When I went to the Prom last year I did this watercolour of Picnic beach:
Now I have a shaped canvas developed to meet the shapes in the image underway. it started like this:
then more underpainting:
and more developed:
and still working on it:
The concept is one of using the image rather than the edges of the drawing page to establish the parameters of the painting.
I did a few watercolour sketches last year (I can say that now) and have been working over xmas on a large oil painting. The canvas is about 5 foot by 7 foot.
The watercolour it is based on is this:
The feature of that drawing is, to me, the watercolour pool of blue and green . The underpainting is designed to bring that out with a transparent glazing in damar varnish to overlay it. The first step was underpainting building up the lower layers:
The state it is in now (unfinished) is:
I am enjoying the way it is progressing and the field of blue glaze which dominates the canvas.
A theme of posts has been the evolution of works. This painting began as a little sketch of eroding sand dunes at Point Roadknight.
The three dimensional shape of the strecher was built to be congruent with the image and the concept of the erosion of sand from dunes to the sea over time.
I have worked up paint surface with oils and then am drizzling glaze across the form in a selective manner to accentuate aspects.
later drizzle (above) then the finished work front on and angled to show the form (below)
a little ink and wash from 2002:
