Occasional thoughts and comments on watercolour painting and sketching. You can sign in to this page so your comments will have a username, or just comment as 'Guest'. Names do  help discussions though... :o)

Skies are such a big part of landscapes and obviously turn up in most plein air paintings. This post records the result of an afternoon just painting skies for the fun of it. They're all 16x12" on Bockingford 140lb paper and mostly using just two colours - French Ultramarine Blue and a touch of Light Red to produce the greys. With two of paintings I added a bit of a foreground just to see what impact it had on how the sky looked, these appear immediately after the bare sky v

Painting demonstrations sometimes need different tactics so people can see -which brings some interesting puzzles!

I'm often asked how to paint more loosely - this is what I usually say .

While there's no shortage of subjects to paint, painting the same thing a few times can be fascinating.

Fill a sketchbook and discover your surroundings.

Painting a sailing Clipper from imagination on a Full Imperial sheet.

Stonehaven Art Club invited me to give a talk and demo on plein air watercolour and the puzzle was always going to be how to illustrate...

Plein air painting might be an acquired taste, but then it becomes an addiction.

Sometimes a plein air painting isn't quite what I wanted when I finish on site and I've no qualms about trying to improve it later. My...

Spent a chilly hour at Balnagask, Aberdeen sketching from the Car Park... Looking over Balnagask Golf Course to the 200m tall legs of the...

I painted this plein air in a stiff Southerly breeze. Donmouth is where the River Don meets the sea (you'd never have guessed?) on the...

I painted a view of Fittie, Aberdeen yesterday (half imperial, 22x15") and felt it needed something, so once I finished I thought I'd...

The Skandi Kvitsøy entering Aberdeen. I find Imperial sized watercolour challenging and revisit it now and again to remind myself why I...

...Rotor Wash. Idyllic afternoon, 5 miles from home, 2 miles from the road, at a footbridge crossing the slowest flowing river in...

or "The distractions of plein air painting". I was planning to paint a quiet picture of the old Capstan at Skate's Nose jetty on the...