Spontaneous Painting

Before Christmas, I had a conversation with a business planner about the stock and products I need to focus on for the upcoming year. My line-and-wash paintings of local landmarks were quite popular last year, but there are times when I enjoy letting my creativity flow freely and seeing where it leads.

Sometimes, I simply place a canvas on the easel, add some paint, and let the process evolve naturally.

This painting began with a crimson red underpainting. It’s a helpful technique to move past the intimidating blank canvas and avoid creative block, giving the work an immediate sense of direction.

I worked with a limited palette of three colors plus white—ultramarine blue, crimson red, and yellow ochre—along with a 1 3/4” brush.

I started by laying in the sky and decided to create a beach scene.

I wanted to introduce leading lines and an exaggerated perspective, similar to the effect you get when using a wide-angle lens in photography. After finishing the foreground with a warm pink sand color, I stepped back to see where the painting might go next.

Part of me could have left the painting at that point, but I felt it needed a focal point to anchor the composition. I considered adding a small headland or cliffs to give the scene more interest. A castle or headland could have worked well either to the left or right, so I decided to create a digital mock-up of the painting to see which option would work best. I had some photos of Bamburgh Castle and its beach from a recent trip, and using Procreate on my iPad, I overlaid two images to compare the compositions.

The view with the castle on the right is a perspective that has been explored by countless artists, so I opted for the northern view instead.

I printed a small version of this mock-up and used it as a reference. I had adjusted the color balance in the digital image to match the tones of my painting, so all that remained was to transfer the digital elements to the canvas.

For the finer details, I switched to a half-inch flat brush and began adding the castle, dunes, and walkers.

However, I felt the composition still needed more foreground elements to strengthen the perspective. A walk a few days layer along the coast the inspirartion for the foreground hit me , a flock of oyster catchers taking off in flight would look great on this piece , so I chased after them and captured the movement in flight.

to see the finished painting be sure to subscribe to the next newsletter using the form below !