Painting in Lynmouth

We were blessed with perfect weather for our painting trip based in the picturesque harbour of Lynmouth in North Devon. We stayed at Rock House Hotel which has magical views over the harbour and town, I could hardly wait to get my paints out when I saw the sun streaming into the room on our first morning. After a quick rekky I decided it just HAD to be the boats in the harbour with the tide out, great sparkling light and dramatic contrasts, my first washes flood on, after which I was itching to get going again. I suppose this is the down side of watercolour if you use this technique, the drying time, but whilst it's drying I tend to think about the next stages and plan my next colour mixes.

Then I begin to add those sumptuous darks. Confidence is essential because if the colour is too light another layer just doesn't look right, so deep breath and off I go! This proved to be a great place to paint, the harbour wall serves as my table so I stand to paint and have a mini studio all around me - who says painting outdoors is hard?

Once the dark blocks of colour are established I can then add a few details and that's it! after the basic drawing, the actual painting stage doesn't take more than an hour. I don't always draw first, but it like to draw the shapes of the boats, a wonky boat never looks great. The drawing doesn't have any details on it, just the simple basic shapes.

After lunch the tide started to come in so I painted the little rowing boats and their reflections. I found this nice sheltered spot on the harbour steps where no one could see me unless they leaned over the wall. 

This was such a lovely day, sunshine, bobbing boats and the cry of the seagulls. Talking of which... This chap found me very interesting, a bit too interesting really, he was so curious he came nearer and nearer a step at a time. He was much bigger than you might imagine!

This was my finished little study of Boats and Ropes, not such a great photo, but you get the idea I'm sure.