South Beach, Aberystwyth

And here is today's output with my new Watercolour Field Box!

It's on a Langton Prestige 'Fine Grain' COLD watercolour paper Block.  Using my new travelling Filbert brush that I mentioned in a previous post, and the small travelling brush that comes with the Winsor & Newton Field Box.

Photograph: South Beach, Aberystwyth

(Painted outdoors at the location) 

ArtRba

I used Winsor Blue Green Shade for the sky and the sea, and mixed that with Winsor Yellow for the hills to the left and distance.  Yellow Ochre was used for the harbour wall.  Aliz Crimson mixed with Winsor Blue G/S for the foreground pebbles, with a deeper mix for the ones closer to the shoreline.  The same mix was used as shadow on the harbour wall, the small self contained lighthouse at the end of the wall, the sailing boat and the breaking waves.  Burnt Sienna provided some of the driftwood detail on the pebbles, and some contrast in pebble colour.

This one took about two hours to paint.  A lovely two hours sat in the chair that Mrs B recently bought me and wearing my floppy sun hat that one of my daughters bought me for using when out and about painting.

Interestingly, I kept my sunglasses on and didn't wear my reading glasses for painting.

Midas Touch

My new watercolour paint brush! A lovely 'Midas Touch' pocket brush that is ideal for holidays and when out and about painting.  Better still, this gorgeous example is a 'Filbert' which is my paintbrush shape of choice for watercolours.  

The front half of the brush sits inside the main handle.  Which of course in turn protects the brush hairs.  The outer shell appears sturdy and looks as if it will take a fair bashing during transport and use.  The 'Cotman' Winsor & Newton small student standard watercolour paint set usually contains a very small brush with this half inside half set up.  I was going to snaffle the brush from my unused Cotman set (bought during last years holiday) to go with this Filbert, but the lovely people in the Art Shop (Pier Street, Aberystwyth) gifted me a small compact brush like a Rigger, when I was buying the Filbert and a few other things.  So, now I have two brushes that don't take up much space.  

This could mean using watercolours as well as Inktense Pencils on the next holiday, or when I'm out and about on a fine day.  With the right Artist quality watercolour set, this is a lightweight, easy to carry, and relatively simple to use set up.  Whereas the watercolour stuff that I currently have is more suited to Studio work.  Which is great 95% of the time, but when you do get outside, we need it to be simples. Winsor & Newton even do a field painting kit with an integral water bottle and water container. I mean, how cool is that?

The Midas Touch wasn't overly expensive; but it is new old stock and it may be difficult to track any down.