I love giving paintings as gifts. I’m constantly asking my husband for ideas for paintings for his birthday and Christmas. After asking this question a few times I started writing a list of his ideas down so that in the future I could surprise him with a painting from his list. This year I decided to work from that list. He had mentioned the idea of a painting of Irish cliff, he preferred the painting not be of the Cliffs of Dover, but any other Irish cliff would work.
After looking at multiple images of the Doolin and Moher cliffs in County Clare I decided to create my own image, incorporating parts of each of the other famous cliffs. I used red rock cliffs in the background and grassy, rocky areas in the foreground of the painting.
To capture as much texture in the rocky cliffs as possible, I applied raw sienna, burnt umber and venetian red paints in an impressionistic manner. I used this method to suggest dark and light spots in the cliffs. I used a similar style in the grass to layout the dark and light spots and used a much smaller brush to add a few distinct strokes that looked like individual blades of grass. To make the light blue-sky standout, I used a darker ocean. I layered areas of lighter blues and white against the rocks in the ocean to make it look like waves crashing again the rocks.
I have been holding on to the perfect frame for a painting that had a large green area. The frame is an older looking antique gold. This makes the green standout but helps make the sienna cliffs blend into the gold parts of the frame at the same time. I often I find a unique frame and hold on to it, waiting for the perfect painting to complete it.