Back home and back to scanning…. This is one of my favourite sketches from the 2 weeks.

Flynn’s Beach Port Macquarie in the storm

It represents the halfway point and a turn in the weather (from the perfect first week to the interesting second week) but also the turning point in my beach sketches….

A few (few? I think I got carried away) initial thoughts while it is fresh in my mind….

I can’t put into words how special my time at Port Macquarie was and how exciting my artistic journey in my sketchbook was.

I will be posting all of my beach sketches (with the exception of one on the first afternoon which was a total mess) so you can see the development of techniques – I was certainly feeling my way in the first week. I started this vacation not really having any idea how to draw/paint the ocean…. And now I am addicted to painting waves! Also, I think I mentioned this before but the fact that we have a huge storm and the ocean changed dramatically for perfect calm conditions to white and brown and wild really helped me to preserve my whites – I had done some nightly research of other peoples work but these didn’t relate to the ocean I was experiencing…so I had to observe and think and explore for myself (the best way!) This particular sketch is the one that painted the water in between the waves (quite different from scribbling a few random lines with a china-marker and painting blue over the top)

You all know how much I love sketching cups of tea… and Tea and Treasures is the most special tearoom. I visited it everyday that I was there that it was open. Although these tea sketches are very different from stuff I was doing last year are therefore are a fairly significant development in my work, they are secondary to the beach sketches….so stay tuned for these as I haven’t posted as many of these ‘en route’.

I also decided beforehand not to journal and to have no homework (either during the evening or when I got home) I did have quite a number of catch-ups with friends and with the exception of the one that occurred at Tea and Treasures I didn’t sketch anything to record these events – wow!!! This is a big omission for Liz the recorder!! These rules made a HUGE impact on my ability to slow down and relax (the goal of the 2 week vacation)

I intended to focus on drawing people at the beach but I only visited the beach between 8-9.30am and 5.00-6.30pm and well, there wasn’t very many/ any people there at those times (mostly people dumping their stuff and going straight into the waves and then leaving afterwards). So I abandoned this ‘should’ and just allowed myself to paint rocks and waves, and rocks and waves… and of course the occasional tea cup!

I also changed my palette in the second week – from the limited palette of the last 6 months to an expanded on (like I used to use, but full pans from most colours) I added a few new colours as well. I really enjoyed having some old favourites back and I think new pigments will be good!

I feel like I have come home a painter!

Ok…more to come soon – sketches and thoughts and news! Actually I have a lot bursting out of my head!!!