Day Four - Art at Budleigh Salterton

DAY 4 - BUDLEIGH SLATERTON - FINAL DAY

 

The first thing to do was to have a walk around
and choose where to paint.

We were parked at the end of the seafront near the cliffs,
so that became my painting view...

Again I started with Thumbnail sketches 

 

thumbnail sketches help so much

I was considering this view,  perhaps making more of the sky.  The only thing was I would have to change the horizon line. Never do a painting that separates the view half way down the paper....

This would make a better painting...

the horizon line is lower and not in the middle of the picture

although I could have chosen to have the horizon higher

One thing about painting en plein air, especially where 'tide' is concerned -
You have to remember that the view will 'change'

as it did here, when the tide came in

Not only did I do some thumbnail sketches,
I also did a quick painting-sketch to warm up my paints ;)

and finally decided on this scene

step 1

waited for paint to dry before 

step 2

Final painting....

By the time I got to this stage, it started to rain,

so we returned to Ray's Studio for a cuppa, 

added some more paint to our work

and then displayed the paintings and talked through our work

Oh, and Ray's dog ended up being sketched by me...

I sneaked this sketch, so nobody saw this on the day

Had a great time on this 4 day Art Course

Many thanks to Ray Balkwill

this was a very inspirational en plein air experience.

Day Three - Art at Topsham Quay

DAY 3 - TOPSHAM QUAY

Our Third day of painting en plein air ~ Art course with Ray Balkwill ~ took us to Topsham - and oh what a choice we had here.  Very easy to find inspiration for a painting, trouble was there were too many choices.

See what I mean...

The owners of this house were kind enough to offer the art group their garden as inspiration.  Some took them up on that, although I decided to opt for the quay view

 the view I chose

 I did more thumbnail notes and sketches on this trip out...

 ...and I got stared out by this chap who wanted my lunch!

Although I did more sketches and note taking this time, I have lots of inspiration ready for a large (or small) watercolours in the future.
 

I took advantage of some seats further along this road for my day or art -
definitely another good day
 

Second day of the Art course

DAY 2 - LYMPSTONE HARBOUR

Another sunny day, so we met our tutor *Ray Balkwill at the Harbour in Lympstone.

Setting up his easel for a demo - first choosing the scene to paint

This view was chosen, although there were lots of options.  In the end you have to make a decision and stick with it.

Ray decided to include Darling Rock (I found a blogpost by Wayland Wordsmith with some info about it, so click here if you would like to read)

A mixed media painting :
Watercolour
Ink
Pastel

Perfect

Then it was time for us to find our own scene to paint.

Being such a hot day, I decided to walk around the point to the shaded side

 and chose this view looking across the estuary

Starting with Thumbnail sketches to decide on my subject

This painting needs more work, but this is where it stood at the end of our day en plein air painting

As you see, it was a gorgeous place for painting and everyone enjoyed the day.

* Ray Balkwill art





~ more abut this painting course soon (watch this space as they say) ~