A Day of Glazing

Tynemouth (work in Progress)

I've been staring at this painting for a week or two, worrying over the jarring effects of red, green and blue in one picture. Today, I took it back to the Club and repainted the sea, using Payne's grey and white with a little cadmium violet. Not only did that provide a more harmonious triad of red, green and blue violet, but it made the sea look a bit more like the North Sea.

I also glazed over the bushes in the foreground with a little sap green, to give them a bit more substance and tone down the brighter greens . In the meantime, a man in a blue shirt wandered down Front Street and got himself in the picture. I might leave him there; I might give him a friend or two; or I might paint him back into the brick wall.

Although I've been somewhat committed to direct painting of late, I felt that glazing might be beneficial here so, in addition to the green glazes on the bushes, I wiped a glaze of titanium white and cadmium violet mixed with Liquin onto the far shore. (I'd have preferred to use the more transparent zinc white for such a glaze, but I don't keep it at the Club.) This effectively pushed the shore back into aerial perspective and I'm happier with it now, although there's a bit more work left to do there. There are, for example, a few streets of houses to be sat along that dark line I've provided for them.



St James's Park (work in progress)

As I had some of that milky violet glaze still on the palette, I used it on the cloudy sky in this picture, too. The sky now sits further back and the skyline is better defined. I spent a few hours tickling away at the town, putting in lines, altering others, changing little patches of colour, picking out spots of light-struck building.

Next week: the superstructure of the football ground and some windows in the prominent orangey-yellow building. And then maybe it'll be finished.