Watercolour Painting

Plein Air Painting at New Haw Lock

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Something I rarely find time for is painting outdoors, but recently did, with our local art group at New Haw Lock, which is one of the many locks along the Wey Navigation in Surrey. The Navigation dates from the c17, and made the river Wey navigable by cutting canals across the meanders and shallows. Thus this mix of river and canal made the Wey navigable for barge traffic from Guildford to the Thames. Amazingly this traffic by horse drawn barge went on until 1959. By then the navigation had been cut through to Godalming in the south, and had been especially useful in carrying gunpowder from nearby Chilworth Mill through to the Thames and on into the Port of London

During the c18 the Wey Navigation linked with the River Arun, and on down to the south coast, but that leg was short lived and proved uneconomic to run. That section fell into disuse, although some sections have been revived by conservationists

In the picture, one of the many lock keeper’s cottages, very charming and very paintable still. New Haw is somewhat underrated and is easily missed when driving by.

We found shade to sit, as the day was hot and became hotter towards midday. The morning was enough for me, so for about 2-3 hours during which time, I worked out my composition, and just sketched putting in the shadows which of course changed quickly. Photography helps the sketch book and I recorded several stages. It is my intention to finish the painting in my “studio”, but for the moment need to finish my Alhambra painting

I shall look forward to painting the New Haw lock. This is a typical Surrey scene and a typical Surrey cottage. I will attach my drawing. I regretted afterwards only taking an A3 pad which didn’t give me enough space but at home i can use a half sheet which will enable me hopefully to include the lock in its entirety

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Now all I have to do is to decide whether or not to include the foreground tree which obscures much of the cottage but nevertheless provides some interesting lights and darks

The Latest Commission

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This was the latest commission, received earlier this month, required for a wedding anniversary at the end of May, so a deadline to be kept to, which concentrates the mind splendidly.

I am assuming this beautiful place was the wedding venue, but I am not really sure. It turns out to be a chateau in the south of France. Lovely to look at, but full of problems for the painter, not least the sea of greens which really take up the page. Just over the treetops, we can see pink rooftops of a building which I guessed might be a chateau, but only later was this confirmed

In the foreground, attractive conference chairs in white, laid out for some formal occasion. Amongst all the broad brush work, some very detailed work indeed. I do have now a very fine brush which points like a pen whilst retaining the capacity to hold quite a lot of water, so not running out continuously. I ended up masking these chairs, which was a tricky operation in itself, but I did use this brush for putting back the grass colour within the upright rails in the chairbacks

An express wish from the client was that the painting should be bright. The light is Mediterranean. No problem, we can do that.

The major change that I made was to cut down on the amount of green in the painting, and introduce some more red to give relief to the eye. I have exposed much more of the chateau than is shown in the photograph. This will be apparent from my photograph of the painting later, but suffice to say, I have taken over about 25% of the picture, with a red colour which I believe has helped the composition, and relieved the tedium of looking at virtually a monochrome image.

The client helped with this by providing an extra picture of the chateau showing the complete facade with its architectural details, and I was able to work from that. I believed this to be one of those occasions where the painting improved on the photograph. The client was delighted, which is always a relief.

As this commission finished I received another one, to paint different aspects of Canary Wharf for a leaving present, so I hope to do that justice. I don’t get that many so two in a month is heartening, especially as I had no sales at Leatherhead.

I attach the painting for interestWedding Venue Modified

I kept the chateau deliberately hazy to indicate heat and distance. As far as the greens are concerned I used four, sap green and raw sienna mix as a base for the distant trees, Antwerp blue and lemon mix for the bright greens, sap green and ultramarine blue for the darks, and green gold for the lawn

The details in the painting are more delicate than the jpeg represents but that is always the case

Galloping Horses, the finished painting

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Galloping Horses

The finished painting.

It took great restraint not to add some more colour to the horse on the left. I still think I made the right decision. It looks as though it is appearing out of the mist and the spray kicked up by the animal in front, which is the effect that I wanted.

As far as what I did since the last post, well, apart from stopping myself touching the horse on the left, not that much really. I have removed the spattered masking fluid to give, hopefully , that effect of spray from the hooves. I added a little dark spatter as well, but really didn’t need much

I added more detailing to the lead horse, so he is now well-defined and, hopefully, coming out of the picture, and added some more colour to the water and reflections at the bottom of the page

And that is really it. If I keep looking at it, I shall be tempted to fiddle, and that as we all know is fatal

Galloping Horses Partway

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Galloping Horses Partway

I have moved on a bit from last time

So far I am using two colours only, Cobalt Blue and Vermillion Hue which I spoke about before, which does make a very pleasant grey with a sort of glow about it. I don’t think that I have worked with two colours before, so this will be interesting

I have spattered heavily with masking fluid around the hooves of the lead horse. This is showing as blue as I am using the Frisk product, so this will be white when I remove and hopefully the removal won’t give me a problem. I will probably spatter with some dark paint as well.

I have started to detail the lead horse, if only to judge the tones between him and the others further back. The pink background seems to work well. I will just go on defining the shadows on the horses and see how we end up

The Finished House Portrait

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Finished House Portrait

Well, the portrait is finished and shown to the client who is delighted. I don’t usually allow myself satisfaction, but even I think that this one turned out well. It just has to be mounted, which I shall do in the new year. It isn’t required until the middle of January so that should work out nicely

Basically, all that I needed to do since the last post, was to put in the shadows. Half the gravel drive was covered by shade from a large tree just off-stage, which also darkened the hedge. Some intricate shadow underneath the porch gave shape to the covered interior, and even the cartwheel stands out more now from the wall

Some dark detailing was added to the shrubs on the left. Somewhere in the deep tunnel made by those shrubs is a white garden gate, which I have shaded. Most of this I had to guess, with the help of some alternative references

I enjoy house portraits. I’m not sure why. This one will go on my website one day

But for now to resume my exhibition work, as time does not stand still

At this time of year, may I wish all who read my blog,warmest greetings and good fortune in the coming year

House Portrait: Part Finished

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Getting there but not quite. Still some detailing to be done

Apart from changing some of the trees on the right-hand side, I have kept as faithfully as possible to the subject. I have left out some of the dark coniferous foliage that was intruding in the right-hand corner. I didn’t like it, and it was very much “in your face”, and so detracted from the house, which should remain the star of the show. I hope the client agrees with me, but I could always put some in, if she insists.

I put a distant tree in behind the ridge of the roof, just to alleviate that line. The sky itself is bland, as I wanted the building to come forward. For the roof colour I glazed burnt sienna over raw sienna, and then when bone dry, glazed light red over the burnt sienna. I did the same for the brickwork, hopefully to give an impression of bricks being sunlit.

I have just started to put in some of the shadow, but have by no means completed. As soon as you do that, the building takes on a third dimension, and I love watching the house come towards me. Once the shading on the house is complete, I shall put some dark shadow on the hedge to the right. As well as that, dark shadow on the gravel, about halfway, which will help to make the rest of the drive, look bright. That is the plan

On the left-hand side I see from other pictures, that there is a white gate deep amongst the bushes which is just visible, so I will need to include that, as well as some extra dark in the shrubs, as well as shadows from them.

Still some way to go, but being a mad time of the year, I am reduced to little and often, which I don’t mind, as I can judge each stage as it dries out. As we all know, the difference between the wet pigment and the dried-out colour is quite significant.

Every so often, I take pains to point out, that I am not formally qualified to teach painting, but if you like watching me work, and if you find what I do to be helpful, then I am very pleased to welcome you to my blog. Especially welcome are more recent followers, whom perhaps I haven’t addressed before

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.

Salt Mills of Trapani: the finished painting

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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

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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

Marzamemi in Sicily: the finished painting

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Marzamemi, the fishing village near Syracuse in Sicily, almost a study in blue. The painting itself is more striking, but the photograph is as good as I can get it.

There is very little that I can add from the last post. I have detailed the boats in the foreground and you can check back against the original photograph. The only difference , I think, is that I have added a brighter red to the hull along the waterline.

I like it and it will be going into my exhibition in March

Next, well, there is one more painting of Sicily that I would like to try, and that is of the salt mills at Trapani. Salt is still extracted from the sea, by evaporation in salt pans. The majestic windmills that stand there still against the skyline no longer work, but they look marvelous. You couldn’t imagine the horizon without them

We will see how they come up in a painting

Paintings of Sicily

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I really need two more paintings for my exhibition in March. I love painting Italy, and am going to pick two locations from our trip to Sicily last year. One lovely little spot was the fishing village of Marzamemi, which is on the southern side of the island, not far from Syracuse. Actually it is more for the tourists than anything else now, but there are some nice little boats tied up in the harbour, obviously old but cared for. They are not pristine, but I don’t want that anyway. What I prefer are something like the boats in my photograph, painted by hand in these bright Mediterranean colours. How to get that bright blue will be challenging in itself and whether I can capture that thick hand-painted effect will be another matter

I took several pictures, and I will have to cull bits and pieces for the far distance, which is the far side of the harbour. I can generate something from these for the composition. There are buildings like cafes on the shore as well as other craft both on and out of the water

It could be an interesting task putting these together, but as I say, making something out of all that bright blue will be fun

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On the north west side of the island near the town of Marsala, is a quiet area where salt is evaporated from the sea-water in large pans. We watched the salt being piled high, and then being taken away for processing , with a constant shuttle of trucks. The mills are picturesque. I don’t think any of them work now, but they are still part of the scene

I thought I could make a painting from the pictures I took. I hope so, I will have juggle them about and see

I also bought two nice frames at a fair recently in a distressed finish, which look very Italian, so I hope that works out. I just have to get down to it

I received the brochure from the Tate the other day, and a new David Hockney exhibition starts next month, with special viewing times for members, which is me, which is a very welcome innovation. To be looked forward to