Handfast Point, a work in progress

I'm working on a painting of Handfast Point on the Dorset coast using sketches and photos that I did last summer. It's a really gorgeous part of the coastline right next to Old Harry Rocks, which are a group of chalk stacks that jut out into the sea. I love the shapes of these stacks and their shadows and reflections.

One of the things I want to capture is the contrast between the surface ripples of the water and the hard texture of the chalk. The chalk cliffs are beautiful to paint, at first glance they are just dirty white but the more you look the more colour you see. There's lots of blues, soft lavender, violet and a lot of colourful grey in chalk.




Standing on the cliff top to make these sketches I was well back from the edge and getting giddy just thinking about moving closer. ( I'm not very good at heights.) For the painting though I wanted to show more of the water to give a more elevated viewpoint and the feeling of looking down as well as across and so I have exaggerated how much water could be seen from where I stood. I'm also planning on changing the light source too, I'd like to have the two stacks back lit and with glowing edges, and the ripples picking up highlights. That's the plan anyway so far I've just blocked in.

All the experimenting that I've done over the last couple of months I'm hoping will feed into this painting and the mark making will be looser. I don't want any hard edges - it must be all about the light.