The Desert Collection in the Algarve

 Sandstone Cliffs Praia de Falesia, Algarve   1 and 2
     watercolours by Tessa Spanton (c)

Winsor and Newton Desert Collection limited edition professional watercolours.
Transparent  Phthalo sapphire,  Indian red deep, transparent orange,
Opaque  yellow titanate, gold brown with mixes shown above,
and dark brown ( shown below right)

I bought these paints to take to the Algarve with me as I thought they looked ideal for the reds and ochres of the sandstone cliffs.
Phthalo sapphire is a beautiful blue that is complementary to the transparent orange. They really sizzle next to each other. The transparent orange is an intense colour bordering on red,
I don't usually buy tubes of brown as I prefer to mix my own and the gold brown looks similar to gold ochre but I decided to buy them all. I wanted to explore the colour interactions when set next to one another and to see what mixes I could make from them.

I also made greens from this group. I used these for the pines growing on the cliffs. The greens produced are fairly muted.

above  View from Porto Bay Falesia watercolour Tessa Spanton (c) painted en plein air.

I have tested how the colours react with each other on wet watercolour paper,
 and made some comparisons with other colours I have, i will put these and my conclusions in another post.

The Market in Funchal Madeira

Mercado dos Lavradores in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

I did the under painting using FW inks on wet 200lb Bockingford paper. These are intense colours and I used then straight from the bottle. It comes with a handy dropper attached to the lid.

Onto this I collaged some paper torn from a magazine. I wanted some text in Portuguese and found some in a magazine I had brought back from Madeira. Even better there was an article about the market written in both Portuguese and English. I used pieces of this for the floor.

I worked on top of these using Atelier Interactive acrylics with plenty of flow medium. These are slower drying than acrylic paints usually are so I had plenty of time to blend colours. I spent several days on these paintings adjusting colours and tones, a luxury I don't usually have when painting on silk. I worked on them as a pair.
I mounted them like watercolours and framed them in light ash frames.
Here they are labelled and ready to be submitted to the Society of Women Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries complete with paperwork.
Today 2 weeks later the letter arrived with the form with the result. As I opened it I am wondering 'would there be an A or a R written next to the titles?'  Good news this time, both have been accepted.