I’m still focussing on playing around in my sketchbook, but despite my best intentions I didn’t even manage to finish this little Barcelona sketch:

It’s not far from finished – just some figures and cafe furniture to add beneath the umbrellas and, in the foreground, a figure sat on one the many permanently fixed chairs.

I just some old masking fluid to mask out the tree trunks but I think the fluid may have gone off! It’s an old bottle that I’ve had for years but when I came to remove it, it left a strange green residue that had managed to seep into the paper. I was able to remove most of this by scratching it out the tip of a scalpel but in doing this, it really damaged the paper!

I quite liked much of the study so far though so was keen to try to rescue this one! The trees will remain largely unpainted, just the odd shadow to add falling across them here and there.

Hopefully I’ll get to finish this one off over the coming weekend.

I hope that everyone’s plans for the festive season are progressing in a nice and orderly fashion!

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To finish that particular episode off, I returned to the beach again at about 7am the next morning to continue my search in daylight. It was more in unsubstantiated hope than expectation but I also felt there was nothing to lose by trying.

To my utter delight, after about ten minutes of pacing up and down the beach, there they were, lenses up on the pebbles and seemingly none the worse for their night out under the stars!

It was such a huge relief because I’m increasingly reliant on them in so many aspects of my life, not least my painting!

Work continued to be fraught to the very end but my impending holiday offered a desperately needed bit of light at end of the tunnel. (I say end of the tunnel but I’ll be right back into that tunnel’s pitch darkness as soon as I return!)

Late yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), we arrived in Barcelona to be greeted by bright sunshine and 30+ degrees of warmth! It was immediately transformative and the stresses and strains of ‘normal life’ began to ebb away!

Here are a few snaps of Barcelona style inspiration so far:

There are times when the expression ‘a change is as good as a rest’ seems especially true, but a change and a rest is just wonderful, and it’s already proving to be the perfect tonic!

It’s a little too hot in the middle of the day to be out and about much, which provided me with the perfect opportunity to get a bit of air conditioned sketching in!

Here I am at play in my holiday studio!

And my first sketch of the holiday (with the added pressure of it being the first page in a new sketchbook)!

Hope that anyone and everyone that gets to read this is also able to get a change of scenery and a rest in this summer!

In the meantime, I look forward to returning next week topped up with rest, relaxation and lots of inspiration!

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It was a beautifully picturesque town and, even though the weather wasn’t as kind as it could have been, it couldn’t detract from its charms.

Here are a few quick A5 sketchbook studies from our time there:

It was the first time we’ve ever visited and it felt like such an intimate place. I particularly enjoyed catching glimpses of the sea in between buildings or down alleyways.

Others may know the town better from its appearance in the film The French Lieutenant’s Woman and, as I understand it, the scene where Meryl Streep stands on the end of ‘the Cobb’ facing the elements.

I should probably watch this film before trying to describe it any further but, after this visit, I can’t help thinking that this trip along the coast may have been the first visit of many!

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Delighted to share the news that the two paintings below have both been selected for the Atelier by the Sea Open Exhibition 2023. I was fortunate to have two paintings selected for this exhibition last year, and I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to show my work there again.

Atelier by the Sea is situated right on Brighton’s seafront between the two piers. It’s a wonderful location and the exhibition, which runs from 14 July to the 3rd of September, will be seen by a huge number of residents, and most likely even more visitors to our fair city!

Apparently, there were over 850 entries, and about 250 works have been selected. The show doesn’t have a theme and is open to artists and makers in all disciplines, so it’s bound to be richly diverse and have a little something for everyone!

All I need to do now is to get these two mounted, framed and ready to hang and delivered between the 7th – 10 July, which might be quite tricky as I’m away for four days between now and then! The only thing thing that is working in my favour here is that, if the worst comes to the worst, I can carry these paintings to the gallery myself to hand delivery them! This leads me neatly on to another exhibition update!

TALP 2023

I shared the news some ago that this painting had been selected for The Artist and Leisure Painter (TALP) Open Exhibition 2023 in ‘The Artist’ category.

Well, unlike the two paintings above that I can hand deliver just by walking down the road, this one most certainly could not be hand delivered (well, at least not by me!) This exhibition will take place at Patchings Arts Centre, which is probably about a four-hour drive from where I live, most likely six by the time I’ve navigated the M25!

As much as I was delighted to have my work selected for this exhibition, I can’t deny that the likely costs involved of shipping both ways (assuming it doesn’t sell), plus entry fees etc, will most likely run to over £200 – which is a lot of money to have my work in an exhibition that I won’t even get to see! As much as I’d like to visit, because I’ve heard so much about the Patchings Festival, it’s just not going to be possible because of all the other commitments I have during July and August. All of this will certainly factor into whether I’m able to enter this particular exhibition again in the future!

The exhibition will run from the 13th of July to the 13th of August, and if any readers of this blog visit, I’d love to get a few pictures of my painting in situ!

I’m really hoping that soon, I’m going to be able to turn my attention back to actually doing some painting! I have been keeping myself amused with some sketchbook work, which I might share next week, but it feels like a long time since I did what I might call any ‘proper’ painting!

The post More good exhibition selection news!! appeared first on John Haywood Watercolours.

I had to travel to Ticehurst in Kent on Saturday to collect the work that I’d had on display at the Greenfinch gallery since early January. The fact that I had work to collect is a bit of a giveaway that it wasn’t exactly a sellout success.

Speaking to the owner, it would seem that my paintings were appreciated by visitors and other exhibitors alike for their quality – but they just didn’t ‘connect’. I totally understand this. When I look at all the paintings I’ve sold, there’s usually been some form of an emotional attachment, a memory, or an evocation of a happy place in someone’s mind. It’s only natural that without this, my paintings may be admired for various qualities, but that they’re unlikely to become ‘must haves’.

What was great about this experience for me was the boost it gave me, just to have my work selected to shown there.

I’m hopeful that I’ll have the opportunity to have my work there again sometime in the future.

Lazise, Italy

So while time for painting was short, it wasn’t so short that I couldn’t turn my attention to a quick splash about. Here’s a view of Lazise in Italy:

It was the sky that really attracted me to this view. On the one hand it was quite plain, but on the other, it was richly varied with reds, oranges as well as blues and greys.

Once I’d painted the sky, I started to lose a bit of interest in this painting, but I think this was partly because I was a little distracted while I was painting it! This feeling only increased once I added in the figures, but in such a way they appear as a line of people that might have just disembarked from a massive cruise ship and were now bearing down on the viewer in a most intimidating fashion!

Ah well, at least I enjoyed painting the sky! And even when the results are sometimes a little disappointing, it always feels good to get the brushes wet!

Royal Institute for Painters in Water Colour Catalogue – online now!

I was excited to see notifications from other artists that this year’s Royal Institute for Painters in Water Colour exhibition is now low online!

Naturally, I rushed over to the Mall Galleries site to have a look! Here’s the catalogue so you can have a little appetite teaser prior to the main event in a few week’s time:

After scampering through the catalogue, I saw no sign of my painting and suddenly panicked that maybe the whole thing of having a piece of work selected had just been a bad dream! Fortunately, when I turned to the full alphabetised list of selected artists, there I was in black and white on page 33! From this listing, it appears that there will be 449 paintings in the exhibition, and apparently, the split in works is roughly 50:50 between works by members and works chosen from the open submission.

DIY watercolour tinkering

I’ve had a bit of a bee in my bonnet of late. It’s ever since I started to do more plein air painting. I’m happy with one of plein air setups but have been working on a lighter-weight set up. What it’s been missing, however, is somewhere to put things while I’m painting, such as a water bucket, sponge, brushes palette etc.

I’ve been ruminating for a while on various solutions and have seen other people’s solutions, but as anyone that knows me well will know, I do like a bit of tinkering. Over the weekend, when the time for painting was a bit limited, and once all the various parts had arrived for me to realise my idea – I got the trusty old black and decker workbench out and set about the task!

The ingredients for this concoction were a ukele clamp (bear with me on this one), an old aluminium catering tray and a few nuts, bolts and washers. Here’s my step-by-step recipe:

I’m really pleased with how this turned out and can’t wait to try it out! The clamp attaches really securely, and my concerns about it not being strong or stable enough were completely unfounded! It may be that I need a different-sized tray in due course, but I’m hoping this one will suffice. It’s definitely big enough for my Frazer Price Palette Box, and my larger palette can balance over on the top edges of the tray, though this does feel a little precarious. I need to see how this performs on a real painting trip next before I consider any additional modifications.

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I’m not going to labour any of the ‘highlights’ that I’ve listed but just reminding myself of some of the positive things from last year has already had a beneficial effect and has helped put the gloom that was hanging over me towards the end of the year into a much clearer perspective!

Here then is a quick whistle through some of good things that I’ve taken from 2022:

Brighton Painting Group

I love this group! (Perfectly illustrated by the fit of giggles I’m experiencing in this photo below which was taken during June’s / July’s / August’s get together in Hove Park).

Even though I’m not always able to make every session, those that I have managed to attend have always been invigorating, challenging and uplifting experiences! Mainly due to this group, I spent more time painting plein-air last year than any other year. Not only has this brought me into contact with a lovely bunch of artists, it’s helped to significantly raise my confidence about painting plein air. Here’s one of my favourites from the year, again painted from the Hove Park meet up.

I’m already looking forward to continuing these monthly meet ups, and I would encourage anyone that might be thinking of joining the Brighton Painting Group (strictly no fees and no obligations of course!), or any other plein air group to give it a go – it’s a wonderful experience!

using green in watercolour – online workshops with Paul Talbot greaves

I’d almost totally forgotten that I started last year by signing up for a course by the wonderful artist, Paul Talbot Greaves, on how to use green in watercolour. The course had about 5 separate sessions which were completed over about three or four months. It was a great course and even typing this is making me think that I should revisit some of the exercises and notes from the sessions. Even though this image below is probably more yellow and orange than green – it’s still one of my favourites from the course.

The benefits of the course were evident almost immediately as I started to use greens (whether from tubes or whether mixed) with far greater confidence. Here’s a quick slideshow of some of the sketches and paintings that I did outside of the course materials that I doubt I’d ever have undertaken without having done the course:

I remain a huge admirer of Paul’s work and found his workshops and feedback to be brilliantly structured. I’ve been keeping an eye out on his website for other courses and one day hope that I might be able to attend one of his ‘in person’ sessions.

New website: john haywood watercolours

I have slightly mixed feelings about this one but it was, nevertheless a significant development for me. Many of you may recall that my blog and website used to be titled ‘brushes with watercolour’ and it was a WordPress hosted and managed site.

After having built up an audience and following on this site, I felt it was time to embrace my passion for painting a little further by using my name in the title of the site, and to move to a self-hosted site that would provide me with greater freedom and great potential for selling my work directly via my website. So it was that John Haywood Watercolours came to be.

While I’m pleased with the outcome of my new site, it hasn’t been without its drawbacks. Previously, I was enjoying significantly more visitors to the site, and far greater engagement in terms of likes and comments. Even though I was able to migrate all of the content from the previous site, as well as all of my followers… all of the likes that I’d garnered disappeared and visitors and engagement with the site fell off of the proverbial cliff. Despite having built everything up over six or so years, this year has been like starting all over from scratch again. I can’t deny that this has been quite dispiriting in many ways and has made maintaining my practice of posting every week all the more challenging.

Were it not for the support that I’ve received from those people that have stuck with me (and from those that have discovered me more recently) I would surely have floundered! As it was, I was able to continue (even if it has been quite desperate at times!) to maintain another year of 52 weekly posts.

What I need to do this year is to invest a little more time with the website, and especially the gallery pages. I’ve been slow to update these new paintings and now realise that I can hardly complain about not selling as much as I might like, when it seems as if about 95% of the paintings in my galleries have already sold! Naturally this is great, but I need to find a way to showcase the works as I do them!

Ultimately, I much prefer the time I spend painting to the time needed to do the other bits around uploading, and keywording and pricing etc but I probably need to find a better balance that what I have at the moment.

I have no doubt that owning my own name and site as I do now will definitely pay dividends in the long run, but over the past year it’s been as much a cause of consternation as it has of celebration.

Joining the Sussex Watercolour Society

At the end of March, I shared the news that I’d become a proud member of the Sussex Watercolour Society (SWS). This was partly on the back of me making a little resolution at the beginning of the year to say ‘yes’ to more things! I’m certainly glad that I said yes to this particular opportunity. Apart from being a most welcome bit of affirmation, it has also brought me into contact with a group of well established artists and provided me with some additional opportunities to exhibit.

Here’s my entry on the SWS website:

This year the SWS held two short exhibitions, one at the beginning of September and one at the end of September. Below are my two displays from these exhibitions and even though each one was only for a weekend, I was thrilled to sell paintings to new buyers at each one!

Masterclass workshop with Alvaro Castagnet

May brought about my much anticipated masterclass workshop with Alvaro Castagnet. I’d booked this workshop back in January 2020 but Covid lead to it being delayed for two years! It was a great weekend and fulfilled a longstanding ambition to attend one of his in person masterclasses.

Just in case there’s any doubt, in the picture below, I’m the one on the left…

Artist’s Open Houses exhibition

At the same time that I was on the Alvaro Castagnet Masterclass, I was also exhibiting at Starling Studios in Brighton as part of the Open Houses exhibition once again. Although the exhibition wasn’t running the full duration of the festival, I still sold quite a few paintings which was really gratifying! I haven’t had any invitations as yet to exhibit again in this year’s festival but shall be keeping my fingers crossed!

Here’s how my hang looked in 2022!

Fabriano watercolour exposition – Bologna

As part of my saying ‘yes’ to more things, I also entered my work to the Fabriano Watercolour Exhibition which was hosted in Bologna, also in May. I was so pleased to have my work selected and to be one of the artists chosed to represent England and Wales at the world’s largest watercolour convention. The painting below isn’t the work that was selected, but it is a view of Piazza Maggiore in Bologna so it seems to fit in well here:

I can still remember the thrill I had of simultaneously being on the Masterclass with Alvaro Castagnet, my work being on display in Bologna and receiving a phone call from Starling Studios in Brighton to inform me that another one of my paintings had just sold! It was a truly wonderful moment and one that I should try to tap into more often!

Atelier by the sea – open exhibition

I was delighted to have two of my paintings selected for the Atelier by the Sea Open Exhibition. It was great to be selected and to have my work on display in a gallery on Brighton’s busy seafront from July through to September. I hope that this may become an annual or biennial event. I didn’t sell anything directly from this exhibition, but it’s all grist to the mill!

Greenfinch gallery

The year closed with a wonderful invitation to have my work on show at the Greenfinch gallery in Ticehurst, Kent. My work has been on display there throughout December and I’ll be arranging to collect it soon. Although I didn’t sell any of my paintings on this occasion, I really hope that this may have been the start of something and that I may have the opportunity to show my work there again in the future.

Thanks so much to anyone that’s made it this far! When I first started writing this post, I had no idea that I had so much to celebrate and be thankful for in 2022! How wrong was I!

A selection of my favourites from the year

As I pulled this post together, I couldn’t help but see lots of images and paintings from the past year so thought it would be nice to throw some of these together in a little gallery, just for old time’s sake!

and for 2023?

To be honest, I’m plum tuckered out from writing this post; though now I only have another 51 to go for 2023! Also, and perhaps more importantly today (Wednesday 4th of January) happens to be my birthday. While I’m happy to post this on my birthday, I’m not willing to make myself late for the dinner out that I’ve been promised! I daresay that over the next week or two I’ll have mustered up some new resolutions for the year ahead but, in the meantime, I hope that you’ve all had a great festive season and that you all have a great 2023 ahead of you!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the featured image for this post was my very last painting of 2022, done on New Year’s Eve. It seems like a fitting way to end this (not so) little round up of my year!

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Atelier Open Private View

The Atelier by the Sea Open Exhibition had its Private View last Thursday night, and what a jolly occasion it was! It was great to see so many people there and I had a lot of lovely chats with people that I very rarely get the opportunity to see or say hello to. Sadly I did an appalling job of documenting the evening, but here are a couple of pictures:

Aside from the obvious treat of seeing my work on show and a little bit of socialising, what was so wonderful was being out on Brighton’s fabulous seafront on a beautiful summer’s evening!

There was such a buzz, not just in the gallery space, which was obviously great, but along the entire seafront. It was a wonderfully life-affirming moment about how lucky we feel to be living in such a wonderful city!

An Instagram-inspired painting

I’m sure that anyone that’s familiar with my work will understand why seeing this post from the wonderfully inspiring Philippa Stanton has me pressing on the ‘save’ button!

The image is from inside the house that Philippa has recently moved to in Cornwall. I immediately knew that I’d love to try to paint this image, but that the time would have to be right! I’ve kept on looking at it, but on this occasion, something inside just seemed to say, ‘let’s do it’.

Here are a few progress shots:

And finally the finished painting:

I’m most grateful to Philippa, not just for the inspiration, but also for the permission to share this painting and for her kind and generous comments about it – in which she said I’d made it look better and more romantic than it is in real life!

Brighton Painting Group

The next meeting of the Brighton Painting Group is on Saturday at Hove Park. We’ll be gathering at the cafe at 10am before dispersing across the park to paint. We’ll reconvee at 2pm back at the cafe to share our work and experiences of the day!

While it’s a beautiful park, it’s not what I’d call my natural subject matter. I had some time off work on Monday (the second hottest of the day of the year ever!) so thought I’d try a little recce to see if I could find anything to inspire me!

Naturally my main priority was to find a view that had some decent levels of contrast that also allowed me to paint standing the deepest shade possible! I think it was my focus on this criteria that lead me to completely overlook the fact that I was setting up right next to bin. On the hottest day of the year ever (to date!).

Aside from the shade (and the aroma the festering contents of the bin), what drew me to the view was the contrast of the light and shade and, in particular the dappled light on the path.

It was a really challenging experience. Painting watercolours in this temperature seems distinctly futile! It’s so difficult to keep the paints wet and to control the moisture of the paper when everything is drying out so ridiculously quickly!

What the conditions did force however, was the need to work at breakneck speed, which is no bad thing!

This certainly isn’t what I’d describe as my proudest moment, but everytime I paint plein air, I feel I learn something new, as well as becoming increasingly comfortable with just setting myself up somewhere and just getting on with some painting without worrying too much about passersby. On this occasion, there weren’t very many people in the park and those that did stop to chat or have a look were all incredibly polite and supportive!

Hopefull the weather will be a little more conducive to painting on Saturday, plus I’ll have much more time to play with so I’m thinking that I might try to do a couple of paintings, and I’m hopeful that at least one of them will be half sheet, which is larger than I usually paint when on location.

The post so much to say, so little time to say it! appeared first on John Haywood Watercolours.

This somewhat downbeat demeanour is accompanied by a distinct lack of interest in writing about my painting too… because this means looking at them and thinking about them… which I really don’t want to do!

Here are some of the paintings that have led to this slight malaise, so you can judge for yourself, followed by a few summary notes on each one:

Rainy days – some okay bits. Looks wet. overworked. Disappointed with the taxi.

Barcelona taxi – quite like the central building and the right hand side of the painting. Another disappointing taxi and, overall, it doesn’t do much to excite me. I did think about just throwing caution to the wind and adding some figures for interest in the foreground, but I opted to just move on instead.

A monochrome Brighton – I had a vision in my mind’s eye about how this might look. This painting bear’s no resemblance to that vision! I think this does have some merit, and there’s some life and movement to it, but annoyed about the long line of heads that break at all the same height right across the painting!

Out of Africa – This view is based on a scene in a short film that I saw recently. I really liked this at first, but my feelings towards it soon waned! I don’t think that its particularly poor, maybe more of a case that it’s bit thin subject wise.

Barcelona square – this was done pretty quickly on a quarter sheet, again using mainly large brushes until I got onto the figures.

Glass half full watercolour paintings

This isn’t to say that there’s no room for any hope at the moment. Amidst this smattering of paintings, there are also a few that I’m moderately pleased with:

This painting is of the Paris House pub in Hove. It’s tiny inside, which makes it all the more surprising that it’s a wonderful live music venue. The pub’s motto is:

“Full of character; full of characters.”

The Paris House, Le Pub

And it really does live up to this! I can highly recommend it should you ever be in the vicinity. Aside from its wonderfulness as a pub, it’s also the most amazing building. This is close to where I live so I often walk past it and have often stopped to take pictures of it, so it was about time that I tried to paint it!

I was quite pleased with a lot of this, though I feel disappointed that I also overworked some areas and, in doing so, completely ruined some elements – most noticeably to my eye being the perspective on the dome on top of the building. It’s a half imperial sheet painting and it felt good to be painting with my largest brushes for much of it.

Barcelona

I’d been scanning the photos from our most recent trip to Barcelona and spotted one that I felt I might be able to make something of. Sadly, as I took the photo on my camera, rather than on my phone, I don’t have a record of the exact location… but if anyone thinks that they recognise it, please do let me know!

This was another half sheet, again painted relatively quickly and freely with my larger brushes.

As with a few of these paintings shown here, I’m disappointed that even after my workshop with Alvaro Castagnet, I’m still allowing myself to paint too darkly too quickly. It would appear that some habits are particularly difficult to break!

That aside, I think there’s something to feel more optimistic about in this effort than in many of these paintings!

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This wasn’t in preparation for mounting them as I haven’t really done any paintings that I’m especially proud of recently. It was more a case of just having a tidy up to save a bit more space and to add lots more paintings to my ‘practice pile’, where I can use the reverse of paintings for practicing and generally playing about.

There was one painting that I had intended to save that I thought I would like to see it mounted and, in a classic case of Sod’s law, that was the one that I unintentionally ripped beyond all repair!

This is the painting that I accidentally ripped.

I remembered that I had quite enjoyed painting this so thought that it would be worth trying to paint it again. Here’s how I got on:

And the two side by side:

I don’t really want to cite this as evidence that sequels rarely live up to the original, but I do think that this is the case in this instance!

Green shoots

I’m pleased to be detecting some green shoots of progress coming out of the course I’m doing with Paul Talbot Greaves! Here’s a sketch I did recently based on a local Brighton view, looking across Pavilion Gardens towards the Royal Pavilion.

I was pleased with how this sketch turned out, not least because of the treatment and variety in the greens. I might try to work this up into something a little larger.

It’s almost here!

I’m delighted and nervously excited that work on my new website is continuing apace and, subject to any last minute hitches the ‘go live’ date is imminent!

Here, for your eyes only, is a quick sneak preview of what to expect!

I daresay there may be a few teething troubles while everything migrates from this site to the new one (for instance I don’t think I can transfer the circa 10K ‘likes’ I’ve garnered on this site since 2016 to the new one, which is a shame).

The main thing I’m trying to overcome, however, is how to ensure that I can continue to reach anyone that has chosen to ‘follow’ me without the need for anyone to do anything! I’ll try my best to sort this out but apologise for any interruption to regular services! The worst-case scenario is that people may need to ‘join my mailing list’ on the new site, but I’ll do my best to minimise any inconvenience and hope you’ll bear with me!

While the name of my website will be changing, the name ‘brushes with watercolour’ will live on as the title of my blog. This seems only natural as the blog was the original genesis for this site and, as a title, I’ve become most attached to it over the years.

I won’t say anything else right now for fear of jinxing any further progress on the new site, however, I very much look forward to being able to welcome you to my new home!

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First up this week is a quick continuation of where I left off last week! If you recall, I’d made two attempts at the ‘using green in watercolour’ homework I’d been set but was keen to see if I could improve on both of them with a third effort.

Here’re are the first two efforts again:

I was quite pleased with how this third effort turned out and, while there are individual elements in my first to paintings that I prefer, I think as an overall painting, this third one is the most successful. I was keen to keep in the touches of the red/orange foliage in the background (though I think this was done more successfully on my second attempt) and suggest the bluebells in the left foreground. The shadows across the path also feel more natural and not as heavy in this most recent version.

Here are the three side by side:

I’ve submitted all three to Paul but, as with our last assignment, he’ll most likely choose one to comment on (and I’ve already indicated that I think version three is the best of the lot) so it will be interesting to get his feedback.

What’s great is that my confidence and understanding of greens does feel to be improving and, what’s great is that I had an ideal opportunity to put this to the test!

Brighton Painting Group – February meet up

On Saturday 12th February the Brighton Painting Group descended on Palmeira Square, Hove. This was perfect for me as it’s only about 5 minutes walk from my house to the square – although this didn’t stop me from being one of the last artists to arrive. As it’s so close to me, I already know the square well and, a few days ago had the opportunity to do a recce of the square in the most glorious sunshine, so I already had a few ideas in mind.

The weather on Saturday was bright, but there was a cold wind coming in off the sea. One of my main priorities was to try to find a vantage point that had a little bit of shelter! I also knew that one of my challenges would be to find a view that I could simplify. Palmeira Square is surrounded by architecturally beautiful buildings and I could have easily found myself tied up in knots of details.

Instead, I opted for this view, looking across the square through some trees and out to the horizon, where the light was bouncing off the sea. I thought this view had some great contrasts to it with the lightest of lights to the dark silhouettes of the trees.

Usually, have chosen a view, I just get straight on with painting it. On this occasion though, I’d taken my A5 sketchbook along with me with the express intention of doing a quick preparatory study that I hoped would help me to simplify the view a little and help prepare the way for a larger painting.

Here’s my quick A5 study:

By the time I’d found this location, chosen a view and done the sketch, I still had two and half hours left to do the painting in, which was just as well because the cold weather meant that it was taking ages for the paints to dry on the paper!

I’m pleased to say that I did find doing the sketch really helpful in simplifying the scene. This meant that sketching out the larger painting was relatively straightforward. Here I am all set up and ready to start painting.

It was also nice to use my new sunshade! I made this a while ago but this was the first occasion that the weather’s been bright enough to justify using it! It’s made up of some offcuts of mountboard and has a number of holes cut in it that allow me to move the position of it slightly on the easel.

It wasn’t the brightest of days to test it on but I’m pleased that it did work in shielding light from bouncing off the paper. Something else that I’m particularly pleased about is my new glasses! Although the way I’m leaning in towards my easel in this photo might suggest that they don’t actually work very well, the truth is that having clear (non-transition lenses) was a great improvement for me!

As I’d hoped, the clear lenses made judging the tones much easier. I still have to do a bit of taking them on and off for switching between looking long-distance and painting at close range, but that’s fine and a great improvement on trying to navigate everything with the equivalent of sunglasses on!

Here’s the painting once I’d finished it:

It was amazing how much and how often the light changed during the time that I was painting this. The sketch was really helpful in creating the foundations for this painting and is something that I’ll definitely try to do again whenever I’m next able to join the group.

While there’s a lot that niggles me about this painting, I think for a plein air effort in the freezing cold, I’m quite happy with the outcome.

At the end of the session, the painters regrouped to compare notes and share their efforts:

I think there were about 16 painters in total this month which is great. It is really nice to see this growing little community of people. Everyone is very supportive of each others’ work and it’s always an eye-opening treat to see what other people choose to focus on in their paintings.

The next meeting of the Brighton Painting Group will be on Saturday 12th March at the usual time of 10am-1.30pm. As the weather gets warmer and word gets around I think the group might get even more people joining in. If it’s of any encouragement to anyone considering coming along, I can only say please do give it a go – I know that I’m enjoying it tremendously and I think everyone else that’s come along so far would say the same.

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