The sun had deserted us now and although I had hoped to do some colour work at Abereiddy's Blue Lagoon in the morning the colours proved to be elusive, thankfully I have photos from last year. I sketched the ruins above the quarry lagoon and did a colour pencil study of the rocks at the mouth, and attempted to capture the shapes and colours of the rear rock face in oil pastel.
Returning to the car for elevenses (which should have been lunch) I did two quite different styled line drawings of the different cottages around the cove. I remembered taking a photo of the fields above the second study last year, showing the colour and contours in the lines of hay.
We moved on to Porthgain, a gem of a place crammed with history, geology, a really good art gallery and the most iconic harbour, all of which inspired the most work out of me last year, but having got stuck on a painting I needed to do some further drawings to work out how to progress. I made several studies from different viewpoints before we decided to lunch at the pub, a Tardis filled with historic photographs.
Two views of the harbour from the top of the cliff, and the basis of my "stuck" painting
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| My "stuck" painting- it will have a boat in the large empty expanse of harbour but I can't decide whether it should be more realistic or abstract in form... |
Finally a lower viewpoint from halfway down the steps, I liked the contra forms of the two piers from this angle, with the slipway just visible in the background, and jammed up the narrow footpath while I drew.
After lunch we walked out to the day marker and my eye was caught by the tumbling adjacent cliffs with their angular slate shapes.
On the way back I looked over to the ruins of the stone works on the harbour, so I drew them as the definition was lost in previous photos due to the angle of the sun- a happy event which led me to develop an idea in oil pastels which may eventually surface in oils. The shapes of the buildings remind me of the ruined masadas I have seen on the fringes of the Sahara and Arabia.
and the studio version...
Our third destination was Trefin, another surprise discovery last year, with rippled rock formations and a seal and cormorant having a full-on barney in the bay, and we had timed this visit for low tide to explore the beach further.
I made a study of the rocks before going off to potter over the exposed rock platform, at which point the camera took over as I discovered lots of abstract ideas on the shoreline. In the evening I drew the hostel from a different angle, using a letterbox format across two pages, and later discovered two artists among the guests, the mother (Sheila Bradburn) having been both a book illustrator and fashion illustrator, and her daughter an established artist now studying for her degree part-time. We compared sketchbooks and styles and the conversation went on late into the night.
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