Stair Hole Bay

Stair Hole, Dorset, Watercolour

This is near Lulworth Cove in Dorset, a bay that is well worth a visit, although it gets really busy.

While the foreground was painted wet-in-wet, the rock structures needed more definition and were painted with several glazes. I also used a bit of lifting out with a rag in the dark shadow for added texture.

Durlston Country Park

Durlston Country Park, watercolour 

The Dorset coast is still providing me with numerous subjects to explore. To describe the texture of the rocks, I am using splayed brushes I drag over the paper, and lifting out paint with a rag wrapped around my finger. This knocks back areas that are too defined and the fingerprints add further interest to the surface.

I took the photo for this painting on our coastal walk from Swanage to Durlston Castle. This site will tell you more about this beautiful area and Durlston Castle itself.

Sailing Boat, Dorset

Sailing Boat, watercolour

I merged two different references for this painting, as I wanted to include a beautiful old sailing boat as a point of interest in this seascape. My husband remarked that it looked too near the beach, so might run aground any minute! Of course I could claim that the seabed drops very sharply on this particular stretch of the beach...

The water had a wonderful turquoise hue, which I managed to capture to my satisfaction; the main blue for it was Manganese Blue by Winsor&Newton.

Dorset Coast, Evening Light

Dorset Coast 2, watercolour

This is a view towards Old Harry's Rock from Swanage bay. I tried to capture the wonderful blues in the skies and sea on a sunny evening in June.

As most of my recent work, this is painted on a Saunders Waterford Rough block (30cm x 40cm), a paper that takes the washes well and gives the colours brilliance.

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.