Corfe II at sunset

Corfe Castle is such a special place. The first time I saw it, we traveled down from Bristol where I was living at the time, across part of Salisbury Plain, through Blandford Forum, “a delightful Georgian town”, to Lulworth Cove and then on to Durdle Door, a natural sea arch. We the drove across the army ranges to Corfe Castle. I would have liked to have seen it before the Roundheads destroyed it during the English Civil War.

About a week after I finished 'Corfe at Sunset' I decided to have a second go at this subject again. I almost managed to get the sunset I wanted. I may try again sometime.

Watercolour 22x15 inches on Saunders Waterford 200# rough paper

Corfe at Sunset

Corfe Castle, Dorset, England. The sky just kind of ran away from me. Someone commented that it looks a bit confused to which I replied, Corfe Castle, or the remains of, is a pile of Purbeck stone, piled on top of a pile of Purbeck stone. Never taken by force of arms...

My first painting for 2011. Watercolour 15x22 inches on Saunders Waterford 200# rough paper.

my good friend Rob commented:"... but was taken by treachery.

I'd step back and ask yourself wee you painting the sunset, or were you painting the castle, or the combination of both. The 50/50 split of the painting implies both, in which case I think the grey hills create the complication in a painting which is otherwise saying, look at the similarities between all that hard Purbeck stone and the sky.If you changed the perspective so that the grey hills created a much thinner line then it would work much better, allowing the castle to jutt into the sky ~ as a result the other painting works out better."

which I think is fair comment.

Tuscan Sunset

This is one of my earliest half sheet paintings. My old tutor Les, keep encouraging me to paint large. 'It's liberating' and I agree with him. It is very liberating. Until I took his advice, the largest painting I had completed was 12x18. A slightly oversize quarter sheet. I had just purchased some 26x40 260# Saunders-Waterford thinking I was getting a heavy weight paper. When you consider the weight and run the numbers, it turns out to be equivalent of 156# 22x30 Imperial. Slightly heavier that the standard 140# Imperial size sheets, but no where near 200# rough that I currently use.

This is also one of my earliest cityscape-urban landscape paintings. Urban landscapes is starting to become a genre that I enjoy painting.

17x22 Saunders-Waterford rough