Yes, I’m taking a holiday … a long holiday!
First, Anne and I have a big birthday to celebrate, and then we are escaping for a while to recharge our batteries.
I’ll be back to blogging on Monday 7 January.
In the meantime, I wish you festive greetings: a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I attend watercolour classes with Michael Hill at Salcombe Art Club every Tuesday during term time, October through to Easter.
Michael arrives with source photos and proceeds to show how he would tackle each painting. We can choose whether to work in acrylic or watercolour and Michael demonstrates both. This is done in stages, so we watch Michael for a short while and then we work on our own paintings, watch again and paint again, and so on. All the while, Michael comes around the class giving encouragement. His strategy works …
I have three work-in-progress watercolours at present. All three are executed under time pressures.
What you’re seeing here is how far I got during a class session. It’s up me to complete them in my studio at home.
This is the source photo. 
This is my work-in-progress watercolour painting.
The lateral structure was enhanced – made to look more interesting – with the use of pen and ink. I don’t usually use pen and ink, so this was a departure from my normal style.
This is the source photo.
Not a usual subject for me. No water. No boats. No sky. Just a grumpy old man!
This is my work-in-progress watercolour painting. 
I’m glad I have him on paper. It’s nowhere near finished and I wouldn’t want to see him in a nightmare.
Again, this was an interesting exercise, but I don’t imagine completing this painting until after I’ve done another workshop on portraiture. I have much to learn.
This is the source photo. Michael often provides snow scenes at this time of year. Snow is particularly difficult to capture so this adds an extra dimension to the task.
The grid lines help me to place the buildings and other features proportionately.
This is my work-in-progress watercolour.
I still have to improve the tree line behind the cottage and behind the barn in order to give a sense of recession.
I’ve signed up to continue classes with Michael Hill in the Spring term. He is very popular so there is a waiting list.
You have to be at least a lay member of Salcombe Art Club to benefit from Michael’s classes. All the details are here.
I have two oil paintings in progress at the moment. One is a ‘normal’ scene with moored boats and little going on. The other is action-packed.
This first oil painting is a Salcombe Harbour scene taking in Cliff House through to the Ferry Inn as seen from the Venus Cafe on the East Portlemouth side of the estuary.
This is one of my source photos, showing the grid pattern I set up for my composition.
This photo also reveals which craft were present when I took the photo, and which ones made it on to the canvas. Notice that the yacht on the right of the photo is on the left in my painting. Also, notice that I’ve introduced some other smaller craft to my composition, to create balance.
The source photo above is one of many photos I took that day, in changeable weather: some with cloud cover; some with the sun breaking through. I’ve tried to capture sunshine on the scene – and that colouration will have come from my other source photos, not shown here.
In all, for anyone painting, I may have a dozen or more photos to inspire me. I draw from as many of them as necessary to arrive at the composition and my palette of colours.
This is the other work-in-progress oil painting – four Merlins racing up the estuary.
My source photo for this one included a view of the Venus Cafe umbrellas, which I decided were a distraction, as I wanted to focus on the action on the water.
Notice that I changed the relative position of the boats, and eliminated one. My aim was to capture the sense of speed through the water. I maintained the colour of the spinnakers, but only because they worked in this combination.
These two paintings should be completed in time for the 2019 exhibition at Salcombe Art Club and will keep me busy during the dark days of winter.
Apart from painting, one of the tasks over the winter is to select new card designs.
Usually, rectangular ones are cropped to create a square. For the Salcombe Harbour image, we might have two cards. Which do you prefer?
