far across the beach – a coastal painting

watercolour painting of Heacham North Beach
Far across the beach – Heacham. Watercolour on Waterford 300lb rough, 14ins x 14ins.

Another one of my current series of Coast paintings. This is very local to the studio, just a few miles up the road. Heacham north beach has that combination of wide open spaces and intriguing wooden posts and groynes that just help to make an interesting combination. Add to that the ever changing light and it’s a place I could revisit endlessly and find a new painting waiting for me, every single time.

This new work is in my favourite ‘winter light’ palette of Prussian Blue and Burnt Sienna. Winter light was the feeling that I wanted to generate, but I actually made this painting just a week or so ago, in high summer. That’s part of the job of an artist, to take the basics of a composition and make it their own. Change the light, change the shadows, change the colours, anything to put your own stamp on it. The sketch or the photograph is just the starting point!

As with my previously posted painting of the Seven Sisters cliffs, this watercolour is in a square format 14 inches on each side. The work will be in a frame around 23 inches square. I’ve noticed lately that square is the new ‘must have’ shape for landscape paintings. Maybe the old ‘traditional landscape’ format is just, err, too traditional? We shall see.