Barcelona, Spain, 15" x 11".

It's been a few years since I painted the 'Ramblas' in Barcelona and after stumbling across a photo of the bottom end of this wide boulevard I decided to have another go.  Being a very very busy area of course there has to be many people in the scene.  I tried not to overdue the numbers and included a little street cafe on the right hand side.  The large tree had a very loose treatment and I dropped clear water into it as it was still moist to get those meandering lines coming down the canopy.  The architectural details of the building was done with dry brush strokes using mainly neutral tint with a smallish synthetic brush.

Porthleven, England, 15" x 11".

Low tide at Porthleven Harbour in Cornwall England, and the wild Atlantic ocean is just over to the right.  This was a practice sketch for one of my YouTube videos recently (yes the one where I lost the sound!).  In some ways I prefer this one to my live demo.  I was happy with the way the boats came out and also the different colours in the harbour bed.  Well there is mostly green algae and seaweed of course but also the browns of the mud/sand.  If you stare long enough you can see the complete colour range.

Avebury, England, 15" x 11".

 A composition based on a reference photo from a visit to this pretty village last year.  I think the key part to this painting was the first wash - over the whole paper starting with the sky and then a bit warmer on the left hand side with the buildings and a bit of cool blue for the road and then finally the grass at bottom left.  While the wash was still moist, different colours were 'dropped' in.  Then everything was left to dry completely.  The second dark was was added and created the form of the buildings, shadows and car coming towards us.

Chania, Crete, 22" x 15".

The corner of the old Venetian Harbour as it is called on the island of Crete.  It's a corner where most of the local fishing boats moor up and quite a nice hotel there on the right with a great view off the balconies.  I aimed for high contrasts here both in tone with the dark reflections close to lighter boats and the contrast between the warmth of the buildings and the coolness of the water.  The soft darker waves were done while the first wash of the sea was moist (turning to damp) with thicker, darker pigment.  The mast reflections were done with a 'sword' brush (or a Rigger Brush would do just as well) and drawing in the jagged line towards the bottom.