The Sandstone Kagoule

But today I was a man on a mission.  I saw a Facebook post by Fiona Matheson the other day with a video of some miserable weather, presumably up Inverness way.  Anyway, the picture to click on to see the video looked interesting.  If I screw up my eyes, the woman in the kagoule (is it Fiona?  Not sure) looks like a couple of sandstone rocks stacked up.  Along with the weather and the grim state of the sky and sea, this was just screaming to be painted:

It was an es decision to paint this in the key of green warm.  I wanted a cool blue and warm red so that they would mix to a neutral colour without the slightest hint of violet and needed a cool yellow so that I didn’t get garish oranges when mixing reds with yellows.  For the blue I ides Mayan blue genuine for its bitty granulation.  For yellows I used both raw sienna and transparent yellow.  For reds I used Winsor red, rose dore and burnt umber.  Cadmium red, sepia, titanium white and white gouache all made appearances too.

The sky is mainly Mayan blue and Winsor red with a bit of raw sienna added later.  I started with a wash of the blue and red, turned the painting upside down and sprayed water on it to get it running (a Nita Engle idea).  I tipped it around a bit and dabbed it with kitchen paper to avoid puddles.  As it was drying I added in clouds with the blue, both reds and a little raw sienna.  Everything granulated really well.

For the sea, I stared off with a walk of the blue with a little burnt umber.  Following another Nita Engle idea, I squirted some water upwards near the bottom of the painting to create the cresting wave.  Underneath/ the wave I added some of the blue with burnt umber for ricks and was amazed to see them coming out greenish.  I continued to tinker with the sea, adding more layers of blue at the top, more blue and burnt umber on the rocks and some white gouache to get a bit more solidity to the foam on the wave.

And then there were the rocks.  I really should have experimented with colours on a separate piece of paper to find something that worked, but instead just kept adding layer after layer and dabbing paint off, searching for the right colours.  I used the blue, both yellows, both reds and the burnt umber.  At times I put in little spots of sepia or cadmium red and I tried to give the rocks some texture using the titanium white trick.  Eventually, though, I had to give up because the paper was feeling too saturated and reluctant to dry.  I’m starting to wonder whether my paper is a bit wet before I’ve even started painting and might explore different storage possibilities.  Anyway, that was me done.

Anyway, I think this one’s good enough to go in the shop window.  The sky and the sea both portray the weather accurately and I think I’ve just about succeeded in leaving it unclear about whether that’s Someone on a kagoule or a pile of rocks.