paintings prints and stuff

I've finished illustrating up to Z - so now the covers and then putting the book together in Publisher, printing and binding - nearly done! I'm putting the illustrations together on a page   - see the tabs at the top of the blog as those not interested in illustration may be getting thoroughly bored with these :>)   So  A-Z is uploaded there.   Covers to follow. And hopefully some 'serious' painting time soon.

Runswick Bay, 20x16ins canvas - details Runswick Bay, 16x20 ins, canvas, mixed media, maybe finished This is where this canvas is now. Maybe finished? maybe not ...... what do you think? more light on the outer edge of the cliffs maybe? sorry about the lack of posts lately - I'm snowed under at work and I've not been well, schniff

Old tree stumps and sea lavender at Thornham, North Norfolk, oil/mixed media, plein air, Vivien Blackburn Whilst looking out a large sketchbook (A3) to work in this morning I came across this plein air painting I'd forgotten about. This is the salt marsh at Thornham in Norfolk, when the sea lavender is in flower it creates this lovely mauve haze over the vegetation with its millions of tiny flowers. The tree stumps were once part of a wood that has been swamped by the sea and are worn, grooved and weathered to pale ghosts. There is a salt marsh harbour here on the main creek accessible to boats only at high tide. other paintings of Norfolk: http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2008/12/north-norfolk-photographs.html http://vivienb.blogspot.com/2007/08/seascapes-for-next-show.html

Clovelly Harbour, Devon, charcoal and coloured pencil on beige paper. Vivien Blackburn I've said that I only occasionally work from photos - this is one time that I did. The reason is that I would like to do some paintings of Clovelly and I hate painting directly from photographs. Sketching, simplifying and making colour decisions and then working from the sketch, changing things again, is how I tackle the problem. I'm not a photo realist so I don't want to reproduce the painting. The scanner hasn't picked up all the colours very well, there are blues in the stones of the wall at the front, reflecting the colours of the sea and cool misty blue of the sky. The village is built of rocks from the seafront - huge rocks in the harbour walls and smaller rocks for the walls of the houses and gardens - and to stop you tumbling down the steep cliffside the village is built into. Even the road (too steep and bumpy for a car, so purely for pedestrians) is made of cobblestones tak...

Pencil and coloured pencil sketch, Clovelly, going down the steep cobbled street to the harbour, North Devon, Vivien Blackburn Working in coloured pencil and graphite, planning a future painting. I don't normally like working from photos but I've wanted to do some paintings of Clovelly for some time. I took lots of photos when we were there on a misty day - it was very moody and atmospheric and it really suited the village which is built with rocks from the beach, the incredibly steep streets cobbled with smaller rocks. I liked the composition in which the stone walls frame the view of the harbour and its curving harbour wall made of more of the rocks - huge ones, wrapping around and framing the sand, sea and boats. You can see some photographs here http://sitekreator.com/vivien/coast.html Normally I wouldn't go for this 'every stone' approach but the stones are so chunky and so important to the image that I thought I would. Charcoal with coloured pencil for ano...

Later in the year I need some work for an exhibtion where the subject is reflections and I wondered if it was worth looking through my photographs to see if there was anything there I would want to work from. As I've said before, I don't normally work from photos but I fancy giving it another go - I knew I had some images that I like and maybe ..... Anyway these are the images that I found quite quickly that would meet the brief. I love the coast so naturally a lot of them are to do with the sea :>) I really liked these seagulls waiting for the incoming tide on a grey afternoon. I like the subtle limited range of colours - watercolour and CP???? Watercolour and pastel? Then there is the boat lying beached on the wet mud with all the lovely sky blues in the reflection of the sky - something out of nothing. Or the boat in the harbour with the lovely old stone walls - pastel and charcoal over acrylic or watercolour? It's the busiest of the images with all the people jostli...