Plein air watercolour painting - 16/07/2016

I finally had the time and the weather to go and paint outside again. It's been a long time since I painted anything at all but it's been years since I painted outside. I either have the time or I have the weather, never both. I had no idea what to take with me, so I took everything that I could think of. In hindsight I could have survived with a lot less.

I chose a spot on the grass (the tide was almost in, so no point setting up on the beach. All the sand was covered already) in a kind-of park/gardens (if it has a name, I forgot it) and set myself up. I looked around for a bit before deciding what to start with. The initial plan was to do quick and separate sketches of the plants I could see, not a scene, but then I started drawing the bench and that plan went out the window. Plenty of people walked past, but apart from two curious dogs, nobody bothered me.

Unfortunately, although it was the hottest day of the year so far, it clouded over after I'd been there for a while. I had my picnic, started my painting, and then the cloud came. It changed the light: I suddenly had no strong shadows, which is why they're absent from the finished painting. The bench looks a little weird without them, given that I painted a sunny scene, but I didn't want to make a mess of it by guessing. I'll take a photo of the scene before I start next time.

It wasn't too long before the absence of the sun got to me and I got a bit cold. I hadn't brought anything warm with me to wear. The cloud was making everything look darker and I felt that, since I was a bit of a walk away from home, I should go before it got too late. I finished up the painting when I got in, while it was still fresh in my mind. 

The bench - and the scene in general - is such a huge improvement on the last plein air I tried that I'm delighted with it even though I know there's loads of mistakes. The sky was a total accident and shouldn't be there. I'm still not really used to the strength of professional quality pigments, so my light wash in the top corner was much darker and it wouldn't blend out, so I had to paint sky everywhere in an attempt to get it to blend in. Because I was only planning on doing quick sketches of the plants, I didn't use watercolour paper and my sketchbook paper warped a bit. It's only 170gsm: I usually paint on 300gsm paper. But that's not the end of the world. It was much easier to paint on this paper with professional quality paints than it was to try it with Cotman paints. I think that may account for some of the difference in quality between this painting and the last plein air I did as I wasn't struggling to get vibrant colours with tonnes of layering. Although as I mentioned already, that was a blessing and a curse.

It was nice to be able to get out and play with my paints again - hopefully it won't be years before I can do it again!