Photos: January Project’s Paintings of Talisker Bay
Here’s a photo gallery of paintings done in response to January’s project photo. I suggest you scroll through to enjoy each individually, then back and forth to compare composition decisions, the mark making, the results in similar and different mediums, what you might try yourself and what you wouldn’t.
From Lesley: “I liked the light catching all the rocks in the foreground and didn’t want it to end up too grey overall so started on a ground of magenta — not my usual approach but I like the results and think I’ll try using a contrasting base colour in future paintings.”
By Eddie. “This is my painting after the suggested tweaks.”
From Claire: “Here is my first attempt in acrylic inks only — struggling with fast drying in front of the Aga.”
From B: “My first attempt at Talisker Bay done in pastels.”
By B: “My ink and water colour attempt, I got a bit heavy with the ink in places and I think the stack would have been better in ink and wash , and I couldn’t get the pebbles to lie down to start with but it is all practice.”
By Gail: ” It’s done in acrylic and a little ink on a 12 x 16 canvas board. I really enjoyed this project. I rarely paint seascapes so this one was really fun to do. Sorry for the quality of the photo for this painting, it’s fuzzy when it should be sharper and not as dark.”
By Cathi: “The first, in acrylic, is better having been overpainted three times! I was trying different mark-making and love the sandy bits overwashed using a palette knife.”
By Cathi: “The second effort is in pastel, gives a much more subtle effect.”
By Cathi: “Finally the pen and ink, overwashed with a pink acrylic to soften the harshness of the blue and brown inks. Yes, there is a bit of bling in there in the form of gold ink!”
From Erika: “It lets me dive into totally unfamiliar, out-of-comfort-zone exercises.
I can neither paint water nor clouds or too many soft colours. So this was new territory for me. No thumbnails or sketches or preliminary trials.\This is result # 1. I’m planning to do more on the same subject. The blue is a mix of cobalt and ultramarine. The red blob had to be there for an abstract aspect with the yellow trying to lead the eye. The rocks were fun to do — never done them before.”
By Erika: “Variation on a theme, not Talisker Bay ….but fun doing it!”
By Bayberry: “My Talisker Bay sketches that I did while in a workshop in Skye with Marion in September. She was trying to get me to loosen up and try the continuous line technique so I did about six of these pretty fast and I learned a bit with each one. I highly recommend the workshop! I fell in love with Skye, even though I dislocated my elbow at the Fairy Pools!”
By Bayberry: Another of the fast sketches.
By Bayberry: “The final one I did in this method.”
By Marion: “The two paintings I did for this project, one working with transparent colours and the other opaque. My step-by-step demo was published for project subscribers on Patreon here.
My thanks to everyone who’s shared their paintings, by email and in the Community Section on my Patreon page. It’s so interesting and inspiring to see what the same starting point inspires in different people, and there are bits in every painting that make me think “what if I…?” (including your gold bling Cathi!).
I’m also pleased to see that my “do several versions” approach seems to be rubbing off, and not only on those people who’ve done face to face workshops with me. Which gives me an excuse for slipping in a mention that my next workshop in the Lake District at Higham Hall is at the beginning of April, and on Skye on 11 & 12 April, info here. Bayberry and I worked together from this reference photo last September in the warmth of Skyeworks Gallery in Portree, when the weather was wild and stormy rather than the more usual mild autumnal.
Last but not least, a reminder that Project Patrons not only get access to exclusive extra material supporting the monthly painting project, plus a short critique of your project painting if you wish. Sign up here. Your support helps keep the studio cats warm and fed, thank you.
