The Fortress

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. The castle in France where we held the Watercolor Sketchbook Workshop is such a magnificent fortress with so many interesting views and this is another demonstration painting that I did from one of the walkways. This tower overlooks the town and the three figures give an idea of the grand scale. The ocean surf splashes against the wall and sometimes overwhelms unsuspecting visitors and while I was painting I did see several people get soaked.

The sky is a simple wash of cerulean blue leading down to the hillside of olive green and French ultramarine blue. For the houses on the hillside I left unpainted white paper, gray for the shadows and a mixture of cadmium red and yellow ochre for the roofs. Simplifying is important when plein air painting and I only included a few of the houses on the hillside. The tower was painted with yellow ochre and burnt sienna and the same colors were used for the pattern of the stones. There were different subtle colors for the trim on the tower and around the windows and I settled on a burnt orange because I liked the way it showed off the colors of the tower.

The tree added a nice organic touch as it leaned in towards the stone tower and I painted the trunk with cerulean blue and brilliant orange mixed to make gray. The leaves are a mixture of olive green and cerulean blue. For the darker wall that drops down to the surf I mixed burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue and for the flowers along the right border I used cobalt violet. I decided to paint the three figures in silhouette to keep them simple and, after painting the water with perylene green, I added a few strokes of opaque white to indicate the surf.

Everyday was another exciting adventure with new paintings and a friendly critique and I will always remember the fellowship that developed among the artists who painted together at this historic French Castle. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton