"St Ives from Carbis Bay"
Day 2
I now start the painting itself. Here I have added in the horizon line using a mix of Prussian Blue and Cerulean Blue. As I bring it to the foreground I increase the amount of Cerulean Blue.
I have then mixed up an amount of Naples Yellow Hue and Mixing White to put in the shapes for the headlands and then the same colour for the sand on Carbis Bay which is a beautiful light colour. As I have added this into the Cerulean Blue Sea, it creates an almost turquoise green..
I have then worked on the sky using a piece of kitchen roll with Titanium White and Cerulean Blue moving it in circular swirls to create the cloud shape and shadow.
I then have to leave it again to dry before I can add the foreground detail.
I now start the painting itself. Here I have added in the horizon line using a mix of Prussian Blue and Cerulean Blue. As I bring it to the foreground I increase the amount of Cerulean Blue.
I have then mixed up an amount of Naples Yellow Hue and Mixing White to put in the shapes for the headlands and then the same colour for the sand on Carbis Bay which is a beautiful light colour. As I have added this into the Cerulean Blue Sea, it creates an almost turquoise green..
I have then worked on the sky using a piece of kitchen roll with Titanium White and Cerulean Blue moving it in circular swirls to create the cloud shape and shadow.
I then have to leave it again to dry before I can add the foreground detail.
For the next stage you can see that I have added colour to the headlands.
For this I mixed a purple from Magenta and Prussian Blue and then added in Cadmium Yellow Hue for the Carbis Bay Headland. For the St Ives headland, I have added in some Cerulean Blue and Mixing White in order to push the headland back into the distance.
I have then started to put the flower heads in on the cow parsley and on the thistle heads. This is always a brave step because here I am trying to form my composition and there is no real going back once that paint is on the canvas, bar starting again.
It was at this moment that my wife Jan walked in, saw these flower heads on the canvas and said "How very Avant Garde!" She put a cup of tea down for me and left before I could begin to explain what they were.
This is where I have to contain myself and not take the painting into a completely different direction by "abstracting it right up!". As much as I want to.. I didn't..
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