THE CANAL ON AN EARLY SUMMER’S EVENING – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I was put off from painting this because of the overwhelming green, but I tried washing in reds, oranges and blues to stir things up and layered in masking fluid so that, although the greens do dominate, there is enough to keep a bit of interest going. I think I took this picture last year when I was out painting plein air on the canal and I am thinking of doing more this year, as this time I wont be recovering from a hip operation that kept me grounded for a couple of months.

I also had another go at Uphill Struggle: the painting of Cape Town’s Waterkant suburb,  I first published a few weeks ago in February. This time I increased the size of the main figure and painted the road in a warmer hue to emphasise the ambience

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

MISTY MORNING ON THE CANAL AT HALSALL – PASTEL PAINTING

I parked up in the carpark by the canal ready to go off painting and just took a glimpse along the towpath. Fingers of mist still clung to the reeds, avoiding the sun’s weak rays. Out of the reed beds some moorhens glided across the chill water, probably thinking I might be a source of a free breakfast.

I tried this out in pastel to get the wisps of mist. In hindsight I could have done it in watercolour and used white gouache for the mist.

Other canal side paintings are available on my website grahammcquadefineart.com

ALONG THE STREAM – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

This is the same stream as my earlier post ‘A Cooler Place by the Stream’ but looking along it. Again I liked the reeds in the foreground and the light shining on the tree trunks. The almost total  predominance of the blue/greens give it a calming effect.

Other paintings of streams and canals are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

AN AFTERNOON ON THE CANAL – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

This started out as a bigger painting. Initially I liked the array of trees in the background and the way they dwarfed the narrowboat and man, but when I completed it, the mass of foliage was boring and overpowering. I decided to cut it down from half imperial to quarter imperial. This is the quarter imperial (36x26cm) painting. I do like the warm colours of the man and lifefloat on the narrowboat, singing out in the sea of greens and the smaller size has put more focus on the boat. I still have some misgivings about the painting and will put it aside to consider it later.

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

 

MORE ENGLE STYLE PAINTINGS – WATERCOLOURS

Mixing the paint on the paper and then shaping the resulting image. I had to do it in a number of stages, but I like the haziness it produces. Better than an earlier post of this scene which is of the Leeds Liverpool canal.

This one of Ambleside in the Lake District: a lot of overpainting and modification after the initial washes – a bit like the Venice painting I posted earlier in that I’m going back to my own way of working after starting with this new approach.

Just keep trying.

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

EARLY MORNING IN VENICE – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I got messed around recently by someone who wanted some paintings of Venice . In the end it came to nothing, but I discovered this amongst my photos and I thought I’d use it to try a Nita Engle approach on architecture. Unfortunately I tightened up on the building details, but I do like the dark, dank canals opening up into the light. Might have another go and try and kill the detail.

Other paintings for sale are on my website grahammcquadefineart.com

THE CANAL AT MAGHULL – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I have liked this scene on the Leeds Liverpool Canal when I’ve been looking for somewhere to paint. There isn’t much, but the light reflecting off the rooftops and coming through the trees and the areas in shade make it appealing to me.

I mentioned it to someone who lives in the area and does a lot of painting and they told me that they had been cycling on the path here and  had not been paying too much attention to what they were doing (looking at the scenery) and the cycle wheel got caught in a rut and they finished up in the canal. From what she told me the bike is still in the canal .

Other paintings of the Canal and Narrowboats can be found on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

I THOUGHT THAT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA … WATERCOLOUR PAINTINGS

A couple of watercolours I did recently which I had high hopes for, but they fell a bit flat by the time I had finished. Both were contra-jour. The horses in the evening sun seemed to come out rather flat. The actual horses in the photo were in coats so I  took some images of horses from other photos and arranged them in the field  but perhaps I had  the  tones a bit wrong – being wary of overdarkening the horses. I felt the finished painting lacked a bit of punch.

The view from the canal seemed to finish up with a mass of reedbeds and rather little else going on.

Anyway – I tried. On with the next painting.

Better fare is to be found on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

GETTING HOME IN TIME FOR WINTER – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

As promised, or threatened, in my last post I said I would present another scene of the Leeds Liverpool Canal from where I was painting the other weekend. After the boats on the left and right had departed another boat came in under the bridge and I reached for my camera. It seemed like everyone was making the best of the good weather to get their narrowboat moored up for winter. I particularly liked the smoke coming from his exhaust or chimney – not sure which – which partially obscured the bridge.

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

THE SWING BRIDGE AT LATHOM – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

I  sat by the Leeds Liverpool Canal one sunny morning  the other week and painted the canal by the swing bridge. The on site sketch is below. I thought that the second painting might be better as a wide format image.

On the morning when I came to leave, a narrowboat was coming up to open the bridge. With the wide format  I thought that something on the left hand side might balance up the painting a bit more, so I included this boat

in the painting. It now seems to have taken over as the subject of the painting.

The original sketch.

Other canal paintings are on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com