paintings prints and stuff

South Stack, near Holyhead, A3 pastel plein air  This is at the framers at the moment,  in preparation for an exhibition, along with lots of other work from the week painting in Wales.  It will be going in a lime washed frame. Vivid memories of a lovely day sketching on the cliff with friends somewhere near, doing their own views - that's a steep drop down via the path and then another steep cliff edge.  One friend was working down there, another much higher up looking way down at the lighthouse (just out of sight on the right).  What did we do before we had mobile phones?  so easy to coordinate coffee breaks and moving on when we spread out and aren't near each other. I used a sheet of Sennelier sanded paper for this and the Rembrandt and Inscribe pastels I'd thrown in at the last moment.  Oh dear, I did NOT like the Sennelier paper - luckily I'd swapped a sheet with a friend as she didn't like it and I got to try it without having to buy a ...

2 studies from the clifftop between Hells Mouth and Portreath in different light, watercolour/mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook I do love the changing light and the different colours and moods.   I could paint along here again and again through the seasons and each image would be different.   Flowers, sea colour, skies always new. There was a massive cliff fall at Hells Mouth that I didn't know about until I got home - thankfully!   Video here - do watch, it gives an idea of the scale and drama.  I ended up mostly using my watercolours on this trip for some reason, though I had taken oils and used them  a little.  I made the decision early on to mainly work in the S&B sketchbook and fill it, which I did : >)  rather than try to complete larger works in changing light.   I can work from these sketches at home to produce the larger works, with time to consider format/medium etc at leisure. Already I'm ...

Godrevey Lighthouse , watercolour/mixed media in S&B Delta sketchbook A chance to sketch fairly intensively on a trip to Cornwall.  Happy. I was feeling very rusty, particularly with oils as life has been hectic and I haven't had much time lately for plein air sketching. There was plenty of passing cloud and the day was windy, the sea intensely blue.  This is a corner of Cornwall I wasn't familiar with, so it was lovely to discover new places.  There were so many beautiful spots to paint within a very small distance from where we were staying. I was painting from the Towans Cornish for dunes - most of the coast has cliffs but being on an estuary (St Ives is across the bay), there is a large area of high, grassy, shrub and flower covered dunes. the highest in Europe apparently. More to follow ....

Seedhead done with Artbars A5ish Another of the small pieces I did to show the different ways Artbars can be used, using some of the lovely subtle colours in the box along with the more vivid.  All work there was done on the new watercolour paper they devised to complement their water soluble media.   It's lovely, smooth and the colours glow against it. I do like the ability to use line and mass and switch constantly between with the same crayon. Had a great day yesterday catching up with old friends at an Open House full of great paintings, printmaking, felting, ceramics and glass.   Buzzing now :>) Will share some of the artists work later.

Thistles, white pencil on black paper, A4, Vivien Blackburn A couple of years ago when the thistles flowered, went to seed and became huge masses of the fluffy white 'fairies' they fascinated me. I did a large drawing at the time, closing in and working far above life size, digital images came out of the sketches, photographs and memories too. This one is just out of my head from memories of the exploding fluffy masses of seeds, ready to fly. It was started in a cheap white pencil, emphasised in places to deepen the opacity of the white with Polychromos white and finally some marks to intensify the white even more with a chinagraph pencil (those waxy ones that write on glass). The lightness on the bottom left is light leaking into the scanner - the paper is black

In spring Cornwall and its hedgerows are full of wild flowers. I didn't get to take as many photos of them as I would have liked but here are a few. The ancient hedges have stone walls under the earth, bushes and flowers and were designed to keep livestock from escaping. Travelling off the beaten track, down narrow lanes, the flowers brush each side of the car. If you meet another car someone needs to reverse to a passing place - or if you are unlucky like me you meet a massive tanker and have to reverse half a mile because the passing places aren't big enough to cope! May is a great time to go before it fills up with tourists and of course you are less likely to meet anyone head on in the narrow lanes to the beautiful little bays off the main routes. I put a slide show of photos of Sennen Cove and its waves in changing weather over on Watermarks - take a look.