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Oil on linen canvas, 20 x 30 inches

The last of my big oils for now, this one.  I've figured out a shorthand for painting shingle, but I still need therapy - see you all in a couple of years........

Fishing boats are such wonderful subjects - all that bit different, weathered from their hard work, each painted in jolly colours.  My favourite light again, looking straight into the sun, which is the most challenging task for the painter.  All the white cabins are thrown into a very subtle blueish silhouette, apart from the tops of them.  Tone is everything - colour is important of course, but if you get the tone of each object right, the painting 'reads' right in the eyes of the onlooker. 

The brightest part of the painting is the sea itself, which is catching the pure sunlight from the overhead sun - that particular intense light phenomenon you get looking at an expanse of water straight into the sun.   Usually the lightest part of a painting is the sky, but not here.  You can see I've painted the clouds very bright, but a tone down from the sea.  

I love dramatic lighting like this.  Yes, it's a portrait of boats on the beach at Beer, but it's more an observation of a light effect.  As I said tone is so important, but if you can get the colours right too....but to get that, of course, you have to be very, very clever...............cough.