Painting Journey

I am taking a little trip, you can come too, it is the journey of a painting.  Off we go, across the fields, through the woods, past the village to the ferry, across the water, along the coast to Grebe rock.  

It sounds like a long journey but it isn't, just a couple of miles.

I have with me my dog and my sketching gear.  I am revisiting a painting that I did earlier in the year as I am working on a few paintings for the gallery in Falmouth, Beside The Wave. 

 It is a great spot, you can sit on the cliff and look down through the trees at the water.

First of all I have a cup of coffee, then I sit a while and really listen and look before making a watercolour and pen sketch.  

First I paint the water, looking at how the light is showing the way of the wind.  Next I am using a big permanent marker pen for the trunks, I want to get the feeling of them, big and solid masses.  I use a smaller pen for the scribbles of tiny branches

Then I write a few words down in another note book, it is just to fix things that I have noticed and want to remember for the painting.After that I head home to begin work on the painting.

Once home, the first thing to do is to make a working drawing. 

 I use scraps of coloured pastel paper and black and white conte crayons to make rapid sketches.  This helps me to decide on the composition, the direction of lines and generally to think through the painting.

This is then drawn onto a gessoed board and painted.  It takes several layers of paint to get the depth of colour that I want.  I use brushes of several sizes, a small pallet knife and some bits of card to paint it... and here it is:

Durgan

Oil on board.

6in x 6in.