Quai de Bernonville, Saint-Martin-de-Ré, France and Cr Félix Faure, La Flotte

On day 3 of our trip, I took my Patreon club painters to the beautiful island called Ile de Ré. The sun was very strong, which gave us bright light and very deep, dark shadows to paint.

The first painting is named Quai de Bernonville, Saint-Martin-de-Ré.

An interesting fact about this harbour is that the old stone walls are actually part of a massive star-shaped fortress built long ago to protect the island. To capture the water, I mixed viridian green and cobalt green to get that special Atlantic sea colour. I used cobalt blue for the sky, and light red with cadmium yellow for the warm rooftops. A few small marks of white paint helped make the boat stand out against the dark water reflections.

The second painting from our afternoon is named Cr Félix Faure, La Flotte.

This location is famous for its long avenue of green trees next to the harbour, which always has colorful market stalls and bright flags flying. For this scene, I wanted to focus entirely on the cool, dancing shadows on the ground. I painted the thick green leaves using spring green and a touch of cadmium yellow where the sun hits them. Then, I used lavender and neutral tint to paint the dark shadows underneath the trees.