September morning, Beer Beach

Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches  SOLD

I painted this little study en plein air from the lookout balcony above the shingle beach of Beer in Devon. When I started, there was a bright sun trying to peak through the low cloud, giving a gorgeous sparkle on the sea and a halo of light on the boats and figures. However, after half-an-hour, the sun was gone and the scene was totally different, the sparkle gone and the colours flat with no contrast of tone.  This is the most difficult period for the plein air painter - do you carry on, re-painting a different scene that first inspired you to paint, or pack up and try to recreate the original lighting back in the studio? I carried on for a while, but the lack of sparkle lacked what I wanted, so I finally gave in and put the panel away to finish off just now.

Fortunately, I took a photo' of the view early on, so I had the basic information and managed to finish the painting off in the studio with little alteration, just adding the figure in the foreground to balance the composition. The old rubber conveyor belt, with the sunlight bouncing off it, provided a perfect 'lead-in' to the focal point - the red fishing vessel, with the fisherman looking out to sea.

Low tide, Portscatho Harbour

Oil on Board, 9 x 12 inches SOLD

Another oil from my Cornwall trip. Unfortunately, there was no sunlight on the day I was at Portscatho, so I had to make the best of what was on offer. 

When there is no sunlight, all the tones are close and subdued, so in many ways, more difficult to paint. Luckily, there was plenty of colour in all the boats lying on the mud, so it made for quite a polychromatic composition. I used my long palette knife to drag dark paint over the drying mud colour to get the effect of seaweed and stones. On this scale it was a little fiddly with all the bits and bobs on the boats, but they make up for the lack of sparkling sunlight.

Molunan Beaches, St Anthony Head

Oil on Board, 6.25 x 10 inches  SOLD

Here's another painting from my trip to the Roseland Peninsula last September, looking down on one of the Molunan Beaches - not sure whether this is Little or Great Molunan. This view is looking in the opposite direction to 'Calm Waters, St Anthony Head', the painting in my last post.

I quite liked the rhythm of the rocky outcrops, making your eye go in a zigzag path through the picture, with the tones of each mini-peninsula getting ever paler and bluer to give that sense of distance. I also loved the purpley colour of the rocks as they were covered by the green, milky sea in the foreground. This was towards the end of the season, so there wasn't a lot of activity, which adds to the tranquillity and sense of place I think. Ooh, get me, all poetic and lyrical...

Calm Waters off St Anthony Head

Oil on Board, 7.5 x 10 inches

This little painting is a view from the SW Coastal Patch around the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall. The day I was there, it was a rather dull and benign - a far cry from what has been blowing on these islands for too long now. 

With little in the way of light, aside from a hint of colour in the sky, I had to pay close attention to the tonal relationships between the foreground and headland in the distance with the lighthouse and the little white paraffin store. Soft brushes and hogs used to stroke the paint in the headland, and, conversely, plenty of texture dabbed in with my coarse 1" household brush for the vegetation near me, also helped to give spatial awareness to you, the viewer, hopefully!

Sun and Wind, Brancaster Staithe

Oil on Board, 7.5 x 10 inches

Here's my little effort from this Wednesday's paint out at Brancaster Staithe with the UK Plein Air Society. The view I picked was a little challenging, starting out in sunlight, then extremely dull, then sunlit again. I parked myself in front of a wall so that I was sheltered from the howling gale, apart from the back of my neck and head, so had to wrap them up with a scarf and my very fetching hat with earflaps to stave off rigor mortis.

Chasing the light is never easy and much like shares, boats can go down as well as up on the tide.  The poles (technical term) on the big boat were dark against the sky for most of the painting, then the sun came out and thay were bright white against the blue sky.  So, I ended up chasing the light and in the end decided to paint the high tide with the sun out, and finished the painting off in comfort of the studio.

This is how far I got on the day, with the exposed mud in the foreground, before opting to paint out the foreground mud and changing the mood of the painting.

Sunset over the Thames at Richmond

Pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, 13 x 19 inches

Back in November, my friend Haidee-Jo Summers (a familiar name to many of you) and I went down for a day of plein air painting by the Thames at Richmond with a band of painters called the Brass Monkeys.  We only did one painting each, nowhere near finished, because poor Haidee developed a migraine (I have this effect on people!), so I dashed to the nearest chemists to get her some Migralieve, which, fortunately, did the trick for her.

On walking back to the car, I snapped a photo of the glorious sunset, which provided the basis for this painting, with a little artistic license.  As you'll know if you're familiar with my daubs, I tend to paint trees with perhaps more apparent detail in oils, so it's sometimes nice to ring the changes and tackle them with Pastels, which gives a softer, more painterly feel, I think. There were an awful lot of subtle changes of tones in the mauves and yellows and the corresponding darker notes, and these had to be observed with a lot of concentration (just in case you thought we artists just hold a magazine in one hand and paint with the other, barely glancing at the paper!)  Sunsets are tricky, getting the brilliance of the oranges and warm sky tones to shine out without getting the darker tones too dark.

Towards Falmouth Docks

Pastel on Clairfontaine Pastelmat, 9 x 13 inches

As I still had my Pastels spread out on my enormous palette (a long piece of wood) after painting Ruffin, I thought I would do this little study from a trip to St.Anthony's head in Cornwall last September.

Pastels are a bit fiddly on this scale with this sort of subject, with blunt little stubs to manouevre around, but I quite enjoyed the looseness of the water. Being a dull day, there was little light casting any interesting sparkles and shadows on the vista, so the close tones had to be carefully observed, a little more difficult with the dry medium.

Ruffin

 Pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, 12 x 9 inches

I rarely do pet portraits these days, but this is Ruffin, and he is a surprise present. Ruffin is a Border Terrier and is very much a typical member of the breed, with a rugged, scruffy coat, boundless energy and packed with the sheer indomitable spirit of being alive on this planet.  This is what I desperately wanted to capture with this painting and I think I've just about got him.

Swans by the Bridge

Oil on Board, 12 x 17 inches SOLD

This is the final painting destined for the Marine House Gallery stand at the Hong Kong Affordable Art Fair.  

I never tire of painting Swans, and this family group were particularly appealing, the juveniles' plumage echoing the frosted vegetation beautifully.  The dark band of tone on the top right section is actually the embankment of the 'new' concrete bridge over the River Welland at Duddington in Rutland, with the ancient, handsome bridge in the mid distance.  Although ugly in itself, the new bridge cast a nice shadow over the water, with the low morning sun just peaking over the top of it, reflected here in the water, breaking up the area.  As you all know who read this highly entertaining Blog, I love painting the effect of pure sunlight, especially on water, so this was right up my street, or stream...

When you have a river that traverses across the picture plane, there is always the danger of the eye flying out of the picture, but the tree branches on the top left poke the gaze back and the ducks invite you through the bridge arches.  Another bit of the painting I loved depicting was the sunlit steam hovering over the water before the old bridge, achieved mostly with the paint wet, but with a little drybrush afterwards.

Late Autumn Reedmace

Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches SOLD

I don't know why Blogger is publishing photographs with much more saturation than from my file, but if it appears that way on your screen, I can assure you the painting looks a lot less colourful than here! A far better, more accurate photo (from the same file) can be seen by clicking on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peter-Barker-ARSMA/269278856450128 

NB...I've changed my settings and turned off Google's 'auto-enhance' button, so the photo is now more accurate (thanks to Andy for the tip!)

I rather liked the jaunty angles of the Reedmace with their characteristic long brown seedheads - often wrongly called Bullrushes, which look totally different. The seedheads release their fluffy cream cotton wool-like seeds, rather like Dandelions. 

I quite enjoyed painting the woodland in the background, with a lot of the warm colours of Autumn, but quite a bit of blue and white in the mixes to make the wood recede. Sadly, in the photo here, those subtly blued tones don't appear, so I urge you to look on my FB page to see that I haven't got cataracts!

Willows in the Fog

Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches

I find painting trees in fog the most difficult thing to achieve convincingly. It's the subtly close tones where the tree tops almost disappear into the mist that makes it so tricky - you really have to pay very close attention to get these right. I used my finger a lot to smudge where appropriate.

This is almost a monochrome landscape, with just three colours used, plus white, in varying combinations.  Although painting trees in fog is very tricky, I adore painting frosty ground, using my 1" household brush to get the texture required.  It's actually a little more challenging on this small scale, but still the big brush does the bulk of the work, just with more of a deft touch required Luckily, being a very young man......I'm able to wield it with aplomb...ahem. 

Warm Spring Sunset

Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches

Here's today's effort.  The gallery wanted a sunset painting, so this should fit the bill. 

I find the tones of landscape sunsets quite tricky to get right.  As I've said before, we artists only have Titanium White as the brightest, lightest colour in our arsenal, not anywhere near as bright as the sun itself when looking straight into it.  So, you have to employ some tricks, by toning down the surrounding sky tones to give the sun sufficient punch in a painting. The tones of the landscape must be paid close attention to too - not too dark that they are appear almost black, but not too light to compete with the toned-down sky colours.  Just about made it!

Slim Pickings

Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches SOLD

This is the second of the four little paintings for Devon.  It's a view in my village from last February, the group of farm buildings making a pleasing composition with the backdrop of trees and the gorgeous old Willow on the left.  Being predominantly a bluish monochrome landscape, the lovely rich red-brick barn provided the perfect foil of warmth to the picture.  I included the two horses for a bit of life, one munching on the little patch of grass and the other sunning himself against the barn in the thin sunlight. The flooded foreground finally gave some nice reflections for added interest.

Summer Water

 Oil on Board, 6 x 8 inches

 

Here's the first painting of 2014 off the press - a little one of four needed by my Devon Gallery.  A summer scene just down the road from me by the River Welland which meanders through the Rutland countryside.  Won't be that long now before the green shoots appear - probably the kiss of death!

Christmas Present!

Oil on Board, 8 x 10 inches

Here's a little painting I did for my darling Jane for Christmas.  It's her eldest daughter Milena with her son Remi having fun on the beach in Spain.  I had to do this one surreptitiously so Jane knew nothing about it, having been asked if I would do it many months ago.  Tears flowed on Christmas day as she opened it - no, not because she thought it was awful!

And here's one of her looking very coy climbing over a stile after walking off some festive nosh.

and here's one of yours truly using an unusual cushion after another festive feast...

Yesterday was my birthday, a big one between 50 and 70 (obviously there's some terrible error on my birth certificate), and we had a lovely meal at a pub, paid for by my dear brother (many years older...) and sister-in-law...nom nom!