Monday 21 April 2014

Castlehaven (Reeth Bay), Evening

I painted this a while ago - few weeks, that is - but followed it up with the small sketch of the same subject but in daylight.  I posted the little 'un, but had camera issues and couldn't show the bigger.  It's fairly fussy, really - I was experimenting with various kinds of oil paint.  I don't honestly know what I think of it, but anyway - here it is, for better or for worse.

This one is 30 by 40 cm, on canvas-covered MDF board.  And - probably obviously - it's an oil.


Thursday 10 April 2014

A "dirty picture", plus a bleak one

A couple of watercolours today - Bleak Coast (and believe me, it was) and Dark Corner: the dark one, "dirty" because there's a lot of dark paint in it, Payne's Grey mixed with various blues and reds and spattered with salt, didn't turn out as I'd intended but I let it go because I was interested to see what it would do more or less left to its own devices - it has a je ne sais quoi; or at least I think it has.  Can't speak for anyone else, of course.........

There are those who like very precise paintings, lots of detail, everything drawn with the brush to resemble as closely as possible realistic forms.  I don't do a lot of that - there may be a fair amount of detail, sometimes too much: but it's more in the nature of random brush strokes than very careful drawing.  This is because the paper I use for watercolour is invariably either Rough or NOT (cold-pressed) - if you're after fine detail and limpid washes, the paper to use is Hot Pressed: a smooth paper, with little texture.  I admire paintings like that, but have no desire to paint them myself.

Anyway: these are both around 10 by 7 inches, on 140lb paper (The Langton NOT).


Bleak Coast


Dark Corner