Pittenweem Harbour, Scotland

We spent two days painting in Pittenweem, which is an active fishing village in the Kingdom of Fife, near the famous golf and university town of St. Andrews. I painted the above scene on our first day there. The weather was intermittently sunny and not too windy this day, so I took a stab at it with casein -so much to learn about how to make this wonderfully opaque medium work! I got the painting about 3/4 the way done, but will have to complete it at home when I get back.

This was a view from our second day in Pittenweem, which was really sunny but extremely windy and cool. this was the view for Steve's wonderful demo in watercolour. It was amazing to see how he simplified the scene and made a lovely loose painting out of it. I had 4 layers on to keep warm, and I turned around and saw a young teenage boy walking past me in shorts and sneakers and nothing else. They harden them up young around here! By this time in the workshop, I was tired of trying to paint boats, so I set up at the end of the harbour and painted some of the houses by the seawall in acrylic. The humidity allowed the paint to stay wet for a short time despite the wind, but controlling the amount of water on the paper was a mystery. Again only got about half done -I have a LOT of paintings to complete when I get home.

Watermedia done well relies upon multiple layers of glazes, and the process takes all day. At the beginning of the workshop Steve showed us a half sheet watercolour painting that he had spent from 9am to 5pm working on before we got there, and it wasn't finished yet. I commented that I didn't know how he could possibly work on one painting all day plein air -now I know how!! I kept wishing I had brought my oils so that I could have knocked off several paintings each day. The views were amazing, with so many paintings possible in each spot. I think I am sold on oils for plein air from now on...

Enjoy!