December Morning, Enniscorthy

A few brave souls, including me, braved the elements to go painting plein air yesterday. I was immediately drawn to this backlit scene and only walked about 100 yards from my car. The striking building in silhouette is St Senan's Hospital. I figured I could paint this one quickly, despite having a larger canvas than I normally use for plein air work. It was close to freezing when I started so I hadn't planned on standing there for too long. I was actually already fairly pleased with the painting at block-in stage below:-

After about another hour or so (approx and hour and twenty minutes in total), I decided the painting was finished:-

Walking the Dog - Finished

I just finished the painting a couple of minutes ago having spent another hour or two on the foreground and the water, and making some final adjustments. Here's the final version:-

Walking the Dog, Carnivan Beach
(22" x 16" Oil on Canvas)

Walking the Dog - Update 2

I worked some more on the background this morning. In particular, I felt that the rising mist from the ocean should be warmer (less blue) especially on the right-hand side closest to the sun. I spent quite a while (an hour or so) trying to get this right. Here's the painting after the adjustments:-

Walking the Dog - Update 1

I worked a little on the background this morning just to define the cliffs a little more and to portray the illusion of rising mist from the breaking waves. This is where I got to after about an half hour:-

Then I started to work on the middleground rocks and realised that the nearest one was blocking the walker and viewer from going much further so I decided to push the tide out a little. This is the painting after about another hour or so. I may leave it for another day or so now to dry a little  - should finish it next time.

Walking the Dog, Carnivan Beach

I took loads of photos in the Hook Head area on a stormy, but sunny day a couple of weeks back. I noticed this guy walking his dog on Carnivan Beach and figured it mught have potential for a painting. Having considered the photo for a while I figured a long format would work best (22" x 16").

Here is the photo:-

And here is my initial block-in:-

Then I added the barest suggestion of cliffs in the background and repositioned the dog slightly. I like the simplicity of the composition as it is and will not add an awful lot more to it other than refinement:-

Storm Breaker - Finished

I finished the painting yesterday. Just added a little more warm and cool pinks to the foam burst area in the right front quadrant and then worked on the left foreground, taking care to avoid any hard edges in this area. I also did a few other touch-ups on the main breaking wave.

I'm pleased with the fact that it looks like a North Atlantic storm wave, mainly because of the muted blue-green colours in the background.

Storm Breaker, Hook Head 
(16" x 20" Oil on Canvas)