Deck Chairs in Blue

No posting for a while as there have been other calls on my time. Also "Mirror Lake" received very mixed feedback in class last week. Disappointing, as I still believe it is the best technical piece of painting I've done.

This is a monochrome study for a piece on shadows to be completed over the next two weeks. There are a number of problems with the composition that will need to be addressed in the final version. Let's hope the feedback is more positive this week.

Mirror Lake

Painted from one of our holiday Photographs from New Zealand. It is approximately, 12 ins by 16 ins and is the half term assignment on reflections.

Great help was obtained from an excellent tutorial on water and reflections written by Artyboon on WC, and good feedback has been obtained from WC.

Depending on how it is received at College on 23 April, this will form one of my submissions to Worthing Open Exhibition on the theme of reflections.

Woodbridge revisited

During the final session on reflections, the Tutor gave us the opportunity to revisit a piece that had not gone too well. I chose this image as I wanted to convey a more tranquil scene focusing on the boats rather than the tidemill and other buildings.

Feedback from the Tutor was that it was too tentative. He felt that I should have painted the reflections first, and not the boats and background.

Nevertheless it was completed within the lesson, and I am much happier with it.

Oh no! Who let you in?

This was a composition exercise set as homework last week. You were given a black and white image of a cat looking out of a window. You had to imagine that something in the room behind it, had caught its attention and made it turn round to look into the room. You had to illustrate in a painting why it had turned round, keeping the cat in the image and without directly showing the cause of the disturbance.

This effort certainly earned its share of laughs, and the feedback was that it fulfilled the challenge set. The composition worked well, but the mirror could have been at a more acute angle.

Misty Morning Paddle

Painted in response to a special invitation to paint on WC.

I found this really difficult, but I think that the mist works. More concerning are the reflections on the water.

Quite well received, we'll see how it goes at College on Wednesday.

Cape Brett Lighthouse, Bay of Islands, NZ

By contrast this one was finished in a day. It is approx 11 ins by 15 ins on Bockingford paper.

It was painted as my entry to the Invitation to Paint on WC for March - lighthouses from around the world.

Out to sea is the Hole in the Rock that Jean and sailed through on our holiday.

The reflections are better done, I think, but I'm not sure about the flowers in the bottom right.

Gull in the Bay of Islands, NZ

It took ages to finish this. It is on a half sheet of Arches, painted from the photograph I took on holiday.

There should be a little more shadow on the boat, the post and the gull, I think. The trees and the water turned out really well IMHO.

Feedback from college was that there should be more of the sky and the trees reflected in the water. Also the boat competes with the gull as the main subject.