A new watercolour

The sky and water painted with just two colours

It took me a long time to start painting again after several months occupied with other things.
But I felt I needed to get back to my boat in Greece to find my inspiration.
One morning it was there. The sky before the sunrise, the water reflecting the silhouetted headland and a tiny chapel hiding under the hill.

I started by painting the sky with just two colours: Paynes grey and yellow. I used a lot of water so the colour diluted on the paper

After the sky had dried I painted the headland 

with bold brushstrokes of Paynes Grey.

I painted the church by lifting pigment off the background with a tiny, stiff hakebrush.
I then added the brown colour to the tiled roof.
 The edges of the cliff were softened before adding a little green and brown.
 Finally I broke up the dark water by washing out light reflections with a fine brush and a white watercolour pencil.

Coming soon: My new book "Colours of the Sea"

Mock up of the book cover

This is my latest book which I have been working on for two years. It started off as a coffee table book with a presentation of my works painted during the last 20 years.  However it gradually evolved into an illustrated, educational textbook with anecdotes about my source of inspiration by the sea and descriptions of my techniques, tools and colours.

Last week I received these proof prints of 15 of the 235 photographs in the book. They were sent by the printers Bulls Graphics in Halmstad Sweden. I am very satisfied with the result so far as the colours are just about as near as you can get to the originals.
Needless to say, the work with the paintings, texts, photographs and layout has been enormous. During the last three months the layout program crashed, the hard drive crashed, my computer crashed and in the end I crashed myself,  in a daze of a horrible migraine for three days. But I hope all this effort was well worth doing.  Now I've reached the point of no return, the actual printing process has finally started and I can do nothing more than wait for the result. I will post more details when the book is released just before Easter.