How Edward Seago Made Sense of My Northumberland Seaside Holiday.

I've been searching for a way to document my holiday in Northumberland with the family. I've taken all the photos, done a few quick sketches but I want to paint some pictures that give me the real story of the wide open beaches and majestic hills.

From Lindisfarne
( Bamburgh Castle is somewhere on the horizon)

The optimistic colours of previous holidays are too bright and eternally summery. This was not a summery summer holiday. Oh no.

What I needed was a palette of colours to reflect the diabolical weather that we had, with unremitting wind and quite a bit of rain. 

And this was August!

I don't want you to think we had an equally awful holiday, because we didn't. We had great fun. And as they say there's no such thing as bad weather just
inappropriate clothing.

A couple of months elapsed before I started painting  because I wanted the ideas to settle.

I made a few tentative tries but nothing made much sense til I looked at the works of Edward Seago.
( Do view this link, loads of paintings here from the National Picture Collection. I don't know if I can reproduce any works here because of copyright)

Druridge Bay
sky and clouds
made for Seago.

You always think of him in connection with his East Anglian paintings of big skies on days that were not so perfect. The colours never seemed quite right to me, too muted, too waiting for the next rainstorm, but when it came to Northumberland they were just right and it all made sense.

Have a look at the limited palette that I chose:
Titanium white,
Cadmium yellow,
Naples yellow
Burnt sienna,
Burnt umber ( I don't really like this colour, I might try raw umber instead)
Alizarin crimson
Ultramarine.
All on a ground of Germolene pink.

I painted my first one a few days ago.

Just a cloud over the sea shore.

Mary Kemp.
Cloud Over the Seashore. Northumberland.

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