which will be difficult to get just right. The three bears had the same problem!

I have had to rearrange those low walls to help the composition and to get some reflections in, otherwise there will be nothing in the foreground. No boats here.

Some interesting problems to tackle!