Working Small...

Regular readers will know that I enjoy working on slightly larger paper sizes. Sometimes, though, it's fun to go smaller, and this painting is truly tiny, at just a little over 9 x 5" (24 x 14 cm) or so. It shows the Poll Domhain Bay in Wester Ross but is at least a little bit a work of the imagination because when I saw it the tide was out and it was actually a large area of mud and rocks! I thought it would be fun to bring the tide in in my imagination! I like painting small occasionally because it is a good exercise in brushwork. This entire painting was painted with my size 12 kolinsky sable round brush, which I normally use for larger work. Thank goodness for its excellent pointing ability! Using a large brush for a small painting produces a fresh, loose and 'sketchy' feel to the painting, which I find liberating after more complex pieces. There are also only 3 paint colours in this composition, with a tiny splash of a fourth, transparent yellow, to give foreground brightness where the sun is shining. Using a limited palette is a useful way of maintaining harmony in the work: you can see this in the rocks, which are mainly painted with light red, the same colour I have used to grey the ultramarine for the clouds and which I have used to suggest heather throughout the composition. My next work will be a return to larger work - but I've enjoyed the break!

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