Mount's Bay, Cornwall and Farmyard Entrance, Widecombe Stage I

Mount's Bay, Cornwall

Just off the easel, I think this one is finished but will need to live with it for a little while before I declare it finished, playing about with it at the moment would just be fiddling!

Into the Farmyard, Widecombe (stage I)

I painted the above picture as a demonstration to the lovely Isle of Wight Art Club having already painted an Acrylic grissaille (monochrome underpainting just so that I could see that the composition worked and so that the audience also had an idea of what it might look like when finished. I promised to post each stage here so that they could follow its progress, so more to follow

Freshwater Bay in Oils

Tennyson Down from The 'Military Road'

The three paintings that I have posted here are all in square format, this format suits many scenes and allows you to crop, cutting out unnecessary peripheral detail but equally it is a great format for printing greeting cards which seems to be a very popular choice. This painting uses the old railings as a 'lead in' (no longer there) to the Bay in the distance and Freshwater Bay House, the HF Holidays house which stands overlooking the Bay and the chalk stacks. Stag Rock and Mermaid Rock, Arched Rock used to stand between the two but was sadly claimed by Neptune in 1992.

Stag Rock

This unusual viewpoint for a painting of Stag rock is from just outside one of the caves and is looking

west towards The Needles with the far side of Freshwater Bay visible behind the stack on the top of the cliff at that point stands Fort Redoubt, one of 'Palmerston's Follies'. I enjoyed painting this one and the challenge of making the rocks and pebbles appear to be under the water with the reflections over the top.

Sunlight on the Bay

Clearly visible in this painting are Mermaid and Stag Rock. The challenge for me here was to convey the sparkle of the sunlight on the water. I used the marker buoys as a lead in to the picture.