I started this on a Friends of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) plein air day. 

Standing under Richmond Bridge – its cool there!

There were over 20 great plein air artists on that day and although it was inspiring and lovely to work next to them I felt a pressure to ‘perform’ and produce a decent painting. It took me till lunch to settle and during the morning I had started 3 paintings which were all scraped! Then I started this little boat and I was away!

8×10″ study completed en plein air

I actually completed this little study on the day and Ioved it so much I wanted to do a bigger version and slightly different angle…. so I started another one 🙂

I mapped it in a underpainting of Burnt Sienna on site but then the group went to the pub and so it was abandoned till the studio…


Having just painted it once to do it again helped as I was familiar with the shape and colours. I made the boat large in scale to feature it and give a strong composition.