Drunk on sunshine

Remember this sketch below? It was the light sparkling on the water that had caught my eye and that I wanted to record. The sketch was done in watercolour in my mini moleskine and the memory has been turning over in my mind ever since.

I'm painting on an MDF board that is 80x34cm (the original sketch is 27x8cm) so whilst it is very much bigger I've also played slightly with the ratio which now just feels more comfortable. The colours that I'm using are azure blue, indigo, phthalo turquoise, white and parchment. The phthalo turquoise is a beautiful colour but so very powerful that I'm only using tiny touches in glazes, barely a whisper makes all the difference.

 

The atmosphere that I want to create is that of a warm summer evening when the light turns mellow and golden... the feeling after a day spent in the sun when you feel drunk and dozy on sunshine as you walk home. I did some experiments with how to vary the size of spatter which I'm making using an old toothbrush (the more fluid the paint the bigger the droplets). It's very surprising the amount of control that you need for this, you can see in the second picture below where I've wiped down some of the spatter in the land toward the right side as it had started to get out of control. I've been painting this one very slowly, there have been layers and layers of glaze laid over spatters of paint. Then more spatters followed by more glaze.  I'm really enjoying the process and gradually the depth and form are starting to emerge.

 

 

It's been hard to stay in and paint as we have had a lovely spell of good weather with more forecast for the next few days which makes me want to spend all my time outside. I did have a very last minute whole afternoon of sketching last week which was made all the more special as it was so unexpected. More on that later.

Anyway I'm at the halfway mark, I think, with this painting - lots more glazing to go.