SKETCHES FROM PORTUGAL – WATERCOLOURS

We have decamped to Portugal for a few days of walking down the coast of Alentejo and the Algarve coastlines in the south of the country. So, in hindsight, it was bad planning of me to follow up some local beach scenes with more from Portugal – maybe I was getting excited about having a holiday at last.

We started at Vila Nova de Milfontes on the mouth of the river Miro. A really lovely old, small town. The above sketch is of the beach and cliffs on the way from Milfontes, south to Almograve as we walked along the fisherman’s path on the top of the cliffs. We sat on the beach to eat lunch and I did this sketch in between bites of my sandwich.

This is the pontoon at the foot of our hotel at Milfontes. The sea is in the background with the pontoon on the river. Shoals of mullet were frothing the water and in the distance is a small headland at the river’s mouth. The river water is calm in comparison to the Atlantic breakers at the head of the river.

I did this quick sketch of Cabo Sardao Lighthouse sat in the dugout on the football pitch which was adjacent to the lighthouse. I had about 30 minutes to do it as our tour guides organised the transport to get us back from the day’s walk.

The lighthouse is famously built backwards with the living quarters opening out into the prevailing winds and the light at the back

As we headed south the cliffs got higher and were made of Schist which had broken up in planes to give great light and shadow areas. This was a painting I started on a lunch break which for no apparent reason got curtailed. Hence a lack of much detail. Though it was a good practice piece to explore the rock textures.

So I am about to go out again for a walk on my own, so there may be some more sketches – you lucky people,

Other seascapes and beach scenes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

A GLIMPSE OF THE SEA – PASTEL PAINTING

Well, I did warn you that I had gathered a lot of information on my last trip to Formby Beach. So here is another painting inspired by that visit. This one is fully illuminated by the sun, instead of looking into the light. Again, a glimpse of the sea breaking on the mud and sand in the distance and the sad remains of the old fence being devoured by the receding dunes. The sea is gobbling up the land here and I suppose it will get worse as sea levels rise. At the same time the sand gets pushed further inland.

Other seaside and beach paintings are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

AFTERNOON ON FORMBY BEACH – PASTEL PAINTING

I went down to Formby beach to get some visual information to enable me to complete a painting which I posted a week ago. I also gathered some more possible material for other paintings. The afternoon was well advanced and the low sun put the seed heads of the marram grass into silhouette. On this painting I was conscious of too many dark areas, because the bright light put a lot of the ravine into shade. Certainly, some shade was useful to counter change with the seed heads, but too much could make the whole thing very moody. So, to reduce this shade, I exaggerated the light filtering through the grasses.

I think the simple painting captures the feeling of place and time well.

Other seaside and beach scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

RHODODENDRON – ACRYLIC PAINTING

In the past I have sold many floral paintings in watercolour, but of late they haven’t been as popular. Despite being pleased with the ones I recently exhibited, they followed me home. So when I saw some floral paintings in acrylic, presented as single flowers I wondered whether I should follow this approach.

Here’s the first one – a single flowerhead, without my usual adornment of foliage. I have painted flowers in acrylic before, but more in the style of my watercolours and wasn’t taken with the result, despite the fact that acrylics can give much more saturated colour, in keeping with the flowers themselves.

In this painting the flower is big and brassy and demands attention without distraction. I mixed a greeny/black background to work against the pinks and reds of the flower and push the luminosity further.

We’ll see how it goes, you can but try.

Other floral paintings are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MORNING AT BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Last week I was out, early morning, by the canal painting. As I was scouring the canal footpath, looking for suitable subjects, I saw the scene above. Without room to sit, I took some photos and painted this when I got home.

The sketches I did manage didnt have the same impact and I rather regretted not making myself a nuisance by sitting painting on the path.

With this view, above, I think I liked the light on the big tree as much as anything else.

Here, you can see the morning has got into its stride. The white of the boat immediately caught my attention and in the background the hawthorn berries gave some welcome complementary to the greens.

Whilst I sat and painted, a guy came to talk to me. He was a musician and certainly got my sympathy regarding the problems he had with the effects of both covid and music streaming on opportunities and income. Trouble was he spent twenty five minutes on this subject – so it slowed me down somewhat.

When I was putting together this article I thought it might reawaken the Troll who whose cowardly sneering peaks at the sight of canal art and who has been silent of late.

Wrong again. OCD Troll raged similarly against my last post – a seaside scene. So much so. that they sent two mouth frothing messages yesterday :

This is in no way ART!!….it is pure s***e!

And then twenty minutes later:

Pure crap.

Well the art was sold, Troll – yes art ( Troll’s ignorant of art history – what chance have I got?) to an artist, actually.

Other art is available for sale – even to Trolls – on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com – that’s right, Troll, FINE ART. And I’ll be putting it out for a good while longer.

FRESHFIELD BEACH – PASTEL PAINTING

A friend was trying to contact me and went to my website to get my phone number and saw an image of the beach where she walks regularly. I had sold the one she spotted and she asked me to do another for her and this is the version I painted. Perhaps long time viewers recognise the view as I posted the first one a while ago.

I went down to the beach last week to see what the scene looks like now, but they have put a bigger fence on the left, so with her agreement I left it out. I like the spikey, old broken-down fence, particularly where it stands out against the sand below.

Anyway, whilst I was on the beach I took a few photos, so brace yourself for a set of beach scenes. I need some views for upcoming exhibitions that start to blossom prior Christmas and the beach at Formby is always popular.

Other beach scenes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

BENCHMARKS 2 – ACRYLIC PAINTING

This is the third painting in my mini series of life on the park bench. This time the subjects are in full light and I think I got clocked by one of them. I liked the way they were looking in different directions, each, almost oblivious of the other.

Other figurative and landscape paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

HALSALL SKETCHES – WATERCOLOUR

Warm autumn sunshine is too good to waste and yesterday morning I got up, rather later than normal, and went to a place I had spotted when returning from my last local plein air trip. It is of a cluster of farmhouses I have passed many times, but the newly mown field and an opening onto it gave me a different view and the crows also thought the same, between eating what the mowers had missed.

And then turning around, and looking in the opposite direction. I got a contre jour view of some cottages I have painted before, though, this time, with the hedge obscuring most of the view. There was still a slight mistiness which, earlier, may have completely obscured both views, this being a low lying marshy area. So it was a productive lie-in – As I’ve heard say, it’s not the done thing to arrive too early.

Other landscapes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

THE ROAD FROM HAWES – WATERCOLOUR SKETCH

Last week we stayed in a cottage in Settle on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. In the main the weather was overcast, particularly in the morning when I went out to sketch. Towards the afternoon and evening the sun broke through the clouds. Here is a sketch from, memory, of a view I saw as we drove back from a walk in Hawes – another Dales’ village. High on the moorland these isolated farmhouses dotted the road and as we climbed the hill the silhouette of the buildings stood out against a break in the clouds.

I did another version, even more sparsely:

This was at a stage before I started to add detail and ruin it.

Because of the flat light my morning sketches disappointed me. I was also hindered by drizzle and inquisitive cows which nearly trampled over my painting gear.

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The middle sketch above shows similarities to the first sketches, except that the building was a small electricity substation. I sat balanced on a dry-stone wall painting it, packing in when a light drizzle started to fall.

Other landscape paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

BENCH MARKS – ACRYLIC PAINTINGS

On holiday the other week I took to sketching people sat on benches. I worked a couple up to see what they looked like with the idea of doing a small set of work. Here are the first two. I liked this view of mother and daughter? with the girl sitting in a casual pose and the pair in deep conversation.

This one was of a couple in Manor Gardens, in Bexhill – the subject of a couple of paintings I posted recently. It looked like they made a habit of having their lunch in a shady spot in the gardens and looked well at home there. They observed the comings and goings and commented on them as they ate.

I tried to keep these painting loose, using a palette knife in parts. I am looking to do about four of them.

Other figurative work is available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart,com