Cornwall in May - Vivien

Dawn across the bay, oil about 14 ins or so across

 Life has been getting in the way of me posting here so I thought I'd do a big post of images from a trip to Cornwall in May.   Most have been on my blog but you can see them together here.

What interests me is the changing light and colour as time, season and weather pass.    As the day moves on the colours change constantly, by the minute, the tide moves in or out, clouds change the colours, the sun moves from behind the silhouetted cliffs - ever changing.  It's great to revisit the same view in the way that Sarah has with the creek near her home and Jeanette does with the bays, Katherine does with the ecology park.  Some of these are of the same view, others are from different viewpoints or a few miles along the coast.

Sunset over the bay, coloured pencil

 Double page spread, across the beach, afternoon light, double page spread in the Canson watercolour sketchbook (pages are 12 ins wide), watercolour/mixed media

I use whatever medium either fits in with the time/family committments I have available or suits the subject.

We shared a house with my daughter, her husband, 3 year old grandson and 5 month old grandaughter - which inevitably affected painting time and materials.   I did manage to get out painting  alone though, leaving the family to their own devices :>)

The Crowns at Botallack, A3, charcoal and ink

 The Crowns again, inktense and coloured pencil

 The family wouldn't have tolerated sitting in the wind while I did the above charcoal sketch for instance - and my blood runs cold at keeping hyperactive grandson away from those sheer drops!

 Ink and wash sketch in the Canson watercolour book, The Crowns again

Porthgwarra, oil, approx 14 ins

 Porthgwarra is a little cove that is accessed via a cave - the tide was in and so there was no beach.   This was done sitting on the cliff top with a seal bobbing in the waves watching us.   Himself sat happily in the sun - it was windy but we were sheltered.   The programme 'Coast' explained yesterday how those waves are created by winds way out at sea, not so much local conditions.   Up to thousands of miles away.

The USA is somewhere off over the horizon :>)  - the first transatlantic telephone cables were laid from the nearby beach at Porthcurno (very very beautiful).

detail

Study of dawn colours across the bay, coloured pencil in moleskine sketchbook, A5

Study of afternoon colours across the bay from the house, coloured pencil in moleskine sketchbook, A5

Moorland Stream and ancient pack horse bridge, watercolour and mixed media on A3 sketchpad

Moorland stream in moleskine sketchbook, ink and coloured pencil. A5

There are more but this is probably enough!

Now I need to go and get the paints out and do some more work.

Limpid progression

I've been painting this piece over on my blog for the last week or so and I'm finally calling it done.  I thought I'd show the progression shots of the painting here, as I did with my previous wave painting, Landwash.

This piece is called Limpid, the soft, gentle, clear water seemed to warrant an equally relaxed name.  The painting is oils and 12 x 24" on stretched canvas.

 

 

 

Mauzy morning

Newfoundland has its own language of sorts depending on where you go on the island or Labrador.  Words that I have heard in Dorset and Somerset pop up here as dirivatives or glimpses of Ireland are apparent in brogues and phrases.

Words for the weather are no different, and mauzy is one of them.  Here's the definition taken from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.  Oh yes, there is one.

This word had sprung to mind when I was creating this painting.  The painting is a combination of life and memory.  I had seen this 'mauzy' morning on the drive to work and didn't have a camera with me to try to record it so I committed it to memory as best I could.  The mist, the light, the colours with the sun burning off the edges and highlighting the water.  Its an interesting exercise to see how much visual information remains in your memory to recreate on canvas.  I think it works best when you are very familiar with a subject at various times of day.  The brain seems to do a mental mix and let you pick out the elements that it thinks work best.

mauzy

Definition according to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English:

mauzy a also maus(e)y, mawzy [phonetics unavailable]. Cp EDD mosey adj1 3 'damp and warm, muggy, close; foggy.' Of the weather, damp, foggy, misty or close, sometimes with very light rain or condensation on objects and a cool, gentle wind off the sea; cp CAPLIN (SCULL) WEATHER.

1897 J A Folklore x, 207 Mausey day, one dull and heavy, with no wind and thick mist. 1937 DEVINE 33 A mausey day is a cloudy, foggy day with no wind and a little rain at times.
1957 Daily News 16 Oct, p. 4 Oldtime seal hunters ... expressed the opinion that the long, hard winter, the heavy ice and the 'mauzy' weather of early March were just right for a bumper season. P 105-63 It's a mauzy old day, sir. 1968 KEATING 13-14 'Breeze comin' from duh suddard,' the skipper said. 'Always blows up mauzy weather.' And the fog did indeed roll over the deep as the warm south wind hit the chill air of the bank.
1969 HORWOOD 166 The Caplin Scull is not just a phenomenon of nature, but also a period of the year, and even a special kind of weather—'mausy' weather, with high humidity, frequent fogs or drizzles, easterly winds.
Supplement: mauzy a
1977 MOAKLER 29 We lost the gale sou'east of St Pierre/And lowered dories in the mauzy air. 1988 Evening Telegram 17 May, p. 8 The weather was mausy and...I had it on my mind about a rabbit slip that I never had struck up yet the spring and I wanted to get in and see to that. 

 

Finding the swan

Landwash

12 x 36"  acrylics

Sometimes it is difficult to move past the ugly stage of a painting.  Often it takes some time to pass before the mood and inspiration comes to help ease it along to where it should be.  Most pieces have their swan in them, it just takes a bit of coaxing sometimes to get it out into the open.

I thought I'd share the final images of a couple of pieces that I showed here in varying stages which are now complete.

The first, Landwash, is in acrylics on a 12" x 36" gallery canvas.  From the last piece I had shown here I added some glazes of colour to the sea and shore to give it interest and break up the expanse of silvery water.  The sun hitting high points of the water and glittering across the surface completed it.

Earth's Eye

6 x 12 oils

The second piece was a study of a the water surface from an image taken at Gallow's Cove Pond late last summer.  I had put down the values and hadn't done much more with it, posting it here with another reflective water surface painting.   I hauled the canvas out again and added some detail to it.  The painting was done in oils on a reclaimed canvas 6 x 12" and the surface was a little uneven, so this will likely remain a study.

Landwash - WIP

Landwash

12 x 36, acrylic

land·wash [land-wosh, -wawsh]

–noun Newfoundland 

the foreshore, especially that part between high and low tidemarks.

 

I've been working on my second water painting of the year with this piece called Landwash - perhaps a push for the true meaning of the name as the water features strongly in it rather than the foreshore.  It is a combination of life studies and photographs that I took on an unusually calm day at Middle Cove.  The Atlantic was being gentle and washing the beach quietly with small wavelets such as this one, compared to its usual wildness.  I hope to enter this into an exhibit on water being held locally in April.

I've painted this using acrylics and they can be good and bad to use.  My technique mostly involves glazes of thin paint and sometimes some slow dry blending medium to help the process of keeping edges soft.

This piece is a work in progress on my blog and I thought I'd share what I have to date here.   The canvas is a 3/4 inch gallery canvas 12 x 36" and works well for the format of the wave, leading the viewer's eye across the surface.

There is still work to be done on the water surface, the detail of the wave itself and the texture of the sand/gravel of the foreground.  I usually have a couple of pieces on the go at the same time so that I can go back and forth every day or two between them, giving me a chance to view and adjust with fresh eyes.

Here is the transition of how the piece was built so far, with some detail pieces for those who like to step in closer and see 'how did she do that?'

 

 

Splash No. 1

 
This is the first of my series of water paintings that I intend to complete over the course of this year.  The final number has not been decided and I refuse to pressure myself.  They will simply happen.

This is painted on 10 x 14 canvas board in acrylics.  Mostly I am happy with it as I believe it gives a good impression of moving water and its impact on rocks.  A part of me thinks its a little too smooth or polished.

Getting the splash of the wave was challenging. I didn't want a mass of solid white and the intricacies of foam and water breaking up takes a fair bit of concentration to pull off in detail.  Here is a cropped version of water pouring over one of the rocks for those who like to see more detail.

Now to decide what the next water piece will be!

Ferryland

I have a continuing interest in islands and while I don't often manage to explore them, there are enough within reasonable travel distance that I can view them when I want.

I was in Ferryland last week and wandering around the Colony of Avalon, an archaeological site there.  The colony was founded by George Calvert, later Lord Baltimore, in 1621. Most people have no idea that permanent European settlement in North America dates so far back, and that Newfoundland played such an important role. The Ferryland settlement was "forgotten", and its remains lay undisturbed for centuries.

Map of Ferryland, 1693.
From D.W. Prowse, A History of Newfoundland from the English, Colonial, and Foreign Records, 2nd edition (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896) 111. Caption beneath image reads, "Ferryland, showing Baltimore's House. From Fitzburgh's map, 1693." Image modified by Duleepa Wijayawardhana, 1999. 
 
I stopped to look at the islands just offshore. I don't know if these islands have names or not.  Nothing seems to be listed for them that I can find.  This map from 1693 of 'Ferreyland' indicates some of the smaller islands just offshore.

However, the weather was grey and warm and the sea and sky looked similar in value. The Atlantic ocean was so calm, such a rarity!  The islands are not large enough to sustain human or animal life aside from a few sea birds perhaps.  Some are no more than rocks above the sea line, others had a lovely green/yellow coloration from the vegetation on them.

I took some photos as rain was imminent and painted a view of the islands in oils on a 6 x 12" gallery canvas.  I quite liked these islands and hope to paint and draw more of them, hopefully on a better day weatherwise.