Day off in Deal Kent a few pictures and some thoughts on painting.

My day off yesterday, which was mostly spent buying books to top up areas in my bookshop, as I was lumbered down with bags of books most of the time the photos are a bit mixed quality wise, here is the link to what was on the camera card http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop212/id8.htm

We had lunch at The Coffee Shop, 1 High Street, very good value and worth knowing about if you are doing Deal on a limited budget.

My wife’s beef baguette and hot chocolate, my pasta, can’t remember what it is called out of the two pasta options they have it’s the one with meat in and my pot of tea, came to about a tenner all in.

The painting, watercolor in public is coming on a bit, as I have said before this is as much matter of nerve than ability and as the various people I know who paint and draw have discussed this one with me, I am going to ramble on about it with some pictures from my sketchbook and pictures of equipment.

I guess some people wonder why when there is so much amateur art about, paintings for sale almost everywhere you go now and normally mostly of the place you go to, you don’t actually see anyone actually paint them.

For me this is linked to the question, why not just take a photo and not bother with the painting, drawing, sketching business? As far as I can work out the majority of modern pictures of places that you see around have been painted by copying from photographs.


Take the photo above of the Deal Fishmonger, it should get larger if you click on it, I would think anyone could turn it into a painting of some sort, you could trace it and colour it in.
You could make a lose sketch of it like this, this one is India ink so I won’t smudge if you paint on it. I just moved it up under the photo, makes it easier to compare. 


Right at the other end of the scale is what happens if you paint straight with a brush sitting in the street.

The chaps with the motorbike had to move it out of the way so the red car could get out and then the dark coloured car parked there all in the 10 mins the picture took while drinking a cup of tea. 


Of course it isn’t a good picture, it was just intended to be a notation of aspects of the scene, in the same way the photo isn’t a good photo, I didn’t get time to do a pencil sketch which would have combined with the watercolour sketch into something I just may have produced a better watercolour with. 


I had in the back of my mind the way I think Turner composed his watercolour of Ramsgate harbour, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2012/02/ramsgate-joseph-mallord-william-turner.html

 Well I splashed a bit of colour in the sketch, which may be an improvement.

I can’t emphasise the benefits of the Winsor and Newton field box that holds the paint and water enough, although I should also say that it is very important to remove any of the colours you don’t use and replace them with the ones you do. You also need to put strips of thin card beside the half pans (little plastic containers that hold the paint) to stop them rattling about.   


You really can wipe it over with the tiny sponge that comes with it, pour the water back into the container, put it back in your pocket without so much as a damp patch.

I will ramble on here and add some pictures if I get time.