Finished Sea scape

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 26, 2012

26 Apr

I’ve been working on this one for a while now. This is where I left it …

This is the finished painting below. I’ve added more buildings and telegraph poles to the landscape to make this a seaside community under the eye of the storm, rather than just a lone building.

I’ve given the sea a bit more substance with more paint and I’ve used some more gold in the clouds. Finally, I’ve used charcoal to darken the surface a few degrees.

Recording the stages of work on this blog has been an interesting process for me and sometimes I wonder if I should have left the painting at an earlier stage. I am often tempted to darken things towards the end of a piece. What do you think in this case?

Sea Paintings on Canvas – Next Stage

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 23, 2012

23 Apr

To day, I worked on two of the small paintings I started recently. At the risk of repeating myself, I am showing you the paintings as I left them. The first began like this.

I added lots more colour using ink and paint together to get it to this stage (below).

I left it to dry completely before working on it again. Then I touched up the house and added some charcoal to give the effect of rain in those clouds (below).

The next photo is of the same scene but it is the larger 8 x 8 inch canvas which began like this.

I really attacked this with colour (below) in an effort to emphasize the dominance of the elements in this landscape and the insignificance of the house as a manmade construction within it. This is how it felt on this particular evening – the power of the natural landscape over everything.
I often think about this in relation to how it feels to live here in Connemara and I remember being quite struck by it when I settled here first. We are at the mercy of the elements here in a way that one is not living in a city. I suppose it is the effect of the wide expanse of the sky and the exposed, mostly treeless spaces combined with the force of the Atlantic weather.

I used a combination of acrylic paint and ink and I used my hands instead of brushes to make strong gestures with the colour to achieve a kind of drama. It’s not finished yet but I am reasonably happy with the sky so far. I will let it dry and return to it later.

New canvases

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 21, 2012

21 Apr

I’ve started some paintings on canvas. These usually develop over several sittings so I’m recording the progress (or otherwise!) as I go.
While it is possible for me to finish a small painting on paper in one session, I find that the canvas surface demands much more. I usually apply a base colour followed by a rough sketch of the composition in paint. I often work on several at one time so that I can explore different ideas during one sitting. Here are three pieces I have started. Once again, the theme is the sea.

I covered the canvas with a metallic gold paint in this piece above before outlining the composition roughly. This next one (below) is of a house near Mannin Strand.

I’ve cropped all of the images except the one above so that you can see the canvas in three dimensions.
Many painters choose not to paint around the edges or paint a neutral colour there instead. I prefer to continue the line of the composition loosely around the edge.

This one is a larger version ( 8 x 8 inch canvas ) of the last piece which measures 4 x 4 inches.
I was able to fill in more detail with this one while the paint was still wet, although the piece is still quite basic in its form and range of colour. I will come back to it once this layer has dried completely.

Evening Sea – More sketches in paint

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 17, 2012

17 Apr

Here are some more of the Sea paintings I made recently. The photographs describe the paintings as they developed. The first group of three include the beach, but it is essentially the same viewpoint as the photos and painting from my last blog post.

These next two photos are of another piece in progress. I have used less paint in this one because I’m working with a lightweight colored paper which cannot take too much paint or water.

I quite like the energy in this one although again, I may have allowed it to become too dark.

Evening Sea – In Paint

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 16, 2012

16 Apr

Last week, I took a short drive south of Clifden to the Coral Strand, which is near the village of Ballyconneely. It was evening and the sun was setting against a menacing sky which threatened for a while and opened into a downpour just as I was leaving. The dark blue and turquoise colours of sky and sea against the peach coral sand and golds of the evening sun were truly spectacular. Here are a couple of the photographs that I took;

The top photo was taken slightly earlier in the evening. The rain storm is visibly brewing in this magnificent cloud, which seems unnaturally solid and bulky in the way that it hangs over the land in the distance. I tackled the subject in paint, as you can see below and tried to keep my focus on colour and atmosphere. The first picture shows the initial sketching out of the composition in charcoal and acrylic paint.

I’m using a heavy acrylic paper here. I’ve added more colour for the next shot.

I’m always in danger of going too far with these because I’m working quite fast and layering wet on top of wet.

Looking back I like the piece at this stage ( above ). However, I took it further as you will see below and it has darkened considerably.

What do you think about this one? It was still wet when I took the photograph. Did I take it too far?

New Heron sketch

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on April 5, 2012

05 Apr

I returned to the subject of the Heron to day. I approached this one in two stages. The first photo shows as much as I did at the first sitting – I decided to leave a white space for the Heron rather than working it over the background as I did with the last piece.

I completed the sketch when the first layer of paint and ink was completely dry. I also worked in a little more charcoal and some white chalk highlights when the second layer of paint was dry.

There is always the danger of overworking a piece that requires careful detail as with the heron in this case, but I am reasonably happy that I haven’t done that here.

Sketches in paint 2

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 28, 2012

28 Mar

These sketches are all based on the same scene, along the coast just outside the village of Claddaghduff, which is about seven or eight miles from Clifden.
In the vein of loose painting, I completed them very quickly (if they can be called complete). One is on a colored paper and the other two are on a heavy acrylic paper.

I enjoy working on a colored ground or paper and it is not quite the same thing as paper that I have colored myself, although I probably need to work on this. Psychologically, one feels more free straight away and I think this usually shows. It has something to do with the daunting hold a blank white sheet of paper has on the mind – it scares us a little. This really should not be the case for someone like myself who has been putting paint on paper since childhood but I do think that it is so.
The other point about these colored papers is that they are very light and not really designed for heavy applications of paint. They tend to buckle especially if larger in size than about A5. This does not bother me especially but may be off putting for a potential buyer/owner of the piece. What is your opinion?

Sketches in paint 1

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 26, 2012

26 Mar

This photograph of a grouping of trees is not far from Clifden castle, just outside the town. I took it from quite a distance so the image is a little unclear.

The trees in Connemara are few and far between, mostly Hawthorn which are slow growing and can withstand the harsh weather. They have a tendency to grow in the direction of the prevailing wind as in the photo and appear quite striking. Here’s my sketch below –

I chose to straighten the tree in this instance but I am making a mental note as I type to return to this subject again soon. It is done on a blank water colour paper, postcard size. I’ve used a little charcoal to highlight the shadows and I’ve allowed the paint to fall down the page where it was thin.

Sea sketches

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 23, 2012

23 Mar

I made some quick sea sketches in an effort to loosen up my painting and allow it to be more expressive. To this end, I chose coloured paper, acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and large brushes.

The subject matter is the sea, its dangers and its allures. I was thinking specifically about a stretch of sea between an island called ‘Inish Bofin’ (just off the coast at Cleggan, about seven miles from Clifden) and it’s neighbour ‘Inish Shark’.

Bofin has a population of about two hundred inhabitants while Shark was abandoned in the 1960’s, due to lack of support from the government of the day and also due to the hazardous waters around it. The two islands once shared life as sisters. The Shark people regularly made the journey over to Bofin, particularly on a Sunday, so that they could attend the church there. The stretch of water and most direct route between the two is known as ‘The Sound’ and is particularly dangerous due to a cross section of currents and shifting sands near the shore. The islanders rarely took this route because of the danger and some of the men that ran the risk, paid for it with their lives.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~inishbofinisland/map.htm

When looking over to Shark from Bofin, the waters of the Sound sometimes appear almost black and it meets the Bofin shore at a deceptively idyllic beach known as Tra Gheal ( which means bright or silver beach ).

http://www.inishbofin.com/photo_gallery.html

The island is a tonic for the senses, everywhere you go the sea is just there, the sound, sight and smell of it. There is for me a wavering sense of awe and trepidation about this particular spot as the knowledge of those who perished there unsettles its astounding beauty.

I plan to continue working on a series of sketches about the Sound which may turn in to paintings later.

The Sea

by Deborah Watkins. Posted on March 15, 2012

15 Mar

The sea is a constant source of inspiration here as we have stunning stretches of beautiful beaches and coastline to enjoy.
The Atlantic ocean is completely different to the Irish Sea on the East coast of Ireland where I grew up. It is wild, cold, often dangerous and always beautiful compared to the temperate waters of the East coast.
I have done a number of sea paintings on paper with paint, ink and chalk, to give the effect of the waves. Here are two examples below;

I was thinking about Japanese sea prints when I was doing these. The famous one below is called ‘The Waves at Kanagawa’ by Hokusai. It is part of a large collection of Japanese prints in the Blackburn Museum in Lancashire in England.

Hokusai (1760-1849) is possibly Japan’s best known artist but this image is not at all typical of what was being done at the time. Traditional Japanese art would not have painted the lower class fisherman, seen here riding the waves in their boats. Neither would they have been concerned with perspective, used here to show Mount Fuji in the distance. Hokusai was influenced by Dutch landscapes of the time and his unique use of colour and flattening of images went on to influence Western art. European artists such as Van Gogh, Manet and Degas would have studied this style and made elements of it their own.
In my paintings, I imitated the use of perspective by making the waves the focus in the foreground and and suggesting a typical Irish island shape in the background.