Fishermens shelter and London workshop

Fishermens shelter
Oils 14" x 18"

I had the immense pleasure of spending a couple of days in the fishermens shelter in Portscatho last year, when I put on a little pop-up exhibition with The Harbour Gallery. I was really inspired by the large window overlooking the sea and the way the sunlight came into the room. I did paint this view while I was there but I always felt that I had another one in me. 

Now I've painted this larger version in the studio and I'm really happy with it. It's one of six paintings that I'm framing up at the moment to send for selection to the Mall Galleries for the annual Royal Society of Marine Artists exhibition. 

This August I'm going to be running a day workshop at the Mall Galleries in London about 'Capturing the essence', talking about the ways I use simplification in my work. What is important to include and what can be left out?

Find out more and book yourself a place here :-)

Happy Christmas time

Snow at the Roseland Inn

I hope that you are all having a nice Christmas and New Year break. I'm loving the way that everything slows down and you can spend time relaxing with friends and family and not worry that you should be doing anything else. I love checking my emails and seeing hardly any new ones - except for all the January sale ones which I'm deleting straight away.

This painting of a Cornish pub in the snow - oh how I wish we had snow on the way - is now on show in the winter exhibition at the Harbour Gallery, Portscatho. 

You can have a look at all the paintings in this lovely exhibition here.

Bay view

Room with a view, Portscatho

I couldn't resist painting the view from the window and the whole window and a part of the little fisherman's shelter! Fun to paint my paintings within a painting.
 It was such a wonderful place to spend a couple of days. Can you imagine having a studio with a sea view like this? What a dream :-)

Room with a view

Painting this morning in the fisherman's shelter 

Could this be the most idyllic setting for an exhibition ever? I think so. I'm feeling very lucky to be here with my little exhibition overlooking Portscatho harbour for two days. 

As you can see the sun was shining today and it could not have been more lovely!

You can see all the paintings in the exhibition for a limited time only on the Harbour Gallery website. Which is your favourite? 

Fisherman's shelter

Fisherman's shelter, Portscatho
8" x 10"

Just so that you can find me when you come by for a celebratory drink tomorrow evening (Tuesday 25th August) 6.30 - 8.00 pm, this is where I'll be - at the fisherman's shelter in Portscatho, Cornwall. Right by the harbour and the red telephone box, you can't miss it. 

I'll also be painting at this fab venue on Wednesday and Thursday from 11.00 am - 4.00 pm.

I have a poor mobile phone signal around here and no internet access in the daytime so if you need more information please contact Mark at the Harbour Gallery. We can't wait to see you in this idyllic place :-)

My 2013 year review - July to September

Going to the beach, Porthcurnick
SOLD

The summer of 2013 can be remembered in my mind as being a 'proper summer'! I painted this on the 'hottest day of the year' (according to the radio) not knowing that there were many more 'hottest days of the year' to follow! I think everyone in England at the time felt they should 'enjoy it while it lasts' not knowing that the heatwave would go on and on, to give us our best summer in recent memory.

July saw me heading down to Cornwall with my paints and a car full of easels and frames and lashings of ginger beer (possibly). My first stop was Mousehole and I stayed in the most wonderful studio you could imagine, just a short walk from the harbour and perfect in every way. My dream home!

St Clements Studio
SOLD

I fell in love with Mousehole harbour and didn't really want to leave and paint anywhere else, but I did sneak a look at beautiful Sennen Cove too. 

Evening light at Sennen Cove
SOLD

Painting at Mousehole harbour

Day before regatta, Mousehole

Party boat

High tide at Mousehole
SOLD

My next stop was pretty Portscatho on the Roseland peninsula, during a heatwave! I only had a couple of days here and a lot of inspiration and work to do.

Evening light in the harbour
SOLD

Still evening in Portscatho
30" x 30"

Dropping off wet paintings at the Harbour Gallery, Portscatho

Evening shadows, Portscatho
8" x 10"

At the end of July I was in London for a hectic few days at the SAA's event at the Business Design Centre, and I had another article published in The Artist magazine. This one was about painting alla prima in oils.

August was the time for painting and relaxing and yes, more sunshine! I spent the whole month on the island of Bréhat in France with my family and we had the pleasure of Lori Putnam's company so it was super to have a painting companion as I'm usually there painting on my own. 

Painting with Lori

Crowded beach, Bréhat

I've painted on Guerzido beach lots of times but this has to be one of the busiest! In August all the holiday houses on the island are full and day visitors come across in their thousands from the mainland.

Regatta day at Bréhat

Check out that blue sky!

Cottage with blue shutters, Bréhat

Hidden garden by the sea
SOLD

August was such a great month for painting on the island, and I gained much inspiration in Paimpol harbour on the mainland too with a series of watercolour and felt tip studies of my beloved red sails. In between the painting sessions there was plenty of time for relaxing, although I even painted at the neighbourhood party!

Deuxieme câle at Port Clos
SOLD

Outgoing tide at Port Clos

I was also sketching away, taking part in 'drawing August' on twitter. It was a fun event and lovely to have the time for it. Here are a few of my sketches from the month -

Sketches from August

After a brilliant long summer it was back home and back to school for the children, and back to workshops and writing for me. However I still had an exciting event to look forward to! In September I was invited up to the beautiful town of Staithes on the North Yorkshire coast. Staithes has a famous history as an artists colony here in the UK. The group of painters based here in the 19th century included Laura and Harold Knight. I have a real fondness for Laura Knight for her dedication to plein air painting, her passion and perseverance, and being able to make it in what truly was a man's world. Dame Laura Knight was the first woman to be honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1965.  Here's an interesting snippet for you - Laura was a member of Nottingham Society of Artists as an art student in the 1890's before leaving for Staithes, as was I in the 1990's. 

Me painting in Staithes

I was staying with family and friends in Whitby and painting in Staithes in the daytime with members of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. It was a terrific few days with great company.

House by the beck

Morning light at Staithes
SOLD

Shadows in the beck, Staithes

Thanks for bearing with me this far on my trip down memory lane! In tomorrow's post I'll review the last three months of the year which will bring us right up to date, and then I'll start to think about what 2014 may hold... in the meantime I'd like to wish you all a very very happy new year!

Chasing Albert

Painting in situ Portscatho harbour

Another one from my Cornwall trip. This is Portscatho on the Roseland peninsular. I had to move halfway through the painting because I was roasting hot in the sun, even though it was evening and I had my umbrella set up! I kept thinking it would cool off and it didn't, so eventually I found a place in the shade lower down. Phew! It was a relief to get this spot and take my shoes off and finish the painting barefoot.
I don't have a very good photo of this one because I framed it and left it in the gallery within a few hours of painting it :-)

It's called 'Chasing Albert' because I could hear a child calling the name Albert over and over again. Eventually I discovered that Albert and his sister were swimming in the harbour, and it was little brother standing on the jetty doing all the shouting!
Albert and sister made it into the painting.

Chasing Albert

Available to buy from the Harbour Gallery :-)

Going to the beach

On location between Portscatho and Porthcurnick

You've already seen this painting on the easel in the field, literally, but I wanted to show you the step by step photos that I took along the way. The painting took around three hours to complete, on the hottest day of the year so far. This stretch of coastline is known as the Cornish riviera.

I started with a pretty careful drawing (with the brush and a turpsy mix of paint) to plan everything in and see how it all fits together. I was standing next to one of the main footpaths leading from the car park down to the beach, so there were quite a few people walking past me and I had the idea from this early stage that I'd like to put somebody into the painting for extra interest.

I chose this lady with her straw hat and orange bag, so I had to paint her in quickly while she was still fresh in my mind.

I then wanted to remind myself that the sunlit sand on the beach was one of the lightest values.

From there to the colours of the distant cliffs. I was extremely particular about getting the tonal values right. I think one of the hardest jobs in painting is to paint an area with different colours that have to be almost exactly the same in value, as in a distant landscape like this. I was already uncomfortably hot, but I wasn't slacking!

The next big challenge was getting in the sky and sea with the right colour bias and even more importantly the right relationship of tonal values between each other and the distant land.

Buoyed up by the results of that struggle, I needed to get some greens going to cover this foreground area and from there it was just a skip, hop and a jump to....

 darkening up the foreground greens plus some detailing on the little tree and filling in the missing gaps before hot footing it out of there quite literally... I was so very hot.

Little did I know that a delicious lunch was waiting for me at the Hidden Hut!

I'm sorry that the link didn't work yesterday for the Harbour Gallery in Portscatho, hopefully this one will! 

Portscatho harbour in evening light

Portscatho harbour, evening light

The short break in Portscatho resulted in four paintings, this one on the evening I arrived and then three on what was to prove the hottest day of the year so far!

The harbour here is so pretty and I adored the sweep of the hill and those white houses lit by the evening sun. Almost every house in Portscatho is whitewashed. Can you imagine how dazzling that can be on a 'blue sky' day?

Here are a few photos I took along the way...

And here's a snap of it in it's frame, white washed to match the houses and looking rather spiffing!

And all my Portscatho paintings as well as three of my Mousehole and two Sennen cove paintings are now available to buy from the beautiful Harbour Gallery in Portscatho :-)