We have now been back in Swansea since the end of January. The move from Derry with three cats and a dog was very tiring indeed! 

Until last week’s six days of glorious sunshine, it has rained almost constantly here. This has kept us indoors, reluctantly, and unable to enjoy the Gower Coast, or able to look for inspiration for subject matter for paintings. It has been a pretty depressing to be honest. So with last week’s sun, we spent nearly every day re-aquainting ourselves with this wonderful landscape. By we, I mean my husband, myself and our dog, Effie the collie, who absolutely loved running herself into the ground, or sand, in the beautiful beaches of Three Cliffs Bay, Tor Bay, Mewslade Bay and Rhossili Bay. My husband, Seamus, also managed to fit in the Knave, a gorgeous area between Mewslade and Port Eynon.

The Knave

I have been using my Canon camera but my husband has also been experimenting with compositions photographed by drone. We have (had – one was lost near Mewslade) two DJI Mini 2 drones which are fairly basic compared to some but which are quality enough to take drone photography good enough to paint from, which is really the whole point.

We initially used drone photography partly as a response to living in Ireland, especially the Republic of Ireland, where some beautiful landscape was sometimes inaccessible or on private land so we would have fly above it to get a good view of it.

We also found that the drone did not have to be that high off the ground to be produce interesting shots. Compositions seemed to improve from only 10  or  20 foot in the air. We rarely go too far above the landscape feature we are trying to photograph.

Coming back to Swansea and intending to repaint “old ground”, so to speak, it is important for me to keep things fresh, otherwise my work can become laboured or even slightly bored painting the same subject matter in the same way as before. So drone photography helps freshen up the process. It also helps one to re-imagine compositions in terms of landscape painting.

It has helped me see composition in a new way and it has also helped us to become more aware of how various bits of Gower landscape “fit ” together. 

There are no longer isolated, and seemingly unconnected, areas anymore.

For example, the photo above shows the Worms Head area with Fall and Mewslade bays behind and the Knave beyond that.  The various areas of landscape now form a more coherent whole. I will give some examples below of the images we have been capturing down in Three Cliffs Bay and Tor Bay and how they have resulted in a couple of paintings.

Three Cliffs 

Droning is also good fun, flying around the countryside having a bird’s eye view of the landscape is strangely liberating and, at times, exhilarating – so says Seamus (I find it quite alarming at times, I dont have his nerves of steel).

Effie, our dog, had her first excursion down Three Cliffs  which saw us walk down the rocky paths and great sandy swathes from Penmaen car park to Three Cliffs Bay. 

How great it was to see those monumental stacks again, like seeing an old friend, rising impossibly from the sandy ground. Effie was pretty good with the other dogs on the beach who were trying to join in with her ball chasing fun.  Fortunately she is ball-chasing obsessed and as long as she has a job to do, some work, she is fairly singleminded and behaves well.

This was a relief, as we were worried it might take some adjustment for her as her previous experience of beaches were 2-mile empty beaches in Inishowen and in West Donegal where she rarely came across other dogs. Also, Donegal people are often so polite that they leave the beach when you arrive and let you have free run of it to yourself. It is great having a beach to yourself, a real treat and luxury!

In Gower, even in early Spring, there are numerous other dogs to contend with, but most are just out having a great time like Effie, so are generally not much trouble. It has been great seeing Effie have so much fun, she loves running on the beach.

My husband droned Three Cliffs the week before when the tide was in. It was out when we were there.

My first drone photography inspired paintings were both of Great Tor and I am presently working on my first Three Cliffs paintings since I have returned. 

I have been working on commissions in the last few weeks. 

Great Tor at Low Tide #1 by Emma Cownie

I found this a very dramatic composition which conveyed movement and vibrancy. The light is still Winterish and bracing.  

Great Tor at Low Tide #2 by Emma Cownie

Although this is of the same Tor it looks very different. Drone photography allows you to explore different aspects of the same subject matter. It allows you to see things differently from different heights and angles. Much like a person’s face can appear different from different profiles. This keeps the creative juices flowing as it is possible to re-imagine similiar subject matter in so many more ways.

Plus all these aspects can combine with photographying at different times of the year with different light. For example as the days draw longer, it will be possible to drone on the other side of Great Tor, a side usually in dark shade at present. Longer Summer days will provide new aspects and new compositions. 

The possibilties for composition are greatly increased with droning. For example, the colours in this second painting seem warmer as the drone is lower and reflects the sandy orange rather than in Great Tor #1 where the drone is higher and is reflecting the sky and the painting is more  imbued with blue-tinged light. It took a while to realise how the height of the drone greatly influences colour. This is an area which I find very interesting. With a camera, light and colour is relatively more stable and predictable. With a drone so many more variables around light, colour and composition come into play. 

So that is it for now. I will blog again soon and hope to blog more frequently in future. 

See more paintings of Gower here