AUTUMN ON THE ALT ESTUARY – PASTEL PAINTING

I’ve painted this view before but had forgotten about it until I was preparing this blog.

With the sale of a coastal painting this week as well as preparing for a couple of exhibitions and doing a lot of pastel work, especially for the demos and workshops I’m running this month and next, I was looking around for likely subjects.

So I had a go at this, which is the estuary of a small river, the Alt, as it empties out into the bigger Mersey Estuary at the north end of Liverpool. In the summer, the channel, close to the dunes, is lined with moored yachts, but as the year dwindles towards its end they are brought ashore and placed in a compound.

This view is from the dunes looking over the Mersey towards the Wirral peninsular that can be just picked out in the haze. If you look hard there is a tanker making a break for the Irish sea.

The dark headland behind the marram grasses is made up of building rubble from the bombed out Liverpool, which was dumped there after the second world war. As you walk along the beach you can find carved fascias to old buildings amongst the sea smoothed bricks and concrete. Someone once told me that they found half of a tombstone there.

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

EVENING ON THE ALT ESTUARY – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

The boat theme continues with some moored yachts at low tide on a local river, the Alt, which discharges into the Mersey Estuary. Here, facing west, you get some great sunsets and this is one of them along, with the birdlife which feeds off the extensive sand and mud flats.

I have done this scene before, but thought I’d give it another go, making changes with the viewpoint, though I am not sure whether I’ve made much progress here.

Anyway, today is my first day at the pop up gallery in this session. We have been open for four days and there have been a few sales, which is encouraging considering the economic situation – though none of them were mine. However, I have had four enquiries for commissions in the last week, two of which are very strong and I am meeting one of them at the gallery today, to discuss details.

A sunny day is forecast, so I might see some people, though I’m taking my painting gear to pass the quiet times.

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

MIST DUSTED ALT ON AN AUTUMN’S MORNING – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

This is a view of the River Alt as it drifts through the fields of the Lancashire plain. I love this idyllic view which I see as I cycle across the foot bridge over the river. Though directly behind me is a railway bridge and beyond, a newly constructed housing estate. In front, around the bend, the river enters an army camp where it is used in noisy military exercises. Later, it emerges on the other side of the camp and idly sidles into the mouth of the Mersey as the mighty river breaks into the Irish sea spitting out ferries, liners and cargo ships in front of ranks of wind turbines. Here though, in this spot, you forget your surroundings and there is a calm moment of what if and possibility.

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

DUNES AT THE ALT ESTUARY- PASTEL PAINTING

It’s a while since I last had the pastels out and I wanted to do some paintings of the Sefton Beach, so I thought that they might be just right for the marram grasses.

This is the view where the River Alt empties into the Mersey Estuary and in the distance the Wirral, across the estuary. On a good day you can see the Welsh hills. Just around the near headland is Gormley’s, Another Place, which has the figures looking out into the blue of the distance.

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

LAST LIGHT ON THE ALT – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Back to the task of getting some paintings for the exhibition at Little Crosby. The Alt is a small tributary to the Mersey, opening out into its estuary, not far from Little Crosby. A number of boats moor up there. This one was done at sunset and is a subject I have painted before. I love the trail of buoys and markers down the watercourse and the reflections and patterns in the vast expanse of wet sand out to the Mersey and Irish sea. At present you can hear the sounds of migrating Canada geese as they feed way out in the distance  on the sands. Looking the other way in the morning you get the view below.

The block of flats on the right is an eyesore and I blended it out in the morning sunlight. The houses dont do much either, so I kept them as simple as possible. Hopefully they will appeal to someone, as this is a well visited spot of wildness in a built up area at the north end of Liverpool.

Other paintings of Liverpool and surrounding areas are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

THE MERSEY SWALLOWS THE ALT – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I was walking down by the Alt Estuary where it empties out into the Mersey Estuary. The vast expanses of sand at low tide with the Wirral in the background and the Welsh hills behind that make a subject, but it is finding an angle. Off to the right of this painting are the tide marooned boats which I have done  before. I decided to get low and include the flora – dog roses and dandelions and the like. These plants cover the piles of brick and debris from the war ravaged Liverpool that was dumped around here creating a bit of a coastal defence, though coastal preservation wasn’t top of their priorities at the time.

Other paintings of Liverpool and the surrounds can be found on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

BEND IN THE ALT 2 – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

It may look familiar and indeed it is. I published a version a week or so ago, but wasn’t very happy with it, so I decided to change the format. I am much happier with the outcome, having got rid of a mass of awkward foreground.

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

A BEND IN THE ALT – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

The other day with the sun rising early I got on my bike and cycled along the old railway line towards Maghull and Liverpool. The morning was too cold to start painting – well for me it was – so I took my camera. On the low lying land the morning mist slowly burnt off revealing farms and woods in the distance. In my rush I didn’t take a spare inner tube and on the way back got a puncture so the last three miles was on foot – still it wasn’t raining and it could have been a ten mile walk if it had happened earlier, so you have to count your blessings and I got a few nice images. Here the Alt, a small river which ends up in the Mersey Estuary weaves  around the flat farmland of the Lancashire Plain.

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

SUNSET ON THE ALT ESTUARY – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Last September I went out painting on one of the few bright evenings we had in late summer/autumn. I sat myself down near some old farm buildings surrounded by trees and started to draw and then paint. I hadn’t counted on the sun disappearing behind the trees so quickly ( very different to when I was out in June). The interesting assortment of buildings in light and shade quickly merged into a dark mass in deep shadow. So I packed up and,  as the sun was still hovering over the horizon, decided to call in to the Mersey estuary where the local river, the Alt, merges into it. There are a many boats moored right  along the estuary, all  the way out to the Mersey. When I got there the tide was out and  the sun cast everything in an orange glow. The river carves its way through the mudflats to the Mersey and the sun created intriguing patterns on the mud, reflecting off the wet mud and being absorbed by the drier areas. The scene was changing too fast to paint so I took a load of photos and painted it later on a half imperial sheet. I wasn’t happy with the result and had another go on a  smaller quarter imperial sheet. I am happier with this. There isn’t much to the scene and probably too many darks, but I think I’ve got the feeling of the place as the sun disappears over the Atlantic.

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