Water-Soluble Crayon at Portsoy

I joined a couple of people from Moray Firth Sketchers at Portsoy on a gloriously sunny albeit cold* day. I took my big tin of Neocolor2 water-soluble crayons, something that always makes me smile at the rainbow of colours when I open it, and some large watercolour paper (A2 size, 350gsm). There are so many paintable options, but it was the jagged rocks and strong shadows that I decided to draw first.

_{(*Even with January being the warmest ever in climate records, it’s still winter and the breeze was icy.)}

There were dramatic wave splashes periodically:

I started with a dark, not-quite-black, and had brought water and a brush so I could turn the drawn lines into paint. (I didn’t make a note of the names of the colours I used so can’t be more specific.)

I started off okay but then lost which part of the clump of rocks I was looking at and which part of my drawing it was. A bit inevitable with such a complex arrangement of rocks at probably too far a distance, but I decided to not be bothered and go with the feeling of it.

It was at this point that I suddenly had the thought “oh, I must take a selfie and send it to Alistair so he can see I’m enjoying being out”. Well that spoilt my enjoyment didn’t it. Everything had felt so normal I’d forgotten.

I stopped working on this, took a short break, then turned the other way to face the harbour and changed to pencil to see if I could get back into drawing.

I do enjoy those layers of stones in the harbour walls, but this time my patience was absent and I started to feel the cold. Then I got annoyed that I didn’t have the right colour for the buoy or life rings, got frustrated trying to blend colours, and so I stopped.

I chatted for a while before heading off, having been reminded of the joy of painting on location with others. To see Sarah Burns’ painting, done in gouache, go to her Instagram here.