4 inch squares

Three "Crashing Wave" squares

It all started earlier this year when I got my hands on a supply of square mounts, eight inches square with a four inch square aperture. They were a nice size, but I didn't have very many pieces on paper to suit them. Then I realised that some bigger pieces, which didn't quite work as a whole, would look great if they were cut up and the choicest parts presented in these mounts. It seemed to work especially well with pictures done in acrylic ink, with trees and waves being good subjects.

Purbeck Eddies

Purbeck Eddies, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

I started this in the last few days of Open Studios, working from a 2014 photograph taken off the beach at Winspit in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset. I finished it today, having taken a few days off.

Atlantic Surf

A winter seascape, waves crashing on the Cornish coast, colours that were there all along brought to the fore...

Oil on box canvas, 30 x 80 cm

£220

Across the Beach

This is a composite of several photographs taken on Portreath beach in December 2012, and painted largely during the last day or two of my Hampshire Open Studio run this year. I mentally enhanced the colours between photographic reference and painted picture, and deliberately left a few areas of natural-coloured linen canvas unpainted.

Across the Beach, oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm

£575
exclusive of post and packaging

Praa Sands / The Prettiest Wave

The weather has been hot enough of late that the layers of this painting were pretty much dry after a day or two. I've been working on this in very short sessions, in between doing other, largely less interesting things and rediscovering Life Without the Internet (not by choice).

Oil on canvas, 40 x 80 cm

Botallack Count Houses and Newbury Lock

Botallack Count Houses

Two more - rather watery in theme - line and washes. Both were done from photographs using dip pens, acylic inks (sepia and white) and watercolour.

To the Lighthouse - SOLD

The light that day was phenomonal. Sharp against a gloomily dramatic sky, Godrevy Light presided over St. Ives Bay and the crashing waves, and I knew there was a splendid Godrevyscape for the taking. This large canvas was painted from a photograph taken from the clifftop at Easter.

Oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm

SOLD

On the Rocks

Are the waves wilder because of the rocks? Loosely based on a photograph take in Portreath, Corwall.

Oil on canvas, 30 x 100 cm

Inexorable

I find the sea - at its interface with the land - quite fascinating. Wild, untameable. inexorable and essentially, hypnotically repetitive.

A different palette here, in a nod to the natural linen support: two blues and three earth colours. And white. Utramarine was, of course, used in the sky along with burnt umber (and titanium white); the sea has a little of those colours, but phthalo blue - with burnt sienna and yellow ochre (not forgetting titanium white) dominates.

Oil on linen canvas, 30 x 30 cm

#C2C15 Textures and Shapes in Nature

Monday was the Cover to Cover sketchbook exchange day, and here are my contributions to "Textures and Shapes in Nature":


 


My new theme is "Spots of Time" and is well underway...

Linear

This is the finished version of the painting I was working on over the weekend (between visitors).

Based on a photograph taken on Porthtowan beach this August. A sort of companion piece to Curve.


Oil on natural linen canvas
38 x 61 cm

Tintagel Cove

I had a brief opportunity to visit Tintagel this August. It was packed full of people. I gave the castle (nice though it is) a miss and went down to the cove, where I made a sketch and took lots of photographs.

Curve - SOLD

The starting point for this was a photograph taken from the beach at Porthtowan when I was there to look at the view from East Cliff.

View from Rock - Commission - SOLD

Rock is a village in North Cornwall, just across the Camel estuary from Padstow.  I was asked to paint a view across the estuary, so we detoured that way at Easter and were fortunate enough to find Rock basking in wonderful sunshine.

Godrevy Dunes

Based on a grey December photograph, this is my rather more colourful interpretaion of Godrevy Light seen from the path over the dunes at Gwithian.

Windsurf - SOLD

When we were in Cornwall over the New Year, I visited Gwithian (from which Godrevy Light can be seen), and took lots and lots of photographs. There was a windsurfer - a very skillful fellow - out on the sea and I managed to get a few shots of him in action.

Sunsetting (over Penlee Point)

The sun was setting when we were at Long Rock in December 2013. This is an interpretation of one of my photographs looking towards Penlee Point (near Mousehole).

Godrevy Storm

I was standing near the foot of the steps that lead down from the lifeguard hut at Gwithian (St Ives Bay, Cornwall), looking towards Godrevy Light, when I took the source photographs for this painting. It was December 2013, and the waves were impressive, but not as high as they were to become in the New Year.

Godrevy Storm
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm
Painted for UK Art Aid

Marazion Breaker

These waves are based on photographs taken at Marazion, Cornwall, in December 2013.

Long Rock (Waves)

This is based on a photograph that I took last December (2013) at Long Rock, Marazion, Cornwall. It was (I thought) unusually rough that day for Marazion, which is in a sheltered spot in Mounts Bay. It got significantly worse within a month or two.