Timsbury, UK, 15" x 11"
A lovely village just South of me where I did a demo to the local Art Group in the summer. Not sure which street this is. The locals said 'ooh there's nothing much to paint round here', but I beg to differ. Just catch the light at the right angle and some shadows across the street and it can hopefully make for a half decent composition.
Painted on Saunders Waterford, Cold Press, 300 gms
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Porlock, Somerset, 15" x 11"
Following on from a previous post - here are the cottages - almost on the shore front at Porlock Weir. The foreground is dominated by the harbour at low tide - a messy muddy hollow with lots of different tones and colours - reds, browns and blues. This area is punctuated by mooring chains over to the harbour wall which is on the right (out of picture). I sneaked in a couple of figures for scale and a bit of simple reflection in the pool.
Painted on Saunders Waterford, Cold Press 300 gms.
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Porlock, UK, 15" x 11".
A group of cottages overlooking the pretty harbour of Porlock Weir in North Somerset. So this is low tide looking through the Harbour wall with a small footbridge across, leading to some cottages on the coast. The photo I took just had an empty harbour, so I think it needed at least one boat and I had to include a figure as well to avoid it looking like a post apocalyptic scene.
Painted on Saunders Waterford Cold Press 300 gms.
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Porlock Weir, UK, 22" x 15"
This was a demo painting and I laid down some extra washes on this one - more than I normally do, especially in the bottom right to try and create the form of a rocky slope. I decided to introduce a figure on the right with some movement. I am not sure what the figure is pulling, but it certainly isn't the big boat. Not too many colours were used. Mainly cobalt blue and burnt sienna were the primary two.
Painted on Saunders Waterford Paper, 300 gms, NOT surface.
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Porlock Weir, England, 15" x 11".
An exercise in simplification. The distant boats of which there were many, are simplified here - less in number and just thinking about their basic hull shapes and lines and masts. Painting done with my 3-colour palette, so I decided to make the harbour floor a cool colour to be compatible with the blue tarps covering the boats.
Painted on Saunders Waterford, 300 gms, NOT.
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Porlock Weir, England, 22" x 15"
A made up scene based on Porlock Weir for a recent workshop. My reference photo was a very dull day, so I added some blue sky and shadows. It was an exercise really in light and shade and introducing a few watercolour techniques like laying down a smooth wash (the sky and water) and timing - letting everything dry for example after the first wash. A bit of fun and not meant to be an exhibition quality painting.
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Minehead, England, 15" x 11".
Minehead Harbour in North Somerset and a Winter's scene. The harbour bed here is a mixture of sand and mud, so a bit tricky to walk over in places. It's a change to paint a dull light scene as opposed to something in bright sun. Good practice for getting the shapes and composition right to compensate for lack of contrast. Still, you can introduce some darks and lights - so the darkest area here might be the bottom of the boat and the lightest area might be the sea in the distance.
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Burrowbridge, England, 15" x 11".
I missed a plein air trip last year with a group of fellow artists but I managed to acquire a photograph of the area with the iconic mound in the background. Well I can imagine I am there by the roadside with the view in front of me. Of course I have to insert man and his dog somewhere and decided to have him cutting across several horizontal shadows along the road. Thankfully I have the hedgerow to add a bit more interest and angle to those shadows rather than boring straight lines.
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Burrowbridge, England, 15" x 11"
Burrowbridge, and the 'mump' hillock in this Somerset village. This painting was based on a reference photo sent me by fellow artist Jem Bowden and a plein air trip I could not make. I adopted a very loose style here - not too much detail at all apart from a few straw bails and the couple of figures. Those figures are much smaller than I normally do, but I think they turned out okay. All in all, quite a dark painting with that stormy sky.
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Weston Super Mare, England, 15" x 11".
An outdoor cafe scene at Uphill Wharf near Weston Super Mare, with some small cliffs to the left that overlook the estuary here. The background, cafe figures and stone wall on the right were almost done in one go, making this quite a simple sketch, apart from some careful painting around other figures and the cars. I think it would have been better to not have the left had highlighted roof bordered by the parasol - maybe a bit more roof to the left, or move the parasol to the right....
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