paintings prints and stuff

Ogwen Valley and the little river Ogwen winding through, watercolour/mixed media The Ogwen valley, watercolour and mixed media sketch I'm just back from a week painting in Wales with friends.  Wales + mountains means we knew there would be rain - but it made for some lovely atmospheric scenes to sketch. Friend Ros, that I travelled with, and I stopped on the way in a beautiful valley I last saw about 20 years ago when my daughter was at Bangor university,  I was determined to get there to paint again.  Nigel another member of the group met up with us there and we all got thoroughly wet and bedraggled sketching. The end of the valley was lost in rain/mist and the little river Ogwen tumbles through the valley from Llyn Ogwen (Lake Ogwen) above.  The narrow, single track road goes up and down like a switchback along the side of the mountain.  The waterfalls were beautiful with all the rain we've had.  Welsh black mountain cattle ambled by, with h...

The tip of the headland with St Ives, from Gwithian Towans, watercolour and mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook A cloudy day, looking across the estuary. That's the tip of St Ives just showing across the bay. Done mainly in watercolour with a touch of white gouache and some Derwent tinted charcoal pencils. Sometimes not-such-good-weather is more interesting to paint.

Alnmouth beach, a rainy morning, mixed media in S&B Delta A4 sketchbook Passing showers meant that I worked sitting in the car, from a car park with great views of the sweep of the beach and the gorgeous clouds. Again mixed media, with a lot of watercolour involved.  Because it was autumn, we were travelling to the north and weather was likely to be changeable, I made a decision on this trip to leave my oils at home,  They just aren't practical if it's necessary to work in the car.  I had some non-slip matting that meant my water pot, balanced on the dashboard,  didn't land on me - useful stuff though I don't know what it's called. I absolutely loved Northumberland, beaches, castles, hills .... so much drama.

work in progres s   Penwith, on the Moor, Approaching Rain, Rembrant coloured pencils,  about 12 inches tall. I've been using my lovely prize Rembrandts to check them out.   I wouldn't normally use cp's alone to work on an image this size - I'd go into mixed media and use some watercolour to underpaint.   That's partly because I like to work fast and partly because I like the wider variety of marks you can make by mixing media. It's looking a bit too fairy tale at the moment, not yet rugged enough.  The foreground is obviously only just begun, lots more to do to that if I decide to finish it.   It may just stay an unfinished experiment in the sketchbook though.  There are more subtle veils of colour than the camera ever picks up :>(   - there are amber colours in the sky, soft and pale but echoing similar colours in the fields.  The camera picked up the pale pinks but not the amber.   It has made the clouds a...

Moorland Farm, Penwith, watercolour/mixed media This one is a sketch of a moorland farm up on the moor in Penwith. Turn around 45 degrees and you see the sea, as in the last sketch. This was a day of passing showers, meaning beautiful skies and brooding Heathcliff moors :>)

Pearly Dawn, Sennen Cove, Cornwall. 10 inches square, oil on canvas, Vivien Blackburn A calm sea, pearly colours of lavender, apricot and jade. This one is another oil on a 10 inch square canvas, It was a total nightmare to photograph as the subtle jades kept disappearing and the apricot highlights - not helped by photographing it while it's wet! The sky glows a bit more and there are subtle bits of the apricot sky reflecting on the tips of the swells that aren't being picked up very well in the photo :>( The last one I showed, of the harbour, has had the lower section of sky lightened and I think is finished. Botallack mine is moving onwards but large areas are still just blocked in. The foreground has a long way to go and the far cliffs and mine houses but the sea and sky are further forward. The sea is going to be wilder, crashing onto the rocks and cliffs. Work in progress, Botallack Mine. 16x20. Vivien Blackburn c&c????

Stormy Seas, Sennen Cove, Graphite in moleskine sketchbook, Vivien Blackburn I'm back from a week at beautiful Sennen Cove with the family - 4 generations of us. I was determined to make some time to paint/sketch :>) We were staying right on the seafront and this was the view from our bedroom window yesterday. Huge waves rolling in and crashing on the rocky reef offshore and over the harbour wall - a wall of mist/rain meaning that the horizon was lost. Luckily it cleared up and turned into a lovely day, though still windy and wild. Waves repeat patterns of movement so it's crucial to watch, observe, see how they move, where they crash together, the changes of direction across the bay .... My little Jakar battery operated eraser is great for drawing back into areas of tone, pushing and pulling the shapes and tones and form until it hopefully does something like what I wanted :>) So .... about that sky challenge .... a few people have posted results and I'll be d...

High Winds and Surf, 4 inch square canvas (deep sided). Vivien Blackburn Instead of working on my planned 40 inch canvas I was in a mood to work with these little 4 inch canvasses I'd bought to do some work for my etsy store . This one is based on a wild day with the surf pouring over the harbour wall and the rocks offshore. Below is a side view so that you can see the painted edges and depth of the sides. It's a little bleached out by the flash - the accurate colour is above, which was taken in daylight. I'm going to be uploading them to Etsy if anyone wants to take a look.

Drizzly morning, clearing up pastel on Pink Pink paper, approx 12 ins square, Vivien Blackburn I need 3 pastels for a show next month and set out to do a large piece based on the pollarded willows. I got half way through one and it's at the ugly stage just now and needs thinking time, so I got side tracked into completing this one. The attention span of a gnat Never mind! this one can be one of my 3. It's mostly Unison pastels as I love them - velvety soft and rich but they don't break up and flake away to expensive shards and powder like some. What I do want to get is some white Schminke pastels, as I'm told they are the richest, whitest white with brilliant covering power. I often underpaint when I use pastels but this one is just pastel and no other medium. I love pastels with the mix of drawing and painting they allow - my skin doesn't like them much though and dries out terribly. I've tried wearing those thin disposable gloves but I use my f...

The view from the house windows, misty drizzly morning, Low Tide . Mixed media on Canson watercolour paper, 11x9 ins, September, Vivien Blackburn This was the view from 'our' windows (for one week only :>) ),one drizzly, misty morning, Even though it was misty the sea was still soft lavender and jade colours and the grey clouds had hints of lavender, the distant cliffs hazy without detail, the wet sand shining with mauves and pinks and hints of autumn reds in the foliage on the nearest cliffs. It's in mixed media - mostly watercolour but with touches of coloured pencil, watercolour pencil, a little oil pastel ........... that's about it but there could be more! I'm interested in catching the light, mood and particular colours, not in producing a purist watercolour-only work ; >) I like to use mixed media for the extra marks and 'language' potential, using coloured pencils sometimes to scumble a contrasting colour over underlying rocks or sand to creat...

Rainy Morning, Sennen Cove, looking across to Cape Cornwall and The Brisons, watercolour. Vivien Blackburn The lovely thing about the coast and Cornwall in particular, is that even on a grey, drizzly morning there are still beautiful, though more subtle, colours in the sea and the landscape. Brooding clouds, rain approaching in front of the far cliffs and still looking lovely :>) This was the view from 'our' dining room. The rocks at our end of the beach are exposed at low tide. Offshore is a vicious reef of rocks that helps shelter the tiny harbour from the Atlantic gales. Other days it was vividly blue and turquoise but sometimes it's more fun to paint these days of bad weather, clouds and interesting light. 'Our' house was at the harbour end of the bay, a crescent shaped bay with a beautiful beach of pale sand sweeping round to rocks at our end, the beach is popular with surfers. There's a lifeboat station, a gallery, a little shop that bakes it...