I attended a great seascape watercolour worksho. I love painting seascapes, but there is always something new you can learn and I definitely did at this workshop.
The idea was to combine photographs to create the image that you want. Paintings are not intended to be a photographs, so we can paint the image we want to!
I love St Ives harbour, but on some photographs you can end up with a lot of seaweed and the sand can look rather “dirty”. This is especially true in the harbour area where there is probably fuel spillage from the boats. The idea was to take the scene I wanted to paint and use the colours from a photograph of the sea at Porthminster beach, where the sea is a beautiful shade of blue and the sand very white.
However what to leave it and what to add? I started by painting a couple of quick thumbprint sketches, so I could work out what would work. The sky worked having it relatively clear and to have a little bit of seaweed near the shoreline.
I decided to work with just three colours and I choose Windsor Blue (Red), Naples Yellow and Venetian Red as a cool palette. Whilst painting it I wasn’t altogether sure about the colours. As the Workshop was a full-day course I painted another one at the same time!
I used the same colours, in different quantities, I think you can see the difference. I like them both and am delighted with the result.
All of the original paintings are now sold so I have the painting above printed and it is now available to buy as an A5 greeting cards.
