Bridge over the River Exe, Topsham

Hello! It's been a while since my last painting -- I haven't really practised rocks, bushes and trees as I had hoped so I haven't painting the rocks at Woolacombe as I planned. I fancied painting a bridge scene taken from a number of new Topsham pictures copied from my Dad's camera.

This painting is quite a bit smaller than my last few, measuring only 10 inches x 7 inches. It is a smooth watercolour paper (Hot pressed). I started out just aiming to do a few sketches of the Topsham scenes and after completing the sketch of the bridge scene, instead of copying to the larger 14" x 10" medium-rough paper I normally use, I decided to paint it there and then.

The smooth, smaller sized paper and using a No. 6 round brush for nearly all the painting had an effect on the style, being more wet on dry strokes leaving edges to the paint rather than the softer feel of wet in wet. I feel really comfortable with this style and enjoy the semi-precision of the houses and bridge achieved with this brush. The top of the sky was painted using a 3/4" flat brush and, as I mentioned, the rest of the painting was using the No. 6 round.

Again I've stopped short with the painting and photographed and blogged it before attempting the trees! I like to think of it as a simple version thats just about worth displaying on this blog...! I will put in the trees, bushes and twigs soon, and post a photo of this in my next update.

Here's the reference photo of the rather nice stone bridge over the River Exe, somewhere near Topsham.

Here's the painting so far with the foreground still to come.

And here's a photo showing a CD to give you the scale and size of the paper.

Thanks for reading and see you soon for my next post.
Ian.