This is a little oil sketch that I managed last month while perched on a cliff in Wales.
It was so windy up on the cliff that my easel blew over several times! Who knew that painting could be like target practice! Quick, get that colour onto the canvas before it flies away again! My eyes were watering from the onslaught of the stiff sea breeze. At least the sun was out - mostly.
This was the view below me. Even though the temperature was only about 13C, people were wading in the water. After all, the waves were too beautiful to resist. I wished that I could have joined them. Unfortunately, one of the challenges of being a lone painter is that there is no one to watch your stuff while you take a dip.
I like to travel this way, staying in one spot for at least three days, preferably more, so I can really immerse myself in the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of the landscape. I like that there's always a bit of local sand or grass mixed into my painting.
In this sketch, I did miss out on capturing the pale winter light that illuminated the cliffside from time to time. But I think that the perspective is pretty good, as well as the sense of movement in the waves. The challenge now is to turn this sketch into a larger finished painting. We'll see...
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