Contre jour - an academician at work.

At this time of year when the weather is in two minds and it is either about to rain, or just has, the light in Newlyn has a unique quality - hence the attraction over one hundred years ago for a group of artists that became the Newlyn School as they sought to capture those light tones on canvas.  Today, if you are early enough down among the boats you can catch local artists at work 'en plein' in the early morning light. Today was no exception, with one of the doyens of English coastal artists, Ken Howard, at his easel intent on capturing the constantly changing moody sky above a harbour crowded with boats over the spring tide.

For reference - the photo, in order to apply the correct exposure to the painting on the canvas, is over exposed and has therefore failed to capture the dramatic sky that the artist is in the process of capturing - contre jour translates as 'against the light' - a photograph exposed for the background when taken against the light inevitably causes the subject and foreground to be under exposed.

Ken has dedicated his life's work to capturing the tonal qualities of coastal scenes, not only in the West of Cornwall but also in the Venice. His technically informative video, 'Inspired by Light' is essential viewing for any artist with an interest in improving understanding and technique. In his long career that began at Hornsey School of Art in the 1950s he has since achieved many of the milestones that similar artists aspire to such as becoming a Royal Academician and more recently the Professor of Perspective at the RA. Early in his career, while serving as a marine in Northern Ireland he was appointed the official war artist by the Imperial War Museum. His current work is available through his agent Richard Green in London, where he spends much of the year. The Royal Academy of Arts ran a story on him in their summer magazine last year - unable to resist the temptation to give it the strap line, Howard's Way.

Today, in a world of video and digital according to Ken, many art students, seem reluctant to subject themselves to the rigours of the craft of drawing and painting and in learning to apply centuries old techniques like the one he is using above - using his brush to measure proportion from the scene against his canvas.......

not all images have such strong and obvious vanishing points as this showing the gangplank leading aboard the Ripple. Different cultures see perspective in different ways.