paintings prints and stuff

images copyright Vivien Blackburn More images from Cornwall :) I love the shine of the water on the wet sand and the abstract patterns made by the wind and water. sparkling rivulets of water draining back to sea as the tide ebbs. and ridges down the banks of a a pool that's been drying up, leaving successive lines around the edge caused by the wind blowing the surface of the water. mussels and seaweed left by the tide and the sheen of smooth wet sand near the sea's edge I'm off to get 100 of these printed this afternoon. I'm going to get them done 7x5 I think. Lyndsay has talked evocatively about her special place to be http://straightlinesout.blogspot.com/2007/09/special-place.html in response to my question - where is yours? (thanks Lyndsay) anyone else like to share theirs? .

While I was in Cornwall I checked on what was on at the Lemon Street Gallery in Truro as they show some fantastic contemporary work by great artists - and :D there was a Kurt Jackson show on, The Cornish Crows or in the old Cornish language An Byrny Kernow - Kernow is the Cornish word for Corwall. http://www.lemonstreetgallery.co.uk/kurt-jackson-cornish-crows.asp?ExhibitID=86 a link to the gallery website - it's worth bookmarking and visiting in person if you can. The lively confusion of wheeling birds in the sketch above catches them fantastically - far better than a 'botanical illustration' type of bird painting every could. There were several of these odd shaped pieces and they worked really well, floated within a frame. there's a lively conversation going on in this one :) ..... it looks like an indignant wife asking what her husband has been up to with the bird on the left! He catches light on water so well and the moody atmospher of low light or bad ...

images copyright VivienBlackburn these are a few of the sunsets seen from the windows of 'our' flat - the cloud formations were often fabulous. This one is low tide with the light reflecting off the pools and shallow water at the edge of the surf. This was a clear and cloudless sunset, turning the sky apricot and the colour reflecting on the sea. (high tide) The strange rectangle in this one is from the mirror on the wall behind, reflecting the light onto the glass. Between the photos and my sketches I'm hoping to paint a few sunsets :) - the problem with photos is that they can't cope with the tonal range that he human eye can - metering to get the sunset colour means losing detail in the cliffs, rocks and foreground - there wasn't much as the light was going but there was more than this. Putting colours down in a sketch in this light was interesting - the colours were far too lurid when looked at in the morning! they'll need toning down quite a bit. I...

all images copyright Vivien Blackburn The view of the sunset over the sea from our windows was spectacular :) These are some quick sketches done from the window and the one above is trying to catch the pattern of the clouds and waves - they changed so fast and the light was going, so I didn't attempt to use colour. They are all in my moleskine sketchbook - which was only added to my art bag(s) as an afterthought because I'd planned to work larger. I made notes to myself of the colours so that if it develops into a painting I'll remember them. This one is the view from the windows looking more to the left, where the steep road hairpins round to a narrow little old bridge over the stream - the stream that comes down the valley (the Vale of Lanherne or Mawgan) past the farmhouse a couple of miles uphill, that we lived in for a year when we first moved to Cornwall. We rented half of the house and the farmer lived in the other half. It was a lovely tall Georgian farmhous...

It's a horribly long journey but oh it was worth it! I'm back from a week in Cornwall, staying in a flat in a house right on the edge of the beach that was near where I lived as a child. It was gorgeous - this is the view from our living room room there :) and the marram grass you can see is the end of the garden and there's a path straight down to the beach from there. To the left is a forest of tamarisk bushes and to the right it was marram grass. The rabbits who live there came out in the mornings and evenings and kept the lawn short! Evening primroses grew amongst the marram grass and tiny tiny mauve flowers were everywhere in the short turf. The weather was pretty kind to us - the few times it rained were when it really didn't matter and the clouds made the skies beautiful. The surf was wild at times with huge waves crashing over the rocks and the surfers were out in the safe centre of the beach. The main surfing beach is a few miles away at Fistral Ba...

copyright Vivien Blackburn and yet more paintbrushes! a demo using, in order, pastel pencils willow charcoal and coloured pencils for a class. They are a great subject as they include all those different textures - the bristles, the wood and splatters of paint and the shiny ferrule. .... and now I'm going to be off line for a week so there's going to be a lot of catching up for me to do when I get back :) Katherine tells me my icon for feedburner doesn't include the email option - so I'll sort that one out when I get back for those of you who would like to change over and avoid the ads. .

Just a quick note to those of you who subscribe via feedblitz - I'm told that as from 14th they are going to include advertisements - so those of you who don't like that (I don't!) you could change your subscription over to Feedburner. There's a link in the right hand column. Bloglines is good as an alternative as you get to see all the blogs listed together that you've subscribed to. Again there is a link in the right hand column. Dashing out now ...............................