Heroes and Staithes

David Curtis, me, Ken Howard

Whitby Gazette

I had to show you this lovely photo, taken yesterday at Patchings Art Centre. That's me with the two inspirational UK painters Ken Howard and David Curtis. Not only are they amazing painters who have been inspiring me and countless others for decades but they are truly lovely gentlemen too. I've had the extreme good fortune of being able to paint with both of them this year and am so grateful to them both, hence the big smile!

They have a joint exhibition with Lucy Willis who is an artist that has also been inspiring me for more than 20 years! As far as I'm concerned she sets the bar for how watercolours should be. A book that she wrote about 20 years ago called 'Light: how to see it, how to paint it', now sadly out of print, is one of my most treasured art books (and I have hundreds).

The exhibition is on for the whole month at Patchings art centre, so if you live anywhere near the East Midlands you must not miss this. I'm definitely going back for a second viewing.

Also my friends came back from a few days in Whitby today with a copy of the Whitby Gazette newspaper and 'quel surprise!' there I am in it! I think it's a great photo. I didn't notice it being taken at the time but I was really concentrating on not letting my tripod blow over in the wind during that painting! You can see I have my tripod legs spread out for maximum stability and my own feet planted squarely on the ground, plus that look of grim determination about me...

A wonderful time

It's late and I'm tired, but I'm home now after a wonderful three days in Staithes and Whitby. It was like stepping back in time as my phone was rendered useless with no signal anywhere in the village and therefore no Internet and no links with the outside world... a valuable break from it all I'm sure!
As you can see by the blue sky on this shot we had two days of glorious sunshine but of course you can't see the wind! I spent two hours on this one (it wasn't quite finished in this photo) and never dared let go of my easel once with my left hand the whole time, pushing towards the wind and trying to keep a steady right hand against the odds! The relatively large 16" x 20" board probably wasn't wise under the circumstances :-)

I look forward to getting a chance to unwrap the paintings from the trip, hopefully tomorrow as I've got a fun day in London planned for Tuesday, hanging an exhibition on Thursday and a workshop in oil painting on Friday.

Whitby

I've come away for a few days painting, to the north east of Yorkshire. I arrived in Whitby early evening after travelling on three trains to get here, and I have already set to work. I feel very rusty as it's been a couple of weeks since I last painted plein air, and that's no good at all! I have been teaching a lot, including a great watercolour workshop this week. Also lots of planning and bookings going on right now for next year. The diary is looking really full for 2014.
Tomorrow I'm going to be painting in Staithes all day. I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time.
I may not be able to post pics until next week though.
I feel quite at home in this part of the world, as I spent half my childhood living in North Yorkshire and my art studies began in York.