New Paintings

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.

New Paintings

Painting the Seven Sisters

Watercolour painting of Seven Sisters cliffs
Windswept – the Seven Sisters cliffs. Watercolour on 300lb Saunders Waterford 14ins x 14ins.

I’m back in the studio at last, making paintings not just teaching others to make paintings. Well, it’s what artists are supposed to do. Not that I don’t enjoy teaching, on the contrary, I find helping other artists very stimulating and rewarding. Plus, it keeps me in practice!

There are exhibitions coming up. The West Norfolk Artists will be holding their Summer Exhibition in September, at the newly restored St Nicholas Chapel, King’s Lynn, and in October I will be showing work in the Garden House Gallery, Cromer along with other members of the Caperac art group.

So, new work is required and I find few things more stimulating of my creativity than exhibitions on the horizon. The painting you see here is one that I just completed today and is part of a series of coastal scenes that I’m working on at the moment. Hopefully you will recognise the iconic view, the Seven Sisters cliffs on the Sussex coast near Beachy Head.

Margaret and I were down that way several years ago and I took some photos and did a sketch or two, but this composition is based on a view I found in an old newspaper photograph. I’ve completely altered the tonal and colour schemes from those in the photo and I made a few changes to the composition too. There should be some cottages in the foreground but I decided to demolish them!

The colour palette used is very minimal, with just Prussian Blue and Burnt Sienna. There is a little Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow in a couple of the mixes, but essentially this is a two colour tonal painting.

I hope you enjoy looking at this latest watercolour. I have more on the production line which I’ll show you soon.

Art Events, Tutorials

What makes the perfect tube of paint?

MaimeriBlu watercolours
A selection of MaimeriBlu watercolour paints, showing the Italian pigment name and, underneath it, the English one in, unfortunately, very small type.

Yes, what indeed does make the perfect tube of watercolour paint? Is it the consistency, with lots of juicy pigment? Is it the ease with which the colours mix and flow? Or, is it the colours themselves, that ‘must have’ shade of red, for example?

Well, all these things are important of course. Lately, I’ve been testing a range of Italian watercolour paints – MaimeriBlu. Some of you may know the name, they’ve been around for a long time, but lately they have not had much presence in the UK. Now the SAA (Society for all Artists) are going to distribute them and several of the Society’s PAs (Professional Associates) have been asked to take a look at the Maimeri range, myself included.

So, how did I find them and have they got that perfect tube of watercolour paint?  They certainly have plenty of pigment, and the colours flow out nicely. Some of the colours in the range may not be particularly familiar to UK painters, but that is no disadvantage as all the ‘staple diet’ colours are here, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and so forth. Without a doubt these MaimeriBlu watercolours are every bit as good in quality as any other range I’ve tried and I’ve tried quite a few.

But, they have only one little problem. I can’t read the name of the colour on the tube! And actually, Maimeri are not the only ones guilty of this sin, the colours in the latest range of Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolours are equally as difficult to identify quickly. Don’t they know that all watercolour artists are old codgers like me who can’t read tiny print on a tube of paint! So I’m on the look out for a range of paints with nice clear marking on the tube, so that I know straight away whether I’m going to use Ultramarine Blue or Cobalt Blue, or whatever. At the moment, Daler Rowney are in the lead, but I was actually very happy with Winsor & Newton – before they decided to ‘update’ their packaging. I don’t know, grumpy old man!

New Paintings, Travel Sketches

Travelling paintings

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Margaret and I have been travelling around over the last couple of weeks, first over to the Norfolk Broads and then more recently down to Wiltshire. But, in between those trips, I have still been busy with teaching groups and one-to-one. The life of a working artist!

painting of norfolk cottage in the style of edward seago
Norfolk Cottage near the Sea. After Edward Seago. Watercolour on Arches 140lb rough paper 22ins x 15ins.
pen and wash painting of Pulteney bridge and weir bath
Pulteney bridge and weir, Bath. Pen and wash on Langton rough paper, 12ins x 9ins.

I would like to share a couple of recent paintings with you. Both painted en plein air, but in quite different ways. The view of a Norfolk cottage near the sea was painted at Ludham on the Broads, actually in the garden of Edward Seago’s old house, the Dutch House. The garden was open as part of Ludham Open Gardens, and a group of artists, including myself, were invited to paint in the village as part of the event. As you can imagine, it was quite a privilege to paint in the very spot where Seago’s own easel might have once stood! To make this watercolour I had to imagine a scene, as the only view actually available was of the house and garden. I used a large hake brush to work very quickly, hopefully emulating a little bit of Seago’s own loose technique. The composition is based very much on paintings of his that I’ve seen over the years. A bit of fun anyway and my thanks to Jane Seymour who currently owns the Dutch House for allowing me to paint in such a great location.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we are currently down in Wiltshire for a break – a change of scene. Today we went into Bath for a look round this historic city. It was very warm and busy with visitors, but we managed to find a bench in the shade along the bank of the Avon. From there I had an excellent view of Pulteney bridge and weir, so I soon pulled out my sketchbook. Travelling light, I’d only taken pen and wash equipment to Bath, but that’s the perfect medium for a subject like this. It took quite a bit of careful pen work to get the bridge and surrounding buildings established, and I tried hard not to put in too much but to simplify. A few washes completed the painting, applied with a medium size flat brush, yes only one brush, using my Daler-Rowney watercolour box. Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine and Cadmium Yellow were the colours used. A very enjoyable hour or so!

My students, Travel Sketches, Tutorials

The Stages of a Pen and Wash

Pen drawing of Cley windmill
The initial pen drawing
The first stage of watercolour painting
A few simple washes go on, with a big brush
pen and wash painting of Cley-next-the-sea windmill, norfolk
The finished painting of Cley mill, Norfolk

I’ve been working on pen and wash as a medium with one of my students. It’s a lovely way of using watercolour and is ideal for outdoor sketching.

The first stage is to get out a waterproof ink pen, such as an Edding 1800, and sketch out the subject. You can put in as much or as little detail as you wish, but the drawing must be tolerably accurate, in other words nothing must actually look wrong! With a subject like this one, the iconic Norfolk landmark of Cley-next-the-sea Windmill, that takes a bit of care and patient working.

Once you are happy with the sketch it’s time to put some simple watercolour washes on. I use a limited palette of colours and try and apply them freely with quite big brushes. For this painting I used a 3/4 inch flat brush, a Daler-Rowney Sapphire (a sable and synthetic mix) and a number 8 round brush from the same Sapphire series. I’ve always found these to be excellent brushes at a reasonable price, but there are plenty of other good ones from the major manufacturers, such as Pro Arte series 101.

Using a biggish flat brush as much as possible stops most of the dreaded fiddling, and it’s surprising how accurate you can be using just the corner of the brush. The colours I used were French Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Light Red. Oh, and a tiny touch of Scarlet Lake for the tail-sail which has distinctive red flashes on its sails.

I try to leave bits of white paper here and there to give some life and sparkle to the painting and work everything very simply, relying on the pen drawing to hold it all together. Why not have a go, you will find it a quick and easy way of capturing quite detailed scenes.

Art Events, Tutorials

Another Track to the Farm

Charcoal sketch of Norfolk barns
A charcoal planning sketch, to establish composition and tone before painting
Barns, Fields and Sky. A two colour palette using Ultramarine Blue and Brown Madder. Watercolour 15ins x 22ins.
Barns, Fields and Sky. A two colour palette using Ultramarine Blue and Brown Madder. Watercolour 15ins x 22ins.
If you find a good composition it can often serve well in many different ways. In my last post I showed a demonstration painting that I did at a watercolour workshop in Northwold. The composition was loosely based on a painting I found in one of my books about Rowland Hilder, and was called The Track to the Farm.

A few days later I was nearer home in the village of West Winch just outside King’s Lynn. I was demonstrating for the West Winch Art Group, known as the Wednesday Afternooners, as they meet on a Wednesday! I decided to reuse the Track to the Farm, but this time I gave it an entirely different treatment by changing the palette of colour from the cool Prussian Blue based hues at Northwold to a warmer French Ultramarine Blue based colour scheme. I also reduced the number of colours even more to give a very atmospheric feel. I used just one blue, French Ultramarine, and one red, Winsor & Newton’s Brown Madder. Brown Madder is one of the lesser know pigments, formulated these days from quinacridone. It is a warm, slightly purple red and only appears brown when used very strongly with little water. Diluted it is a soft pink which combines well with Ultramarine to give warm purple-greys.

Keeping to just two colours can give great atmosphere to a painting and it also makes you concentrate on tone, the light and dark values that are so important.

My thanks to all the Wednesday Afternooners for being a great group. Very attentive and asking lots of good questions. The only difficulty with demonstrating at West Winch is that the church hall, where the group meet, in on an incredibly busy main road, the A10, and getting out of the car park unscathed was a major job. But we made it!

Art Events, Tutorials

Northwold watercolour workshop

Watercolour painting of Norfolk barns
The Track to the Farm – after Rowland Hilder. Watercolour 15ins x 22ins.
A couple of weeks ago I spent a very pleasant afternoon in the village of Northwold, near the Norfolk and Suffolk border. I was running a workshop for Northwold Art Group and we had a theme of barns, fields and sky. You can see my painting here, which is loosely based on a composition from that master of 20th Century watercolour, Rowland Hilder.

A very limited palette of colours keeps a harmonious feel throughout the work. Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Raw Sienna were the main ones used.

The Northwold group were all lovely people and good painters so I really enjoyed the afternoon session. My thanks to group leader Patsy Hood for inviting me. See you again another time!

Art Events, My students, Tutorials

My watercolour demonstration at Brandon

I haven’t posted much on the blog lately because I seem to have been busy with other, non-arty, things. But earlier this week I was back in harness at Brandon Art Society, where I gave them an afternoon watercolour demonstration.

watercolour demonstration painting cley windmill 1
Don’t use a small brush like this . . .
watercolour demonstration cley windmill 2
. . . use a big one like this!

Thanks to Terry Kimpton for taking these photographs of me at the easel. The group were really nice people, with plenty of feedback, questions and comments, a pleasure to paint for. As you may be able to see from the photos, this was a ‘big brush’ painting of Cley Windmill, using just four colours. Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Cadmium Yellow Pale.

Most of the painting was done with a 1 inch flat brush, a Pro Arte sable-synthetic mix, although I did drop down to a number 8 round for a few details near the end of the painting. Using a big brush like this is a great way of freeing up your work and keeping it nice and loose looking. The 1 inch flat is capable of quite detailed work if you use the corner of it or the sharp chisel edge. Why not get one and have a go, a cheap synthetic brush will be perfectly okay to start with and you may well find that you like it!

Art Events, New Paintings

Two gone at Thornham

Over the past weekend I’ve just taken part in an excellent mixed exhibition with the West Norfolk Artists Association. The venue was the new Thornham village hall, on the North Norfolk coast. Forty artists submitted work, all on a ‘Coast’ theme and the show really did look good.

I’m very pleased to say that two of of my watercolours were sold at the event, both to the same buyer, a matching pair! I’ve shown one of them before on this blog, a few months ago, but here’s the chance to see both of them together. For the watercolour artists among you, most of the painting is just the white of the paper (Waterford 140lb rough), with the image simply painted using a large sable hair brush. The paintings are really monochromes, but the colours used are mixed from French Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and a tiny touch of Scarlet Lake. Hopefully a good example of ‘less is more’.

Painting in watercolour of boats at Burnham Overy
Misty Days – Burnham Overy Staithe 2. Watercolour 15ins x 11ins
Watercolour painting of mist at Burnham Overy Staithe
Misty Days at Burnham Overy Staithe 1. Watercolour 15ins x 11ins

New Paintings, Tutorials

A Tuesday Watercolour

Every few weeks I run an afternoon watercolour group here at the studio, usually on a Tuesday. Obviously these groups had to take a break while we were travelling in Australia, but now they are back on track.

The first session of the year was yesterday afternoon, when we had some lovely sunshine on the studio. Not warm enough to work outside though! These session s are in “paint along with Steve” format, so I do a demonstration at the easel and the group paint along step by step. You can see my own painting here, the subject being a well known Norfolk landmark, Weybourne windmill. Weybourne is up on the North Norfolk coast, not far from Sheringham.

Watercolour painting of Weybourne Mill
Spring at Weybourne Mill. Watercolour on Arches 140lb rough, 15ins x 11ins.

The key to any representational painting such as this can be summed up in one word – drawing. It doesn’t have to be absolutely accurate in terms of the exact size or shape of the objects, but what is so important is that nothing must look wrong. Another artist once said to me “don’t worry about everything being right, just make sure that nothing looks wrong”. Hopefully I managed to achieve this with the painting of the mill.

The actual painting itself is simple, with a limited palette of Ultramarine Blue, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Cadmium Yellow Pale. The sky is a graduated wash of Ultramarine fading to Raw Sienna near the horizon. While it was still damp I lifted out some clouds with a scrunched up piece of paper towel, using a rolling motion.

If you would like to join me for one of these session just get in touch using the details on my Contact page. The next two will be on Tuesday 24th March and Tuesday 14th April. Early booking is essential as I can only take six participants per session. The cost is £20 per person.