Dorset Coast 2

This painting is based on St Oswald's Bay near Lulworth Cove, Dorset. There is a steep path leading down to it, but I preferred to stay at the top of the cliff and admire it from a distance.

Apart from masking out for the waves near the beach, I achieved all the other effects just using the brush (lifting out, wet-in-wet and splitting the brush hairs for texture on the rocks). Watercolour lends itself to a simple approach.

Dorset Coastline

This is a view of Old Harry's Rocks in Dorset. The closest I got to it was Studland Beach, a beautiful sandy beach maintained by the National Trust. The whithe chalk cliffs of Old Harry's Rock are one of those iconic views of Britain.

Moored Boat

sailing boat watercolour

This is another boat I took a picture of during my trip to Blakeney. I tend to use my photos for reference only and hardly ever use them without changing the composition. For this one I cropped a lot of the photo and zoomed in on the boat.

Tulips

 My cousin, with whom I stayed last April,  always has fresh flowers in her house. I took a photo of these tulips with a view to painting them at a later time.

I also had noticed that the tulips were in very little water and thought I was being very helpful by topping up the water in the vase. It turns out, however, that tulips stay upright for longer when one keeps the water level to just covering the ends of the stems. A tip I will try out myself some time!

Water Tower, Bruderholz

Wasserturm, Bruderholz

This water tower is close to where I grew up but I had never taken pictures of it before, probably because it was just too familiar to be noticed.

I came to see it again early this April after some years and thought it made a good subject. I notice that it is fairly close in composition to my painting of the Norfolk Mill.

The tree to the left isn't there in reality, and I took away a tree in front of the tower, all to aid the composition.

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Der Wasserturm auf them Bruderholz ist ein Sujet, das ich zum ersten Mal male. Ich wuchs in seiner Nähe auf und sah ihn oft auf meinem Weg zum Klavierunterricht.

Nach langer Zeit verbrachte ich dieses Jahr einen sonnigen Nachmittag im frühen April auf der Batterie und interessierte mich ein bisschen mehr für die Geschichte dieses Orts. Als Kind dachte ich immer, der Name habe etwas mit Elektrizität zu tun! Wer mehr darüber erfahren will, findet hier gute Auskunft. 

Den Baum links gibt es so nicht, aber ich malte ihn, um die Komposition auszugleichen. Ein Bild hat ja seine eigene Realität und muss ohne seine Vorlage bestehen.

Yellow Iris from my Garden

Yellow Iris Watercolour

I don't have to go far to find inspiration for my painting, as the flowers gradually make a comeback in our garden. We have a group of irises that have been springing up for the last ten years but didn't make a show last year, when I thought I had lost them for good. I was therefore doubly pleased to see them again this spring and decided to have a go at their complicated form.

Apart from watercolour paint, I also used watercolour pencil to draw in the yellow veins.

Marktplatz, Basel

Basel used to be my home town, and after a break of two years, it was great to go back for a visit. Basel has a wonderful old town with the Marktplatz at its centre. What drew me to paint this scene were the late afternoon shadows splitting the houses diagonally.

It's always a challenge to simplify a busy scene and I decided not to include bicycles and street furniture, which I felt would detract from the main idea of the painting.