Madeira Coast - Adjusted

Today I had another session with this canvas. In the wake of comments left here and on Wet Canvas I have made some adjustments. Some of them are subtle, probably as a result of my tentative efforts. For the record the first thing that I tried to do was to reduce the impact of the rock in the middle ground on the left. I mixed a bit of the base burnt umber with a touch of gray and white then judiciously applied it, then added a few highlights to help with the modelling. The next job was to soften the horizon line, done by adding a lighter mixture of sea colour and then blending it in. Other jobs done include the addition of some extra light wave colour, soften some rock edges and deepen some shadows. There is no doubt that these changes have been improvements, whether they go far enough or not I will decide after sitting on it for a few days.


Madeira Coast - Oil on canvas board 20" x 16"

Madeira Coast - Work in Progress Part 2

I had another session with this and began to introduce some more detail as well as adjusting some values, in particular in the rear cliff. Hopefully the next session will see it finished but it will have to wait a day or two as domestic duties are about to intervene. It'll give some of the paint the chance to tack up. Anyone with suggestions as to ways to improve the image are welcome to make their comments.

Madeira Coast - Oil on canvas board 20" x 16"

Madeira Coast - Work in Progress

This image will be familiar to regular readers in that it is a result of 'sound practice'. No, I'm not being boastful but making reference to the sort of process that most of us should go through prior to committing to a studio piece. The sound practice that I refer to is providing oneself with the best bank of information on which to base the ensuing effort. The first and most important stage for me is creating in the field sketch information that reflects observation on the day and the watercolour sketch that I made on site was published in previous post. The other thing I did was to photograph the scene and the shot is published below.

Getting into what I laughingly call a studio, the back kitchen at home, my first job is to create a 'block in'. Here I attempt to establish relationships between the various elements in the picture that reflect the relative values and colour hints for later detailed work. Therefore what you see here is a Work in Progress. I posted it as such on Wet Canvas, hoping that colleagues there would make suggestions as to how to approach the detailing. One comment that emerged was from a very helpful artist, who has made many positive contributions to my development, Michael McGuire. He spotted that the value shift between light and shadow sides of the rear rock are not great enough. So when I start work tomorrow the first thing I will do is try to darken slightly the shadow side. This will be a delicate task as it will be easy to overdo it and ruin the effect. After that the detailing can begin. I will post the results when they are nearer completion.


Madeira Coast WIP - Oil on canvas board 20" x 16"

Backhouse Park

After a few weeks without much opportunity to dip into the turps I managed a couple of hours in the local park hoping to produce my autumn masterpiece. Foolish me. What a struggle? Whilst not my usual subject matter I thought lessons learned elsewhere might aid the process but to no avail. Choosing such a complicated scene without simplifying and editing sufficiently well did not help the progress of the piece. However there are signs that some of the lessons along the way have not been totally forgotten. I am starting to achieve better feelings of depth in some of my work. Painting is like many other activities, the more often you are able to do it the more comfortable you are with the tools. Moral - get out more often and if not possible to get out then paint indoors.


Backhouse Park - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Another Sea Stack

Recent works in watercolour have interrupted my trips to the beach, but true to form I found time to head out and select one of the many stacks along our coast as a subject. The result is below.

Returning to the same subject matter is providing me with a wealth of material from which I can make judgements about any development that is taking place in my painting and this latest example has given me lots to think about. There is a better range of values in this piece and areas like the sky and the foreground read much better than in some earlier works. I put this down to taking a greater degree of care in blocking in prior to beginning the main painting. It was particularly helpful in establishing the value range and foreground detail. Clearly another set of lessons learned.


Sea Stack, Souter - Oil on canvas board 12" x 10"

Joseph Skipsey

If you have been reading regularly you will know that one of the exercises we did when working with Charles Reid was to use old photographs of people to hone our figurative work. Having brought that idea home I decided to start a little project whereby I would continue to practise in similar fashion but to use images that had some relationship with the local area. So off to the library to seek out source material. It was easily found, pictures galore of the working people of NorthEast England. As you can imagine mining features strongly in such imagery and I decided to start with something from that industry. I discovered a rather haunting image of Joseph Skipsey, known as the Pitman Poet, and used it for my first effort.


Joseph Skipsey, Pitman Poet - Watercolour on Not paper 14" x 11"

Holiday Sketches

We've just returned from holiday, a week in Madeira, our first time on the island. It was a strange week in terms of weather. We had the expected sunshine and the first rains since February and boy does it rain when it comes. The combination of warmth and the wet ensured that conditions were humid. This is the first time I have tried painting watercolour in such humidity and found that it presents interesting problems. For a start the paper, once wet, seems to remain damp for a long time making it much more difficult to judge when to apply new washes. Almost everything becomes wet in wet and whilst that is great fun it isn't always necessarily what you want to achieve.



Enough of the gripes, I did manage to get a few sessions where I could sit down with my sketch book and run on some paint. The small watercolour box and a sketchbook were the only gear that I had with me but it is enough when time is tight and you have to fit it in amongst the travelling around to familiarise oneself with a new holiday venue.



So on with the pictures. All of the shots below are from the sketchbook and represent rapidly executed, unfinished pieces. Even though they aren't finished they do represent a much better memory of the experience than the inevitable photographs.

The first picture was painted across the double page spread to encompass the distant headland of Sao Laurenco. Raindrops provide some of the spatter evident in the sea and there are traces of paint transferred from one page to the other as it was rapidly closed to avoid the arriving storm.




Machico - Watercolour on Not paper

Another mixed day, some bright light, some cloud and rain but the anglers, like elsewhere in the world are not deterred by the weather.



Ribeira Brava - Watercolour on Not paper

At last a morning of sunshine and a trip out to the extreme Eastern end of the island. Fabulous cliff top scenery. Regular readers will know this to be a particular weakness of mine.




Porto Sao Laurenco - Watercolour on Not paper

The next picture shows a lady working at lifting vegetation left after cropping. In the background is one of the 'A' line houses typical of the area around Santana.

Santana - Watercolour on Not paper

As painting becomes increasingly important to me the challenge of ensuring that travel incorporates the opportunity to paint looms larger. Next year we intend taking a longer trip over an extended period and whilst carrying watercolour kit is not too difficult, I'm trying to get my head around the logistics of getting oil gear away with me as well. Anyone with bright ideas about the travel problems of oil painters would be welcome commentators on the blog.