A sea change - in membership of Watermarks

Since Watermarks was created nearly three years ago, this blog has:

• published 273 posts on a wide range of topics relating to the drawing, painting or printing of art related to water in different places around the world - and its contents
• attracted nearly 100,000 visitors and 
• publishes content to nearly 500 subscribers as well as many ad hoc readers

A sea change

The Wave by Gustave Courbet
52 x 79.5 cm Private Collection

However as time has passed, members' individual agendas have changed, new work commitments (artistic and otherwise) have arisen and life gets very full from time to time.

Four of our members have now retired and we will be seeking to recruit new members in the near future.

We have a number of people in mind and intend to start approaching artists with blogs in the near future.

However if you're interested in being a member of this group and think you might be a good fit we'd be interested to hear from you.

In general we're going to be recruiting from people we already know but don't let that stop you.  If you know a member of the group please get in touch with them in the first instance.

Below you can find out:

• About Watermarks
• How Watermarks works

Do also take a look at past blog posts to get a sense of the sort of posts we publish.

Leave a comment below or get in contact with us (see "Contact Watermarks" at the top of the side column) if you'd like to be considered for membership.

It's important to note that not all those who express an interest can become members - but we do thank you in advance for putting yourselves forward.

About Watermarks

Watermarks is a small community of artists who make art from water. We like to sketch, draw and/or paint water - the sea, the coastline, beaches, rivers, streams, waterfalls, fountains - in all contexts, styles, genres and media.

In this blog we will display our works in progress as well as completed art, highlight other artists (past and present) whose art involves water, and discuss various media matters and tips and techniques for creating art out of water

You can find out more about the artists by clicking this link

How Watermarks works

The basic way the group works is:

• each artist has an interest in and a track record of painting water and aspects related to water (eg aquatic life) - in whatever form you prefer.  (For potential new members this means you have a body of work where this is already demonstrated)
• We particularly like people who are:
• interested in exploring different ways in which water (or fish or other sea life) can be portrayed 
• are supportive of the endeavours of others
• can provide constructive and informative feedback rather than "happy clappies"
• each artist makes a a commitment to produce one post per month - but can also post more often
• it's OK to post an image you've already included on your own blog - so long as you rewrite the text which accompanies it.  Duplicated content is NOT allowed.
• fresh art is great but we don't mind seeing past artwork you are proud of
• every new member will need to write a post about themselves to post on the blog -  by way of introduction to our readers.

In return, the artist member gets to list their blog and website in the side column and to be a part of this great group!

Over to you........

Sometimes you have to look long and draw fast!

Volissos Fishing Boat (Pastel 19.5" x 25.5")

I don't know if you've ever had a go at drawing boats but their 'architecture' and the way perspective works is a bit different to buildings!

I was reminded of this while accompanying Sarah Wimperis and her husband around the Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition (see my REVIEW: Royal Society of Marine Artists - 65th Annual Exhibition 2010)

Listening to "Big Dave" tell me about which boats had NOT been drawn or painted by people who understood boats convinced me that we shouldn't try to "hack it" when drawing boats.  Just like wildlife or flowers we should always take some time out to work out how they are put together and what makes them work.

It seemed to me that careful observation is probably the key.

I was then reminded of an experience I had in Chios, a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, back in 1995.  I was staying in Volissos and we were drawing fishing boats down in Limnos harbour.  Or rather I was trying to draw fishing boats.  I was having one of those experiences where you gradually begin to understand this is a LOT more difficult than it looks and that I had attempted a subject I didn't understand - and I was making a complete pig's ear out of it.

Before lunch I decided I needed to do something to make sure that it hadn't been a completely wasted morning - and to see whether I'd learned anything. 

I took a complete sheet of what was known in those days as Rembrandt Pastel Card and drew just one boat "up close and personal" in pastels. 

The trick was I didn't think too much about what I was looking at but rather tried to observe closely and use what I'd learned in terms of the big shapes and proportions and basic structure of a boat.  I got it very nearly right (it bulges a wee bit too much on the right hand side!) and I think drawing on a big sheet also helped.

The drawing at the top was actually completed in 20 minutes - at the end of which I seemed to have produced a boat which was not immediately about to fall over and sink! :)  Honour was redeemed.  It would appear that the whole morning had not been a lost cause and that maybe I had learned something.

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.

Cold and watery Norway!

On a ship traveling northward along the Norwegian coast, earlier this month, I made sketches of some of the wondrous things and some of the ordinary things I saw. Here are a few of these sketches. On this cold and wintry note, I wish you all happy holidays and a brisk, stimulating year of wonders ahead!

Oil or Water?

Rain, Frenchman's Creek. Watercolour

Oil or water, obviously they don't mix, I know that! However what drives the decision to use which media, especially when depicting water in all her many guises?
I love watercolour, I am in love with watercolour. I think it is a difficult medium, it takes an almost sneaky type of control on the side of the artist. On the one hand you need to have some experience of what it will do, which colours will cause which reactions. Who will sit happily with who, who will repel and rebel. On the other hand you need to be able to let it go its own way, invite the "accidents" encourage the unexpected. Sometimes the place or mood that I am trying to capture seems to dictate the medium.
The picture above is watercolour. It was a damp, misty day but muggy and steaming too, then it began to rain. There was a cleaning property to the air brought on by the rain and the water in the river seemed to clear showing beautiful patterns of copper and yellow colour. I couldn't imagine catching that feeling in oils. It needed the transparent quality of watercolour.
But...
I also love oils. I love the buttery feeling of the colours, the freedom that the addition of light right at the end of the painting gives you. I can paint and paint and then flick in some light and it is literally like switching on a light switch. All of a sudden the picture is transformed and brought to life. Magic! The picture below is oils. The day was sunny but very still. I was sitting above the small beach at the mouth of the river, where the river widens and meets the sea. Often here are loud and powerful waves but on that day, not a breath of wind. The water seemed almost oily, slightly thick but clear. As the sea slowly sucked out the tide the sand became silver and the pebbles shiny and bright. All I could think of was painting it in oils. Dabbling in all the rich greens and blues that were under the water, speckling on all the yellows and ochres and almost blacks that were the shore.


Ebb Tide, Oil.

Maybe I should stop worrying about being a watercolourist or an oil painter and just be ambidextrous.
I suppose they are a bit like cats and dogs.
Some people are dog people, they just like dogs (that's oils I think, don't you? Quite predictable, loyal but capable of doing tricks and performing very obediently. A dream companion in the right hands, a nightmare in the wrong hands!)
Some people are cat people. So this by rights must be watercolours: Haughty, independent. Make you feel great when they are purring and curled up on your lap but off like a shot for sardines from the house down the road. Startlingly beautiful, wild, free and proud. Or mangy, hissing and untouchable.
And some people are both. I think I must be, the nutty dog woman and the mad cat lady all rolled into one. I suppose one just has to "go with the flow" Try to listen to your emotions, find the feeling that comes from what you are wanting to paint and then reach for your cat or your dog!

Last light

For the last two days there have been wonderful clouds in the sky heralding a change in weather and some much needed rain. I started the clouds for this piece from life, but the sun was blinding even on dark paper and of course the clouds moved constantly across the sky. This is common of course in plein air work and I usually get the outlines and values in place then work on it on site or back at the studio.

I took a few shots of the clouds for reference and started playing with them in the studio using pastels on a lovely half sheet of Canal paper by St-Armand in Blue Denin. As I manipulated the clouds, the sea and distant headland just arrived unbidden. What started out as reality morphed into a mix of reality, memory and wishful thinking.

I don't use pastels often, but enjoy the freedom they give when done loose and large. There seem to be as many techniques of laying down colour with pastel as there are people who use them. I feel still very much a learner when using them, as they aren't as familiar to me through use as some other mediums.

The heavy clouds seemed to fit the scene of last light before night, covering the land and ocean and waiting for the rainstorm to arrive.

Acrylic sketches

Savage Cove

6 x 8 acrylic

I've taken some acrylics on a field trip to the ocean for a couple of plein air sessions. Its a challenge working with acrylics outdoors, at least for me. They dry so quickly, but on the other hand, if I sit them on a wetted paper towel and keep rewetting it, that keeps the palette from drying, but it still leaves me with little time to manipulate the paint on the canvas. I end up with lots of thin layers or else big gobs of paint that give me a little more wiggle room.

I wanted to try acrylics in plein air so that I could more accurately capture light and colour instead of having to refer to photos which never seem to capture quite the same colours. I wanted to try acrylics so the painting would dry and not smear all over before I got it home and its easy to wash up on the spot, not leaving the steering wheel of the car paint stained as it seems to do when I use oils plein air.

Waves, Pouch Cove
5 x 7 acrylic sketch

It has benefits, but is also frustrating too. I may in the end get some acrylic extender to prolong the time I can manipulate it, if I continue with acrylic sketches. I like being able to get that instant feel of colour and light, but hate fighting with paints.

I know there are other , more convenient mediums such as pen and ink, or coloured pencil or even pastel that I can use to do some plein air sketches, but I like the almost instant feel of acrylics or oils. The one up from a photograph perhaps.

I`ll continue to experiment with acrylics for sketching outdoors and see if those little pieces will translate into larger pieces back in the studio. I wonder how many sketches actually turn into larger pieces for artists?

Journey to the Sea - Part II

Wetlands

8 x 8 oils

Water on earth cycles from the oceans, where it evaporates from the surface, into the atmosphere, forms clouds, falls onto the land as rain, travels through wetlands, rivers, lakes and underground then returns to the ocean — collectively known as the hydrologic cycle.

This piece is the second of a 6 part series on the journey of water to the sea. The series will be grouped together to have more impact and link the journey logically. Part I showed the origin - or one of the origins - or water. Rain.

Very close to me are wetlands, even some of my property is a wetland, home to wild ducks, mink and moose. The rain overspills its groundwater source and forms ponds and pools, eventually spilling out and creeping forward like a homing pigeon looking for the sea.

The water forms small and large rivulets that cross woodlands and meadows, soaking the ground and over time, killing trees and changing the vegetation that grows there. Where there were once trees and grass are now marsh plants such as cat tails, aquatic grasses and flag irises.

A closer view of the colours which make up the water in the painting.

The water rises and falls depending on the weather and season, but it moves relentlessly towards the sea. How does it know to flow there? Why does it cross heaven and earth to reach its destination, only to reverse the cycle all over again?

Not all water flows to the sea. There are large areas of southern Saskatchewan where the drainage is internal and water does not escape to the sea. This also happens in parts of Australia and Russia. Runoff within these internal drainage basins can produce saline lakes surrounded by white salt crusts. Dissolved salts are transported in surface and ground waters to the lakes. As the lakes have no outlet stream, the salts are trapped, and concentrated by ongoing evaporation of the lake waters.

The Journey to the sea

Flooded path sketch

9 x 12 watercolour

We don't often think about the origins ocean water and how it is continually fed by rivers and streams and rain. Its one of those things that is taken for granted without thinking about the journey from land to sea that water takes and its shape changes along the way.

It all starts with a drop of water...


While the ocean environment has conditioned every aspect of the Newfoundland and Labrador experience, the province also has ample fresh water, the source of which is abundant precipitation. More than 8% of the area of the province is occupied by lakes, slightly greater than the average for Canada, and as elsewhere water is also stored in the soil, either close to the surface where it can be used by plants or deeper in the rock as groundwater where it may be tapped by wells or returned to the surface in springs.


Besides lakes and groundwater, Newfoundland and Labrador also has many rivers. These rivers show marked seasonal variations of flow. Throughout the province peak flow occurs in late spring or early summer as the result of spring run-off, when winter snow melts and runs over the surface directly to the nearest stream. Some of the melting snow infiltrates into the soil (if the soil is not frozen), moving slowly downslope. Some of this soil water percolates deeper to the groundwater, moving even more slowly.

This Google map shows Flatrock and the abundance of freshwater ponds and lakes that are in the area. I don't think I'll have a problem with my well drying up anytime soon.

I would like to track one small trail of water as it searches for its way to the Atlantic here in Flatrock. The journey starts with groundwater, which is my water source through a well. Also the groundwater feeds some of the ponds close to my house. They in turn spill over into rivulets of water that wend their way through forest, meadows and ditches and feed my pond.

One of the wetland areas near my house is a small lane to the marsh. Its rarely dry and until the heat of summer dries up the flow, the path is like a river itself, if only a static one. I have painted this path several times and wanted to try it again, but in watercolour, to get a more delicate version of this rocky, muddy piece of semi-aquatic landscape.

I will continue to track the water as it heads towards the sea and show you where it takes me along the way until we reach the Atlantic ocean.

Antony Gormley - Another Place

I've been sent a link to this video on Yahoo which was posted this week. This is what the author says about it.

This is one of the six final videos I am currently working on in my last year of Contemporary Lens Media at Lincoln University. It is a wordless documentary about Antony Gormley's "Another Place" at Crosby beach, near Liverpool. In this piece I have combined visuals, sounds and music to allow the viewer to use their imaginations, enabling them to decide on what these figures are about. Music by Dan Whitfield. Filmed and Produced by Frances Twiddy.

For those interested in Antony Gormley's work you can find out more in Antony Gormley - Resources for Art Lovers. You can see photographs on Flickr here Flickr - "Another Place" by Antony Gormley

Stiles Cove

Stiles Cove
oils 5 x 7

Once upon a time there was a tiny beach in a tiny cove with slate and granite walls towering vertically around it that was tucked far away from the average visitor. This tiny gem of a place is called Stiles Cove and is what prompted this little painting study.

This little shore of broken slate rock is quite near me but only accessible by foot. It was once part of a US military radar station during the war and a long ladder extended from the top of the cliff to the beach below. A few years ago, the military blasted the ladder as it had become unsafe as children and daredevils wanted to chance their luck on it.

Water tumbles down the rock face, spilling into the ocean from a small stream. Its like a miniature landscape with every element you could desire.

This photo by JohnW shows the cove from a different angle, I've only seen it looking down (much as I dare) straight down to the little beach below.

You can see the distance to Stiles Cove from my house (circled in red). The ocean is very close - two minutes by car and I am on the beach in Flatrock. The hike to Stiles Cove is about 600 metres from the end of Satellite Road, just north of my house. There is a hike along the East Coast Trail from Stiles Cove to Pouch Cove which is about 11km for the more adventurous.

Once the weather is better (it snowed all Saturday and last night), I will get out to the cliffs again and be able to do some on site drawing and painting. Til then, I'll have to make do with memories and photos to create some paintings with.

Sea arches

Sea arches - The Dungeon
oil on canvas panel 5 x 7

Bonavista is where modern North America began. On June 24th, 1497, an Italian explorer sailing under the British flag for King Henry VII, made landfall in the New World. "O Buona Vista," Giovani Caboto was said to exclaim after nearly two months at sea. Oh happy site! News of the existance of the this New Found Land - and the riches of the Grand Bank fishery - spread throughout Europe after Cabot's return journey across the Atlantic.

The Dungeon Provincial Park is on the Bonavista Peninsula and contains a pair of sea arches formed through many many years of the ocean washing over the rocks.

A sea arch is a natural opening eroded out of a cliff face by marine processes. Some arches appear to have developed for surge channels, which are created by wave refraction causing the focusing of wave fronts on the side of a headland. More generally, arches develop where waves attack a plane of weakness which cross-cuts a promontory. Caves produced on either side of promontory may become joined over time to become a tunnel and, finally, an arch.

These particular arches in Dungeon Provincial Park, like all sea arches or caves, have a life expectancy depending on the type of rock and seas and how quickly erosion takes place. Once a sea arch loses its keystone - the arch portion of the structure - it then turns into a sea stack.

Sea arch - Laguna beach
19 x 25 pastel

I am interested in the way that the elements sculpt the land and always seek out similar structures when I can. A sea arch on the beach in California was one of the pieces that I drew a couple of years ago and I hope to find a few more sea sculptures this summer.

The image on the left is the initial working sketch for the larger piece.

The video clip below brings you to 'The Dungeons' to let you experience the sea arches for yourself.

The pond and the sea

The pond and the sea. As concepts, metaphors and symbols, they are really miles apart, aren't they? Take these two poems by Rainer Maria Rilke: Firstly, the pond in Fortschritt/Progress:

wieder rauscht mein tiefes Leben lauter, als ob es jetzt in breitern Ufern ginge. Immer verwandter werden mir die Dinge und alle Bilder immer angeschauter. Dem Namenlosen fühl ich mich vertrauter: Mit meinen Sinnen, wie mit Vögeln, reiche ich in die windigen Himmel aus der Eiche, und in den abgebrochnen Tag der Teiche sinkt, wie auf Fischen stehend, mein Gefühl.

And an English version is here:

The deep parts of my life pour onward, as if the river shores were opening out. I seems that things are more like me now, that I can see farther into paintings. I feel closer to what language can't reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb into the windy heaven, out of the oak,and in the ponds broken off from the sky my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes. (translation by Robert Bly)

 

Where the wild things live, detail Soft pastel on Arches, 58x39cm

Secondly, Der Einsame/ The lonely one

DER EINSAME Wie einer, der auf fremden Meeren fuhr, so bin ich bei den ewig Einheimischen; die vollen Tage stehn auf ihren Tischen, mir aber ist die Fremde voll Figur. In mein Gesicht reicht eine Welt herein, die vielleicht unbewohnt ist wie ein Mond, sie aber lassen kein Gefühl allein, und alle ihre Worte sind bewohnt. Die Dinge, die ich weither mit mir nahm, sehn selten aus, gehalten an das Ihre - : in ihrer großen Heimat sind sie Tiere, hier halten sie den Atem an vor Scham.

I found a translation by Phillip Kellmeyer (with a few alterations)

The lonely one Like someone who sailed distant seas, I am with the ever natives; full days are standing on their tables, yet for me distance is full of promise. In my face a world reaches in, perhaps deserted like a moon, they leave no feeling alone, and all their words are inhabited. The things which I took with me look rare, compared to theirs -: in their great home they are animals, here they hold their breath in shame.

The one, the former, uses the pond as a metaphor for introspection: for digging deeper, further and further down to reveal, unearth one’s authentic self. ‘My sunken treasure’ by Duke Spirit captures that, don't you think so?  The other, the sea, is full of expectation, anticipation. The gaze turned to the horizon, the distance, the afar, expectant of what may come. Hm... while I've been doing some thinking around this when, before and after painting and printing, I think I may continue that - I find it helpful in trying to let some of the more abstract aspects of the scenes I'm working on develop. What made me think of this? Distance did, and how it's connected so closely to the sea for me. It is becoming a bit clearer since I've continued to work on the ponds - in drawing as the detail above shows, but even more so in printing, but that's for another post.

Stones

Stones, 

Triptych 

Oil on gesso board

15cm x 15cm + 15cm x 36cm + 15cm x 15cm

or 6in x 6in + 6in x 14.2in + 6in x 6in

This was an interesting painting to make.  The initial sketches were made standing in very cold water drawing in quite a frenzied active manner, then a slower more contemplative watercolour and finally the oil painting which I worked in complete silence.

Which is strange for me. 


I usually have music playing but, perhaps this time, I didn't want to influence the mood of the painting.  It had a definite flow and pattern of its own and it was quite complicated to see.  I keep whizzing back on my chair trying to see the overall shapes and patterns.

This is where I work and that is the chair that whizzes.  The detail for this triptych is granite shot through with little dyke's of pegmatite or mica and for this picture I brought my subjects home.
The detail paintings I thought would be easy but in fact they seemed to require quite a lot of concentration and involve a lot of layering of colours. And splattering, and weaving, and laying on of paint soaked threads.

So it seems as if this series of triptychs are becoming very meditative indeed.

Dipping in water again

Here's the thing. I'm posting these water studies, not because I think they're wonderful finished paintings---no! They are simply steps along the way, as I try to figure out what the heck I'm doing here on my watery painting journey. Though I'm rusty after mostly drawing for the past four years, I've been painting assiduously the past two weeks and am committed to doing so all this year--something's going to happen, painting-wise, eventually!
My goal was/is to reach a level of stylization and abstraction of the subject matter, but in what guise, the process itself will reveal, through time. I, personally, have no clue. And if I don't, how could you?
So I just start painting each painting and then I'm as surprised as anyone when something very 19th century, as in the first study, stares back at me. I don't hold with people who try to paint like, say, Monet (I'm not talking about learning by copying from the greats, but consciously making finished paintings to sell, in a period style.) But I digress.
Anyway, I was dismayed, briefly, to see myself channeling some 19th century hack painter, but my way is to just do it and get over it. Get on to the next thing,
The second painting is rough but I'm not going to take it any farther. It's served its purpose. I like the movement in it. That is one of water's chief attractions as subject matter to me.
Both studies are acrylic on board, 11" x 14", and both are based on sketches and photos from a trip to Iceland last August.

My husband and I are driving to the coast this weekend. Our coast is placid, very unrocky and unIcelandic. Sometimes you float where you're planted.

Onward.

A week of water

For the past week I've been creating a series of photographs that show the effect of light on water. I have chosen the same viewpoint and a similar time of day, around 7:45am and taken a photo of whatever light conditions are present.

This past week has been either frigid or warm and wet so the light wasn't brilliant, however the variances in the light, while subtle on some mornings are present even if at first glance there seems to be just grey. And some mornings on the drive to where I take the image, I see glimmers of sunrise through the clouds that I know will have disappeared by the time I reach my destination.

I don't know if I have the dedication to create a 365 day photo project of this viewpoint, but I think that a week a month may be interesting, more so if I choose the days that the lighting is at its most appealing artistically.
Having the record of light conditions on water will be very useful to add to my references.

The water around Newfoundland is, for the most part, very clean and clear. The clarity of the water inspired this piece which is shown on my blog Illustrated Life. The rocks lying just beneath the surface add another dimension to the play of light on the water. While photos don't give the whole picture, they can serve as a bridge between real life and the studio work and in this climate are almost essential as winter makes plein air painting difficult unless from the confines of a car.

Frozen sketches

Its -12C with a windchill of -26 and I'm standing on the edge of a cliff at 7:45am watching the sun rise over the Atlantic ocean. Passing motorists think I'm insane and I'm thinking that they are the insane ones because they're missing something wonderful and only catching a glimpse out of the corner of their eye. I'm frozen. Partially with the cold and partially because I can't tear myself away from the view.

The cold wind finally wins and I head back into my car, having jotted down some basic shapes of land and sea with my Rapidograph, as well as taken some photos to confirm colours in my head for later. I add more detail in the car then put it away, waiting for my day at work to be over so I can really do something with this. Sketches serve as reminders of scenes and inspiration when I need to go back for reference for a painting.

I've been considering a series of photos taking them at the same place at a similar time each day for a few weeks or perhaps a month, to really get a sense of how the light affects the land and the water. As I drive past the water each day to get to work, it would take me a little longer to fight getting back into the mainstream of traffic, but worth it, I think, to help me understand the water and how better to draw or paint it.

Of course this time of year, its not great in terms of temperatures, especially this week, but warming up in a day or two.

This sketch is a view over the bay in Torbay, the next town to where I live. Torbay holds lots of inspiration for drawing and painting with places such as Tapper's Cove, once called Treasure Cove because of its association with pirate John Nutt and is supposedly haunted by a black dog and a little boy. Or Gallow's Cove, again associated with pirating or stories created around it.
.
The community of Torbay experienced three French Campaigns the first of which occurred in December 1696. These invasions contributed to the eventual construction of the Torbay Battery in 1781, which was manned by 25 troops from the 71^st Regiment and Royal Artillery. The ordinance was eventually withdrawn in 1795.

The name Torbay comes from an area of the same name in Devonshire, England and was first mapped in 1615 by John Mason. The word is, of course well
known, being the old Anglo-Saxon "Tor" which means a tower, and in a secondary way, a tall cone-like mountain, presenting some appearance of a tower. Both places are geographically similar with wide-open bays that face in a generally northeasterly direction. An extract from Bishop Field's Journal states, "indeed there seems to be a little colony of Devon folk in Torbay."

Breakers

Breaker
9 x 12 watercolour

The sea can be calm and glassy during the summer, but winter storms create a whole new beast. The power of the ocean can tear away wharves, move boulders that weigh more than cars, wash away roads and change landscapes.

Breakers, due to a storm surge, washed over Flatrock, the small town where I live, and caused 2 million dollars worth of damage one winter day in 2005. Not a day to be standing around watching the storm effects, but some did. This storm in 2007 was similar and you can see the remaining pillars of the wharf being washed over by the waves.

Capturing the movement of breaking waves is challenging as there are so many parts and values in them. Watching the repetitive movement helps fix it in my mind and lets me translate it more easily onto paper. I use a camera to catch the wave's crest and the various movements from a slow build out to sea to the moment it eases its grip on the shore and moves back out to be swallowed into the ocean again.

In this piece I should have used some masking fluid to keep the spray clean, but decided to see if I could work around it. I could go back in and add more spray with gouache or thinned acrylic, or even scratch some out with a knife blade, but for now I'll leave it.

Making waves

Waves I 5 x 10 watercolour

The ocean's surface is a magical place that shifts constantly, changes colour at the will of a cloud or sun and can be calm or wild. That moving surface that becomes one is fascinating and open to so much interpretation. So much of my work has been tight and controlled to date, but I've found that painting water forces me to loosen up and it almost happens without much direction from me. However fine detail still draws me in and makes me want to create the realistic surface that water provides. Its tangible, yet slips through your hand becoming formless. Light, wind and tides give it shape, but it remains shapeless.

For some time I have been drawn to the work of Vija Celmins and have spent a long time studying her intensely detailed work of ocean, sky and earth. I wanted to create a piece that explores the ocean surface in detail, rather like the work of Celmins.

In the late 1960s, Celmins started working mostly with a graphite pencil. Her subjects became increasingly selective until her work became almost entirely images of the surface of the ocean, night skies, and the surface of the desert, with small stones and pebbles rendered in great detail.

Waves II 5 x 10 watercolour

Celmins received international attention early in her career for her renditions of natural scenes, often painted from photographs lacking a point of reference, horizon, or discernible depth of field. These attempts at the ocean surface aren't detailed as in Celmins work, but her influence and the appeal is there for me to continue to develop a more detailed surface.

I want to take that almost abstract section of water and make it come alive. I know that this level of realism may not be feasible on a large scale, such as a full sheet because of the time commitment it would involve, so I may try with smaller studies at first to see if the process makes me entirely crazy or not. I want to try mixed media and paint the ocean's surface on a larger scale, perhaps a full sheet of watercolour paper. Maybe a watercolour base and coloured pencil to pull out details.

This interview with Vija Celmins gives an insight into her vision and her work. I love her reality of outlook on the process of making art.

Kurt Jackson, mark making and influences

This is a follow up to Lindsay's really interesting post on Kurt Jackson.

I discovered his work some years back and it really resonated for me - the way he catches the light, the drama, the deep sense of place, the particular colours of a region. I go to see his shows in person whenever possible - there is one coming up in the Spring at the John Davies gallery, about 70 miles from me - if anyone can get to it they are guaranteed an interesting day. It's in a very nice part of the country with lots of small galleries so it makes a great day out.

There is also a show at the end of this month at Messums gallery in London, the theme of this is Forest Gardens. What may be of particular interest to readers of this blog is the interview with him on his Thames Project. Look under videos.

It was interesting reading on Tina's blog how she doesn't like brush marks in her work - and it works utterly beautifully for her. But I love marks - brush marks, drawn marks, scratches, glazes, splatters and splotches and scumbles that all suggest the textures and elements in the scene. Though this is what I want in my own work I can thoroughly appreciate the subtle glazes of Tina's or the quietness of a Gwen John or Morandi and want to own one :>) I do in fact have small painting of Tina's and Lindsay's :>) (and Lindsay, Ronell and Gesa's from the FPP exchange :>) )

That first painting is a watercolour of mine, done plein air, on the east coast, on a very wild day with brushmarks, scribbles of oil pastel, scratches through wet watercolour and glazes and wet-in-wet paint. It's only about 6 inches square.


This second painting, about 11 inches square on the right, is an oil done plein air on a breezy day as the tide was high. No stretches of wet sand shining. There are splatters and scratches of paint, some sand deliberately integrated with the wet oil paint and lots of marks, suggesting the shells, pebbles and fragments along a previous higher tide line - the majority of it was done with a knife - it's so easy to clean in the sand! but the paint isn't applied thickly - I rarely apply paint in thick layers.

Generally I love to arrive when the tide is fully in, allowing me close ups of the waves and then views of the shimmering wet sand and pools as it recedes . On this part of the east coast the tide goes out for over a mile - so at low tide the sea is just a thin blue line on the horizon. Because the land is almost flat, the tide moves very fast so it's essential to paint equally fast! Take 2 hours over this painting and what started as a scene of waves only feet in front of you is now a view of half a mile of drying sand with the sea in the distance. My natural painting speed is to work fast plein air, so that doesn't worry me.

These are all quite old pieces, done as I was getting to grips with the ways I could get down, on paper or canvas, the weather, the light, the particular colours. the bones of the land beneath the sand (or grass/whatever), the way is sweeps and swirls and the kind of marks I could make to suggest it.

On my degree we were encouraged to build a rich diversity of mark making so that we could draw on this at need. We had to take in a variety of items like rollers and combs and sticks and twigs, rags, sponges, knives of course, cotton reels, jugs and much much more - anything went!

KJ didn't go to art college but did a degree in zoology at Oxford University. His parents were both artists though, so from a young age he learned at first hand about art and artists and would have had a deeper than average knowledge and understanding of the arts and of course he studied it at school.

I studied art at school, went to art college and did my foundation year and then 'dropped out', married and had a family and completed my degree some years later when I really really wanted to paint again.


The third piece on the left here is a large long thin canvas - about 4 feet high I think it was. A studio piece with paint poured onto the canvas with a jug, splashed on, then powdered pigment dropped into the wet paint. Glazes were added and final small areas of thicker paint to edit out areas and simplify where it was overcomplicated.

It was painted in thinned acrylics on raw, unprimed, stretched canvas. The acrylic sealed it and some of the final more opaque layers are in oil paint.

This was from memory of sketching in the winter, abstracted and simplified.

Lindsay pointed out KJ owes some of his techniques to the likes of Jackson Pollock - but close inspection of Rembrandt too, shows gloops and trickles of paint and a wonderful freedom of mark making, that as you step back resolves into intricate lace. So I wonder, where did Pollock get his inspiration? elements of work can deeply influence other artists and it may be only a small element. KJ lists the artists he admires as Anselm Kiefer, Miguel Barcelo, Tapies and Andy Goldsworthy. also th poetry of Ted Hughes.

For instance, using unprimed canvas was an idea I tried out after seeing Hannemuhle's work - the paintings themselves, process-led, didn't interest me particularly - but the fact that she was pouring paint onto raw canvas and the effects it could produce certainly did. It enabled me to get watercolour like effects, with colours bleeding into each other in subtle transitions. It was easy to pour and splash - my lawn was often multicoloured at this time!

With studio work it's possible to take more time. I work fast but can build layers over weeks, glazes and scratching through to show underlying colours, change elements totally as the painting evolves and there is a lot of thinking time. In plein air work it's a case of responding instinctively to what is there and catching it before it changes.

KJ visits and revisits places through changing light and weather and explores themes in depth, following a valley to the sea or a river from source to sea, a mining route, Cornish hedges or woods or simply a field looked at in many ways over time (The Long Field). Many of these have books/catalogues associated with them that you can see on his website or often on ebay.

I like to do the same sort of thing and tend to work in long series - it's the changing light and weather that I find so interesting.

I would love to do some huge canvasses like KJ's - they are amazing when seen in real life, texture and marks and drama and light. I don't have the space :>( 5 foot is my limit really for ease of transport.

We are all influenced, consciously or unconsciously by work we see. David Prentice quotes Rupert Bear (childrens books) as an influence with their aerial viewpoint in the illustrations.

I think KJ is certainly an influence on my work, along with Monet, Turner, Gwen John, Joan Eardley, Egon Schiele (love his use of line), Cezanne, Ross Loveday, David Tress, Rembrandt, Aubrey Beardsley, Rothko, Pollock, Toulouse Lautrec ...... and so many more, elements of lots of people have influenced me - some seemingly incompatible - the incisive lines of Schiele and the colour fields of Rothko - but hopefully that's what makes me, ME.