High Tide – Restronguet Creek

This was a commission for a client with a cottage at the end of Restronguet Creek – their view.

I was presented with a few photos for ideas from an early phone camera and this one just stood out. The problem was it was only 22kb – ridiculously tiny and nowhere near big enough to work from.

After much planning and many trips over to take my own reference without success, we finally had the perfect morning, with a high tide, a light mist, flat calm with the right palette to match the original photo.

This original photo had a white boat in the middle, but it was plastic and dirty and did the scene no justice. I had to replace it with something easier on the eye – so obviously I chose a working boat.

It just so happened, one of my best mates owned a white working boat – the Winnie, which was moored off Flushing Quay at the time. I drove over and took some snaps when she swung into the correct position around her mooring to match the light from the reference I’d taken earlier. Problem solved.

People have commented there’s not much work in this . . . I beg to disagree. When you consider the painting is four feet wide, there’s a lot of detail in the background strip of Feock. Also – getting two gradations perfectly smooth, with no lines whatsoever on a sky and sea this size was quite a challenge – many, many coats . . .

The result is one of the paintings I’m most proud of and one of my best selling prints . . .

A limited edition Giclée print from an original oil painting.