ARTIST BY THE SHORE
Immersing herself in Cornwall’s natural beauty, Amanda Hoskin sketches land and sea to produce paintings full of light and colour
John Harris, ‘Kynance Cove’
“I’m fond of travelling old deserted paths, Searched by the winds and soft with solitude Of matchless Nature in her robe of crags, Or fringed with flowers, or edged with velvet moss”
SITTING BY THE edge of a coastal path in Cornwall, artist Amanda Hoskin dips her brush into the palette of watercolours beside her. The cheerful sound of birdsong surrounds her on this fine spring afternoon while she works. Her painting depicts the rocky headland out in the distance and is one of several she has been working on during her walk today. Amanda lives in the heart of the Cornish fishing village of Fowey, and her view over the lovely estuary never ceases to inspire her. “I could paint the view over and over again, as it changes all the time,” she says. Her deep love for the Cornish landscape infuses all her work, and while the sea is her first love, and most of her atmospheric paintings are about the sea and the way the light falls on the water, Amanda is equally at home among the heathers and grasses of Bodmin Moor. “I see pictures everywhere,” she says.
Amanda is Cornish born and bred. She has always enjoyed painting and went to art school at Falmouth, but on leaving, she did not start painting full-time; instead, she did a variety of jobs, including working as a wildlife illustrator and a sailing instructor. It was after she started her family that she decided to take up painting again, wanting to do something creative that she could fit in with family life. Her love of sailing meant that she had always been aware of her surroundings, so landscape and seascape painting seemed an obvious choice. “When you are sailing, you become automatically aware of the landscape and the skies and seas, and the weather patterns, and it was something I was fascinated with,” she says. Amanda started experimenting with pastels and oils, and gradually evolved her own unique style. “No one really taught me, but by painting and trying different things, I have found my own way,” she explains. Now, 20 years on, Amanda is working pretty much full-time as an artist. “Even when I go on holiday, I paint. I love to paint; it’s what I do,” she says.
Rain or shine
Amanda’s paintings begin life as sketches made while she is out walking. “The landscape is the starting point for my pictures. I get my ideas from it, then I try to create that feeling when I am painting,” she says. “I love the Cornish
landscape, particularly as I have grown up here and feel very connected to it: it’s part of me and who I am. I have to be by the sea, within the landscape and walking. For me, painting and the landscape merge into one, as I love them both.”
On her sketching trips, Amanda will go out for a whole day, walking three or four miles and stopping a couple of times for a few hours to paint: she may come home with as many as 10 different pictures. Her favourite walks are around Fowey, particularly the walk from Bodinnick to Polruan. “It’s a lovely walk, as you get the ferry across the river, walk over the top and then look right back down the estuary,” she says. Amanda loves other peaceful south coast estuaries, such as Mylor and Falmouth, but she also enjoys the North Cornish coast, especially the area around Zennor, with its views over to St Ives and Godrevy lighthouse, as well as the wild open spaces of Bodmin Moor. But Amanda is not just a fair-weather walker: she will go on sketching trips all year round. “Winter; summer: the landscape changes totally, and you will find things to paint, whatever the weather; it might be lousy, but it will still look interesting.” In fact, she relishes the rain, as it can soften the landscape and cause interesting bleeding and blurring effects on watercolours, although damp conditions will mean that the sketches take longer to dry.
Capturing the moment
On her walks, Amanda is looking for ideas that she can use later. These might include particular rocks or headlands, or a group of plants, or a certain cloud formation. Her sketches are not intended to be accurate representations of a specific view, but rather a record of a moment: “It’s not a photo; you home in on certain bits, say a little cove or some rocks. You don’t have to do the whole thing unless you feel it will work as a painting; the landscape is just the starting point.”
When she has found a view that appeals to her, Amanda will stop and paint several versions of the same view. She uses small, loose pieces of paper as well as the pages of her sketchbooks, and will work on four or five pictures at the same time. “Watercolours dry quite fast, so I will start with one picture and do the sky, leave that and then go on to the next. By the time I get to the fifth one, the first will be dry, so I can go back and put in the foreground and maybe the sea or some rocks.” It is a technique that forces Amanda to work quickly, but she enjoys the challenges. “The beauty is that it stops you overworking, and it loosens you up and relaxes you; it means you don’t have to worry about making a perfect piece of art.”
Rather than drawing the scene before beginning to paint, Amanda prefers to use watercolour straight away, maybe just making a few rough brush marks to indicate the position of key features, such as the horizon or a headland. Once she has finished with the watercolours, she sometimes adds more colour using acrylic inks. “You can use these like a pen, and if the paper’s wet, you get a blurring and intense colour, which I really like,” she says. Amanda sometimes uses pastels for sections of her sketches. The whole process is about enhancing her selected view. “It’s taking what I enjoy out of the landscape and heightening it.
“Painting is but another word for feeling”
John Constable, Letter to the Rev John Fisher, October 1821