During the mixed bag of weather which made up summer in the UK, I was lucky enough to enjoy a super break painting plein air along the east coast. For a whole week the sun shone unrelentingly in a sky which was by far the biggest feature of the views laid out before me. A very different but welcome challenge as normally the sky forms only the top quarter to a third of my paintings and often is a filler behind other features of the landscape. It was an opportunity to study the sky in its’ own right; to see the changes in the colour from deep ultra marine blue which paled and merged seamlessly into a cerulean blue, then a turquoise before fading to pale cadmium yellow at the horizon. Beautiful.
I found it difficult to select a single fragment of the view when in reality I wanted to capture the whole. What a huge canvas that would be! And how would I get it home? My imagination raced off in wild directions before coming back down to earth with a bump as I remembered my board was only 30 x 20cm. Eventually, I selected my scene, choosing the part of this panorama that had a little bit of something extra which called to me and began to paint.
It helps me if I line up the left edge of my board with the right hand side of the scene I wish to capture. A sort of anchor point if you like. In addition, I use a big brush so that I cover the board quickly and am not tempted to paint any detail until the last possible moment. This is hard as it was a relatively small detail which captured my interest in the first place.
My next challenge was very different as I chose to paint two scenes featuring boats which were being repaired or renovated in a boat yards. The first location was a boat yard at Pin Mill on the River Orwell. There was so much of interest to see among the tenders, sailing boats and piles of ropes, lobster pots and other equipment lying in the shadow of the yachts which towered above.
The second boat yard was located on the River Deben beside the Felixstowe Ferry. There was a large blue fishing boat in the process of renovation and it towered over the stacks of paint, tools and other equipment rather like a big bird protecting her brood. This boat was surrounded by smaller vessels all with their own unique character. Due to the complexity of the boatyard paintings, these were finished in the studio.
All in all, a very enjoyable and productive week of painting and sketching.
