Time and Tide continued .....

all images copyright Vivien Blackburn

These were the original paintings in the Time and Tide series - done some time back and all gone now but this shows how I hang them - higgledy piggledy with different widths and heights. There have been others since in this ongoing series.

The idea came from my sketchbooks. I paint regularly at the coast plein air, working on cryla paper - when the paintings are framed there are strips of paper that are cut off the edges. These show the colours of the day and so I'd stick them in my sketchbook. You can see them here http://sitekreator.com/viviensketches/beaches.html I loved these pages and other people always commented on them - it added the dimension of time - the tide ebbing and flowing, the weather changing from blue sunny days to misty, to cold winter days with muted colours to stormy and wild as your eye travelled across the strips.

It needs, I feel, to be done on this scale - the paintings are all quite big 42inches to 54 ins tall. It doesn't work as well on a smaller scale, I've tried and not been happy with them. It gives more room to play with paint :>) at this scale and that's half the fun :>)

I want to do some winter ones as well as the sunny ones in this current series.

At one point I was travelling to the coast with a friend to paint twice a week - with a 200 mile plus round trip and an intensive day painting it was exhausting! but exhilarating. One autumn day travelling to the coast with a friend to paint we decided we must be mad - it was very thick mist on the way and we were going to paint! When we arrived the mist was just lifting and I loved trying to catch the scene in paint. The painting is below. I do wish I lived nearer the coast and could get there more easily and catch all the gorgeous different weathers.

This, the nearest coast for me is a flat one with sand dunes and salt marshes, vast beaches full of light and air. I love it there but still prefer the rocky granite cliffs, small coves, wild Atlantic seas, wildness and wonderful colours of Cornwall, where I lived in my childhood. The small stone harbours there are lovely as well. The salt marsh harbours are very different with their muddy creeks.