Just to show what it's like painting outdoors in the UK in summer, here's my second effort in a town local to me, Malmesbury. So a quieter spot this one and meant to be a study of the end of the church, some tomb stones and a tree casting shadow. But as the painting progressed, a fine misty rain came down and spoiled the show...
Painted on Saunders Waterford, cold press 300 gms paper - not waterproof paper but damned good!
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My latest watercolour demo up on my YouTube channel, with inspiration from a subscriber's photo....
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Bristol, England, 22" x 15".
A plein air with the 'Exiles' on the Bristol Waterfront. I thought the long cabin of this old barge moored up on the Bristol Waterfront made for a nice composition as it ended and joined up with the background buildings. Its lines lead you into the picture as do the row of smaller craft on the other side of the water. I remember it being a dull day, but perhaps there's a bit of light bouncing off that barge top....
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Marshfield, England, 22" x 15".
A plein air painting from a sketching trip last year. The scene is of a lane leading up to a farm behind the village, with some old barns to one side. I introduced a few strategic puddles to get some reflections in. Also when I was doing the first was of the lane, I left out little areas which easily became stones once a shadow was added. Trees were done with an old mop brush in a fairly loose fashion. The dark yew tree left of centre was done with thinker pigment and upward strokes to give the appearance of the way they grow.
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Watermouth Bay, England, 22" x 15".
Another exercise for me in painting boats. I try to have a balance over painting subjects (sorry, I don't do bunches of flowers, portraits or pet pictures), landscapes, town scenes, cars, people and maritime scenes. It was quite fun painting around all those puddles and changing the colour as I came down to the foreground with a lot of green seaweed in the middle and then bare reddish sandstone. Man and dog were not painted around, and was the last thing I did with thickish paint for his overalls.
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Southampton, England, 15" x 11".
Low tide at Bartley Water, an estuary leading into the Solent. This was a drizzly winter's day - very gloomy and everything 'grey'. So slightly out of my 'comfort zone' here not being able to do any darks. There were two wet in west phases - the background and the reflections. I actually did the reflections first, then painted in the background trees to match them. A bit easier that way when your paper is at an angle and you don't know how far the reflections will travel.
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Wickwar, England, 15" x 11".
The main street running through Wickwar, a village close to where I live. Based on my last picture, I've chosen another stormy day. The whole sky area was made damp first with clear water. After leaving ot to dry a little, I painted in some dark clouds leaving some lighter areas. Then a very simple rendering of the buildings left and right. The cars had a neutral medium tone wash then a bit of "wet in wet" with their darker shadows.
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Scarborough, North Yorkshire, 15" x 11".
Another rendition of a Scarborough scene looking along the scene front and the Amusement Arcades. A rainy scene (sorry Scarborough), but even when it's wet there's plenty of things to do and paint of course. So plenty of reflections and plenty of reds up against the cools of the background and road. the only things that needed some careful painting around was the umbrellas, car tops and some roof tops.
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Cherbourg, 15" x 11"
The 'Quai Caligny' running alongside the Harbour in central Cherbourg. There's a few ways of doing misty hills or low lying cloud - I went with the shortcut way. After an underlying wash was allowed to dry (fairly light), I put in a few random areas of clear water where the ridge of the hills are. Then I painted in the sky with a darker tone of mainly yellow ochre allowing it to bleed into the damp areas. Quickly after that, I continued with the background hills, allowing it too to merge in with those damp spots. Fingers crossed, you end up with a passable impression of some mist and clouds.
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Watercolour of Keynsham, Bristol, 15" x 22" on Saunders Waterford Rough 300 gms.
I was out 'plein air' painting with local watercolour artist Jem Bowden recently. Well the day started off nice and dry. We had setup to do our first sketch from the river bank - a scene of an old pub, and all was going fairly well until almost at the end we had some persistent light rain. Well as you can see, it looks like someone has had a go with a spray gun with all that mottling effect. Anyway, we retired for a bit until the weather situation improved. Moral of the story, check the weather forecast before plein air painting out in the countryside - especially in a UK summer!
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