On painting water-colour 'photos' when on holiday

We have this amazing family friend named Margaret. She is has an immense wealth of knowledge, we don't know how many different subjects she has university degrees in (at least four) and at the same time she is the most gentle and caring person you could imagine. Also, she is a fantastic crafts person. From building and rowing her own coracle to being probably the most prolific person in Britain on traditional local corn dollies and collecting traditions on holy wells, she has always taken special care to keep alive regional traditions and to emerse herself fully in every place she visits.

I have tried to find images of Margarets designs online, however I wasn't able to. You'll have to take my word for it and you never know, you might meet her at a county fair or similar.

That's enough gushing about Margaret. One of the many ideas I have adopted from her is the idea of trying to sit down and paint. Ideally with a scone...

However sometimes it's just a patch in the shade and out of the way.

During this summer I had a week where I set myself the challenge to try to do a painting a day. I ended up with 6 paintings where the time I spent was anything between an hour before dinner (the Court Lodge Ouest painting) and 15 minutes while the others were eating their picknick (Seven sisters seen from Seaford head... the others were so impatient that I wolfed down most of my picknick while walking because they had finished theirs while I was painting).

None of the paintings is finished, but I intentionall pushed myself to try and be bold. Looking at the photos now it feels as though I could have added more paint - they look much more nuanced in person (well, at least to me) but in the photos it lookas as though most colour detail was washed out.

I haven't done this in years, so considering my lack of routine I'm really quite happy with the results. I can also see some progression and noticed some development in how I approach my painting. And it made me look and notice things in much more detail. For example how absurdly tall the cliffs really are, or how sun standing behind a scene really generates a halo around everything and even if I did not convey the learning in the paintings, at least I learned it.