Since I enjoyed painting Uluru so much the week before and there was another blank canvas sitting in my room collecting dust, I thought I’d paint a turtle.

After I did a rough drawing I decided the turtle just wasn’t going to paint well, so I rubbed it out and drew Scarborough Lighthouse. Since this was about 10pm that’s all I could manage before retiring to bed.

The next morning I was keen to get started and painted an undercoat in burnt umber so I could get the right tonal range.

I think this was completed in about an hour, then we went to pick my aunty up from the airport, so this was another short day.

I used masking tape so I could get some nice strait edges of the pier, lighthouse and also the waterline.

I started painting the sky and was having lots of fun as the night before I’d been watching Bob Ross, recommended by my uncle Geoff. It was good to use his technique of circles and upward smiles.

Over night I let the paint dry and then removed the masking tape, the result was nice straight edges on the lighthouse and waterline.

I was having a little bit of a struggle with the little waves lapping onto the sand. I guess I’ve only attempted painting water a few times in oil so I’m still learning but overall I think it turned out ok.

This was only half a day so I only managed to paint the lighthouse and a little of the pier base colours.

I put in a full days painting today and got a lot of the pier completed and the lighthouse building, and most of the bridge and harbour pillars.

I added people, fences and other furniture and lots of boat masts in the harbour. I’m still struggling getting a thin white colour that’s not too transparent.

I guess I’ll do some experiments with paint thinning medium next to see what combination works best.

I also read a year later that if you place two small bits of masking tape together you can paint nice thin masts on sail boats, pity I didn’t know this information back then.

Finished artwork, this is pretty close to the original photograph apart from I didn’t add the 6 or so seagulls as they have crapped on me and stolen my chips too many times over my life time so I don’t like them.

Detail of lighthouse and people enjoying a little bit of afternoon sunshine. My favourite part of this painting is the lady waving in the window and the sculpture of the diver.

Overall this was a very nice painting to work on, and was rather quick to complete.

Scarborough lighthouse together with Kata Tjuta, vastly different paintings from opposite side of the world.

I hold Scarborough lighthouse dear to my heart, so I don’t think that I would ever sell this one as I like it too much. I am however thinking of making prints of it at some stage and greeting cards in the next few months.