They do say "make hay whilst the sun shines"

For me, it's

Paint Plein Air Whilst The Sun Shines

Another lovely day of painting at Arlington Court yesterday.

I forgot to take a photo of the easel set-up,
(will try to do better and remember next time)

but took a photo of the subject 

There was shade for my view:

plus look at all those lights and darks,

aren't they just yummy.

As I say, I was in the shade

 it was a

VERY HOT DAY

and as the sun moved over

 eventually I had to pack up and head back to the studio

Here's my

WORK IN PROGRESS (WIP)

I'm not going for as much sunshine in the painting,

but want to get a 'feeling of the subject rather than the day itself'

I love painting Impressionist style rather than photo realism,

(I take the photos for that)!! 

Will leave this for a day, then look at it again

and continue this WIP.

🎨 🎨 🎨

Sketching ideas for future paintings

The thing with sketchbooks, is you need good paper.  It really does make all the difference to a decent sketch.  So you can image how challenging a Khadi-paper  sketchbook can be.  Not only is the paper roughly textured, but it swallows up watercolour like there is no tomorrow!

However, there is always a Solution 

and for this sketchbook I prepared some pages with gesso.

This will enable me to use acrylics for sketching ideas.

Prep with grey gesso and below

white/burnt sienna mix

As the gesso dries permanent, this makes it an ideal surface for acrylic paints -

of course, you could also prepare the pages with White gesso, I just chose not to.

Not all pages are gessoed though.

I have also painted directly on the white pages with acrylics -

 rough 'blocking in' idea for a future painting.

They remind me where I want to go with a large canvas.

This sketchbook is proving to be worth its weight in gold.

(I'm also going to add this post to my Useful Painting Tips blog, it may be helpful to anyone wanting to draw on khadi paper - sorry if this is very repetitive for those of you following both blogs)

🎨🎨🎨

Work in the studio

I could have kept going with this painting from 

my plein air session at Arlington Court on Friday.

(here's a photo I took at the time)

When is a painting finished?

Overworking a painting is fatal,

not going that extra nano-inch is fail.

Well, in the end you have to stand back and make an

objection decision.

ask yourself:

"Does this painting work?"

"Does it convey the feeling of the day?"

"Does it tell a story?"

and the answer for me with this painting is

YES

so here's the completed painting whilst drying on my easel in the studio

Titled:  "Looking Across the Ha-ha"

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footnote: a

Ha-ha 

(click link)

Lovely day for plein air painting

I set up my easel 

at

Arlington Court

for a couple of hours.

That's it so far

As you see, I like to take all bar the kitchen sink with me!

Headed home to spend another couple of hours 

doing the finishing touches to the painting.

(Will do a post of the completed artwork soon)

🎨  🎨  🎨

Above the waves

Watercolour/Gouche

~ This was painted on a postcard ~

I sent it to a friend to cheer her up after having an operation

Hope she liked it

🎨🎨🎨

A lovely evening walk

Isle of Portland, Dorset

During our recent trip away,

I got to ride my bike a few times.

One long ride was from Dorchester to Weymouth

with gorgeous views to enjoy too...so worth doing that trail

on another occasion I rode from Weymouth to Portland

Met up with husband and William, where we then walked around the seafront

(you may have seen William's blogpost today about Portland)

Cormorant drying his wings.  He was like that for ages.

As you see, it was a lovely place to visit

 info links for you :

Portland 

The Portland Guide 

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Wordless Wednesday

Drive to Puncknowle

No, I haven't made the name up, it really does exist.  We were actually heading for Burton Bradstock in Dorset, but I had to add the name PUNCKNOWLE (there I said it again) - I think it's kind of 'edgy'

We are headed down there in the distance, by the sea

And having arrived,  we are used to walking on sand,

so this shingle was sometimes more a 'workout' for us

Part of the Chesil Beach

approx 18 miles long 

here, I've added some links about it

CHESIL BEACH

Wikipedia about Chesil beach

Visit Dorset

 they appear to have cabbages growing on the beach -

at least in the part we stopped at -

In fact it's called

SEA KALE

(the poor mans asparagus but it is part of the cabbage family)

... in the next picture, that's the direction we head

We walked, albeit slowly, down towards West Bay
but actually stopped when we got to
HIVE BEACH
as it was such a nice day and we had walked far enough
- we still had to trek back -

Whilst we people watched,
this canoeist arrived and set off....

At the end of a lovely few hours there, we drove back through Abbotsbury village - thank goodness we don't live there - it must be hell to negotiate when busy, it was bad enough out of season, but have added a video to show you just part of what it is like...

we could have nearly shopped at this place whilst we queued in the traffic! lol

several places of interest along the way on this journey though...

one of them was this place

 there look in the distance....

it's 

St. Catherine's Chapel  

(here's a link about it)

As you see this road was much easier to negotiate.

🚗 🚙 🚍 🚜 🚚

Discovering cottages, farms and a nice walk

It started with a bumpy drive ...(short video, it was too bumpy to film it any longer)

Well, not exactly at the Bay itself, but we were on the hills overlooking it

That's Portland in the distance

Then we wandered down across the fields and roadway

and track

Yes, as you see it was virtually through a farmyard.  Not a sole about, so we weren't disturbing anyone and the signposts did direct us that way...

Not far from the sea

We then found this...

On this occasion, we never did make it to the sea,

but that's for another blogpost,

and yes, I did a little painting....

🌾 🌾 🌾