Sailing the Seas

I haven't kept to my blog for a while now, but that's to change. There's so much to post and keep you up to date on, since writing my first book and having it published (April 2016), I can at least say that book two is well underway! On the art front, there's so many exciting things happening now; I've expanded what I do, developed my own unique style and keep myself very busy creating it all! Soon, I hope to begin an online course through my Youtube channel to show anyone the basics of painting. But enough of that. For now, let's talk about painting. Imagine, you're on a boat, the cobalt blue sea bobbing you about in the water, the sea breeze soft and salty, you can hear seabirds calling around you amid the hum of the engine as you speed by tall cliffs. This was the image I wanted to create with my newest painting, inspired by a boat trip to Dartmouth last year.

So I took hundreds of reference shots (not joking) to record the shape of the cliffs, boats we passed, the colours, the scenery, anything I thought might be useful. I began painting this at the start of August this year, inspired again by another trip to Devon.

Watercolour, I love it's versatility and transparency. It's not the most forgiving of mediums, so you really have to be careful with it, it's like painting with mist, but more rewarding. ​

​I started with the sky here, wet onto wet, (wet the paper first) and moved onto the land, mixing wet (wet paper) and dry (dry paper) techniques to achieve the best effect. To make the most of the scenery here, I merged at least four photos to create the composition. I just loved working with these colours here. Mind the slight yellow in the picture, it was around 2am when I worked these parts.

Just look at the intensity of that blue!

The finished painting! Let me know what you think, or feel free to share your own memories of boating. ​ Watercolour 12x16" Thanks for reading! See more of my art under the gallery tab above!