Went to Sandwich today, the new road is open out of Ramsgate
which is interesting, I wondered what the tunnel is for.
Sketched the boats by the river, I seem to be particularly
bad at sketching boats, perhaps it was the rather critical looking duck.
Couldn’t quite face supermarket shopping so stopped at the
boating pool for a cuppa, very quick sketch.
Westbrook again this evening as the children wanted to go in
the sea again, had a bit of a go at a watercolour not really sure if it was good
or bad.
All in all not a bad day.
I tried to sort the pictures here out but the computer
doesn’t seem to want to play ball, so apologies.
I haven decided I like this watercolour of Westbrook and set
it as background on my laptop for a bit. For those of you who don’t paint with
watercolour there are several different ways of using it, one I often use, used
in the picture at the top of the previous post, is to add colour to a sketch.
There are lesser and greater ways of doing this with a pencil sketch as once
the paint is dry it is possible to rub our some or all of the pencil, depending
on the type of pencil and how thick the pencil lines were. Another way of
using, the one I used in the picture above, is to get the paper fairly wet and
mix up some likely colours, then you spread them about on the wet paper trying
to control the amount the colours run into each other as the paper dries. You can
also lift paint off again using a dry brush, it’s a bit like trying to control
an inkblot and what you get in the end is only partially the result of what you
intended to do. For me there is something distinct about this sort of picture,
done outside from what the painter can see at the time that just doesn’t seem
to happen with a more controllable medium, indoors working from sketches or a
photograph.
Strange Peter, I know at some time around 1990 the level of the sand was also higher than it is now, pretty much up to the promenade, I think this is just a case of the sand shifts.
ReplyDeleteI know back in the late 60s when Ramsgate Main Sands were at their largest there was some talk that the Goodwin Sands were shifting this way and The Isle of Thanet would become landlocked in a sea of sand.
Interesting with Ramsgate the accumulation of sand that protected the promenade area in the great storm of 1953 was removed for construing Port Ramsgate, with rising sea levels we my come to regret this action.