Painting a Series

'Caswell Bay, Gower' Artists Watercolour

It can be fun, interesting and informative to paint a series of pictures from the same source material. This week I am going to show you three paintings I made from sketches and photographs I took during a visit to Gower in South Wales.

The first version is pretty much as the scene was during my visit. The wind blew strongly from the west. The evening light was coloured by the approaching stormy skies and off and on showers threatened. The conditions made sketching difficult but not impossible, so several small sketches were made with copious notes regarding local colour and so on. Finally two or three photographs were taken for reference and a general record of the visit. At this time I was using an SLR with film but a few months later i changed allegiance and now shoot my photographs entirely with a digital camera.

Back in the studio the first version of Caswell Bay, Gower was made in Artists Watercolour. The result is shown above.

The painting was completed in about two hours using traditional methods. First a drawing was made on the stretched paper. The paper used here is Saunders Waterford 140lb. Not and the paints are Winsor & Newton Artists Watercolour.

The painting followed my usual method with the sky being painted first and allowed to dry thoroughly. The lower part of the picture was completed using first the lighter toned washes and then developing the painting with stronger mixes until the final stage, when a few stronger touches were added to strengthen forms. The overall colour scheme was kept simple using only a few colours from my basic selection. ( I listed them in the article on colour posted on 14th August)

On Wednesday I will show you the next version I painted.

Till the, take care and keep practising.

Tony

P.S. I received an email from Clive saying he had been unable to post a comment. He said when he tried he obtained a form requesting a friend's email address. I think he must have clicked on the envelope symbol which allows the whole page to be emailed to a friend.

To post a 'Comment' click on the word comment. You will then get a box in which you can type your message.

I hope this helps any of you who have been having problems with this. Now you have no excuses.