Prussia Cove cliffs

Prussia Cove Cliffs, oil on linen canvas, 46 x 55 cm

Prussia Cove is a secluded part of the south Cornish coast, with a turbulent history of wrecking and smuggling. Now, however, it is known for its natural beauty and an International Music Seminar. When the tide is in, the beach is all rocks, pebbles and rock pools. Here I have focussed on the cliffs, which had some reddish vegetation clinging to them. I don't know what it was, but I do like the extra colour, which drew my attention away from the sea back towards the land.

Prussia Cove Cliffs
oil on linen canvas, 46 x 55 cm

£360

Kimmeridge

Kimmeridge Bay in Purbeck, Dorset is all about the rocks. It lies on the Jurrassic Coast and is a favoured destination for fossil-hunters as well as rock-pool afficianados and snorkellers. It has clear, calm water and a folly on the headland - Clavell Tower, which in 2006-8 was moved away from the crumbling cliff. 

So, of course, my painting is all about the rocks. The flat rocks in the centre dominate the image. I spent most of my time on their colours, curves and cracks, their attendant pools and the wet reflections of the summer sun, but it was the seaweed that worried me most. It was a curious colour - a bright mix of yellow, green, red and orange - and it was underwater, right in the foreground. How could I indicate that with my knife, a blunt painting instrument if ever there was one? In the end, it was all a matter of observation and approximation, as is often the case, and allowing the viewer's visual cortex to fill in the gaps.

Kimmeridge 

Oil on linen canvas, 50 x 70 cm

£400

The Only Way is Up

This isn't the whole picture; you'll find that further down this post, next to the unwashed line drawing. This climber was at Winspit in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, on the day that we were visiting the former quarry and cove during our summer holiday in Dorset. I took a photograph from a fair distance away; strong light and good fortune gave me a clear enough image to work from.

Waiting for the Tide

This is another scene from Portreath on the 30th of December. It's a open-ended cave in the cliffs that I painted on Thursday; we all trooped through it and then looped back around the end of the cliffs. There was a very nice rock just the other side - more, no doubt, of that later.

The fellow you can see here was not so lucky as us. He got caught out by the waves; there he was, standing on  rock, keeping his feet dry and waiting for the tide to recede when I started waving my camera around. I thought he looked rather picturesque - romantic, almost (in a Walter Scott sort of way, rather than a Barbara Cartland sort of way).

Oil on box canvas (edges painted plain Paynes Grey in acrylic), 30 x 30 cm
06 January 2013
For sale

Edit: I managed to get a daylit photograph this afternoon (10 January 2013), so I've replaced the photograph taken under artificial light. 

Gull Rock - SOLD

Gull Rock is off the beach at Portreath, Cornwall. This painting is based on photographs that I took there on Sunday, when the weather was mostly dry and the sea (the Atlantic) was entirely rough. Every now and then, there was a hint of sunlight - not enough to brighten the sky, but enough to brighten the colours of the land and sea a little.

Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm
SOLD

From the Herra

This is a view from the beach on a small promontory of land called "The Herra", looking out to the mouth of the Helford (and so out to sea).  The Herra - owned by the National Trust, as is so much of Cornwall's coastline - is in Gillan Creek, which is a tributary of the Helford River in Cornwall.