Sunny afternoon with the hens

Sunny afternoon with the hens

I had a gorgeous few days with these hens earlier in the summer. This is one of four or five paintings I did there - I can't be happier than sunshine+sheds+hens... except possibly for snow+sheds+hens! I'll try to get back here in autumn and winter as it's not a subject I ever tire of. 

Yes it is tricky because they're moving all the time but if you hang around a while you can usually spot another hen in a similar position which helps. I love being around hens, their presence is so calming. 

You can find out how this painting might be yours on my website here :-)

Fig tree and shadows

Fig tree and shadows
12" x 12"

The morning light striking the agapanthus flowers, showing off their glory against the dark shape of my neighbour's hedge is what made me stop here. The peeps of bright acid greens through the gaps in the shadowy gate. And then the dappled shadow cast from the fig tree across the dusty path was enough to keep my attention. This is such a typical Bréhat scene, the pinks of hydrangeas seen in the garden beyond, the blue shutters at the window.

Old milking parlour and snapdragons

Old milking parlour and snapdragons
Oils 8" x 10"

I had one of those 'coup de cœur' moments when I came across this scene in Cornwall. I first saw it on a cloudy day when I was struck by the great shapes of the doorways and the mysterious dark within.

When I returned to paint here the sun was shining, which heightened the contrast between the outside and the inside of the barn, and the exterior stone wall that you can see through the doorway on the right.

Getting the darks in first

There was an interesting shadow from a fence to the right casting diagonal shadows across the front of the barn, and they could even be seen over the foliage of the various weeds and snapdragons that have self seeded right in front of the barn. 

Detail

Monterey wharf

Monterey Wharf

Writing has been keeping me busy lately, as well as a little teaching, travel planning and organising next year's calendar and some new greetings cards. Still, I'm getting to the easel as much as I can! We had a fantastic weekend workshop at Old Bank Studios in Harwich the week before last. Next year we are already planning a plein air weekend in May so I really wanted to give you advance notice for a change! Email Bev at the studios if you'd like to be in that group next spring :-)

Bees in the orchard

Bees in the orchard
Oils 10" x 14"

We've had some fantastic weather this week in Lincolnshire, so I had to get out painting and where better than the gorgeous gardens at Gunby Hall? I headed for my favourite spot but the pond was brown and left me uninspired. This turned out to be a good thing as I wandered into this gorgeous orchard, and I've always hankered after painting bee hives! How exciting! The setting could not have been more lovely, and I'm very glad I came.

Can you see the bees? ;-)

Not a cloud in the sky

California flowers

California flowers
Oils 14" x 10"

I've come back from the convention full of inspiration, refreshed and raring to go - which is exactly what I was hoping for! It was terrific to spend time with my friends and meet lots of new friends and put a face to existing Facebook friends! Especially Cory who's been following my blog since just about the time when I started it in 2011 :-)

 The coastline in this part of California is incredible and I know I will have to come back here to paint. The light seems crystal clear and of course for me the sunshine makes a subject of just about anything. Take the backlighting on these flowers for example.

It was a wrench every day - be out painting or be in the conference centre watching all the wonderful demos and talks. Did I tell you they laid on free coffee all day too? Yes that pleases me ;-)

Look - freebies!

Look at all the gifts! I love gifts - and stickers! There are stickers for my easels ;-)

How finished is finished?

Morning sunlight on the campo

Ah, the eternal question! When do you know a painting is finished... if indeed, a painting ever is finished? And does 'finished' mean 'finished off' as in, well... I think you know what I mean!

Here's an interesting case in point. I was working on this studio painting a couple of weeks back and then I had to put it on standby and get on with other work. In my head this painting was labelled 'needs further attention, needs a lot more work, must go back to it, it's quite a way off being finished (the dreaded word)'.

Now today it's caught my eye again and what's happened? Have the studio elves been working while I've been in France? It caught my eye and my mind said this 'that's an interesting piece, it evokes a mood, what more is there to say? By golly I think it's .... (insert dreaded word here)'

What do you think? How much information is enough? For me this is the eternal question. Firstly you should know what you are trying to say in your painting. Then, it's easier for you to recognise when you've said it. That's about all the help I can give today but I know it's a topic I'll come back to ;-)

And now I'm a teensy little bit excited because the suitcase is zipped shut, my passport is in my hand and I'm heading to Heathrow ready to fly tomorrow. See you in California!

View with a room

View with a room
Oils 8" x 16"

We were blessed with a covering of snow again last week! It arrived overnight and by three o clock the next day it was all but gone. Luckily I had the chance to make the most of it and was able to get out early with all my paints and equipment in the car. After dropping the children off at school I was ready to go and I managed to find an allotments which I knew existed but I'd never been able to find before.
Everything there was covered in a blanket of snow, and my excitement level was at about fever pitch!

At first the sky was quite brooding and overcast while I had a good look around taking lots of photos, but by the time I was back where I started the sun was shining and things really started to warm up.
This is the second painting I did there, which took less than an hour and a half. You can see how rapidly the snow was melting by looking at this photo taken after I'd finished. It went from everything blanketed in snow at 9am to mostly mud and greenery by 2.00pm. The plus side to this rapid thaw was that I was lovely and warm standing in the sun, and of course I love the chance to paint strong clear shadows on snow which I wouldn't have had if the sun had stayed hidden.

The thing that really grabbed me here was the table and stack of chairs which looked kind of inviting in the sun there, although covered in a fine coat of snow. I also loved the light valued canes against the dark trees behind.
I must confess I was really pleased with the economy of my mark making on this one, was able to describe effectively what was happening with just a minimum of shapes and colour.

A detail

On my screen the shadow area of this picture looks a ghastly blue, which it isn't in real life. It really is a lovely subtle violet. Hope it looks ok on yours!

Oasis in Chelsea

Oasis in Chelsea
26" x 28"

This is a recent studio painting, the inspiration for which came from my visit to Chelsea in July for Pintar Rapido. This is the market place that I painted but the day before the event there were no market stalls and instead children played in these water jets. I was absolutely captivated by the subject with the bright sparkling water seen against the dark buildings in shadow. 

I really enjoyed building up glazes of colour for the darks, something that is only really possible in studio paintings with the benefit of drying time. The wet and dry, sunlit and shaded pavement area was a challenge! I tried to give the children's figures a loose treatment, to add an element of confusion, movement and splashing water.

I'm not altogether decided if it's finished, but it is hanging on my studio wall so I can glance at it occasionally and maybe I'll dip back in.

I'm taking a little holiday from Facebook so I am sorry if you are used to seeing me on there. My blog posts will still automatically update to it because frankly I can't be doing with figuring out how to stop that right now! I will be popping back on from time to time. And if you miss me you can still find me on twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Why? Well I find those easy to dip in and out of, they just don't take up my time in the same way. 

Today (Wednesday 12th November) I will be painting a portrait demo at Patchings art centre. Still a few days left if you haven't seen my big exhibition there yet - it finishes on the 23rd.

Thank you Paul for coming all the way from Canada - you should really get a prize! :-)

Early morning, Santa Maria della Salute

Early morning, Santa Maria della Salute
Oils 24 x 30 cms

It's nice to recall while watching the rain lashing down outside my cosy studio today that this time last week I was painting in beautiful Venice. I was really pleased with this one, painted on the Accademia bridge very early on Friday morning as the sun was rising.

It's such a difficult time to paint as the sun moves so quickly, and as it gets higher into the sky it brings more definition into everything you can see. If you start trying to keep up with this before you know it you're attempting to paint all the tiny windows and doors that you can see, and the buildings get darker as well as more clearly defined.

I really wanted to stick to my initial impression of the softness and muted greys of the buildings, the warm orange from the sky reflected into the sea and the relative darkness of the boats against the water.

I'm happy that I stopped as soon as I felt I'd 'said it'.

Painting in situ

I was also happy that I'd captured the difficult transition between the cool areas of water and the hot orange reflected light, and that I'd done so with a brevity of marks and colour.

Wyllis Heaton at work

It was a real pleasure to be painting alongside friends from the US and UK on that morning, and then to go off for a chocolate croissant and cappuccino afterwards. :-)

Penny German, Felicity House, Louisa Calder, Kelly Medford and Ann Justin

Spectacular San Marco light display

This time last week this amazing spectacle of light greeted me at San Marco, shortly before a rainbow appeared in an arc right over the top of the campanile.

The long stretch of summer

The long stretch of summer
Oils 12" x 16"

Rather appropriate this as I've just been packing up for our summer holiday in France, can't wait to get there and relax! 

This painting's subject is some children enjoying rock pooling at beautiful St Mawes in Cornwall. It reminds me of that wonderful feeling when you're a child and you break up from school for summer. The holidays stretch out ahead of you, seemingly forever.

I asked my lovely Facebook friends for help with naming this painting and had loads of fabulous suggestions, I am sure to use some of them on future paintings. It's so nice to rope the Facebook and twitter communities in for fresh ideas. It's like inviting a bunch of friends round to the studio for a drink at the end of the working day. :-)

Speaking of twitter it's time for #drawingaugust to start again. I loved it SO much last year that I'm going to try again to draw and post a new drawing each day on twitter with the hashtag drawingaugust. If you are on twitter, why not look us up and join in?

I took a few photos of this one as it was going along...

Duke of York square

Saturday market, Duke of York square
Oils 22" x 24" SOLD

It was a fun and exhausting (and at times a little crazy!) weekend at the Pintar Rapido event in London. 501 artists were registered to take part in the painting event, although I think around 400 turned up on the day. Many may have been put off by the weather reports.. we were expecting constant rain and thunderstorms on Saturday! In the event we didn't have a single drop of rain and it was a gorgeous day. Many of my friends did what  I did and carried a large umbrella around all day, which wasn't needed after all.

So on the Saturday you registered in the morning and had your blank canvas stamped, and then you were able to paint outside anywhere you wanted within the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I wanted to capture the life and action of the city on a hot summer weekend, and so I headed to the market in Duke of York square.

There certainly was plenty of life there! I chose a challenging subject and worked on a really large scale at 22" x 24". It was a lot to tackle in a day, with constant interruptions when I explained to spectators what Pintar Rapido was and why they were seeing artists with easels everywhere they went!

I was really drawn to the light coming through the orange sheeting at the back of the Sushi stall, and the light glancing along the tops of the market stall canopies.

The figures had to be placed very quickly, and painted mostly from memory. I'm really pleased that I managed to get a Chelsea pensioner in, walking towards me with his blue peaked cap.

It was such a special moment in the day when I met a couple who had come down from Lincoln especially to see the Sunday exhibition because they follow my blog and had read about the event. If you are reading this I'm so sorry I didn't get to see you on Sunday, but I really am touched that you came. 

I ended up packing away my kit in a rush at 7.00 pm, and had to get back to the Old Town Hall to get my painting framed and handed in before 8.00pm. It was a crazy scene when I got there, artists everywhere rushing to get their paintings framed, with tools, frames, glass etc covering every surface and most of the floor. It was hard to find a clear patch of floor to get mine framed and at the end of all that I was completely shattered and made my way gradually back to the hotel.

This is my painting hanging in the exhibition the next day, and I'm pleased that it sold. It was lovely to see all the different paintings and all the artists assembled together. Unfortunately it was exceedingly hot inside the exhibition and there were no refreshments, so I had to keep going out for a drink and fresh air. 

Apart from that it was a great event, well organised and a chance to catch up with lots of painting friends and I hope I can do it again one day.

Carp pond at Gunby Hall

Carp pond at Gunby Hall
Oils 12" x 16"

On an absolutely beautiful day I had to drop everything else and get out with my paints. I actually went looking for some cows that I'd seen recently but they weren't in the field, so I continued in an easterly direction until I reached beautiful Gunby Hall again. Once there, I knew I would head for the carp pond. I couldn't believe how much it had changed in the last couple of weeks. This yellowy green weed that you can see on the right hand side of my painting had spread far and wide under the surface of the water. I'm sure it's nutritious for the fish but it does rather obliterate all reflections in that area. 

Still, I had a wonderful trip and there were sky reflections still to be had! I'm also looking forward to when the water lilies come into flower, and I'm going to get back here with a model first chance I get. 

Also, the team at Gunby Hall looked after me well and gave me a coffee and with the sun shining too, what could be better? :-)

Sunday market, Morocco

Sunday market, Morocco
Oils 22" x 34"

And here's the finished painting. It's a very different subject for me and I'm pleased that I've fairly well managed to capture the dustiness and the bright light and heat. Hopefully I've also been able to handle the figures and animals loosely, especially the characters in the shade of the tent.

Detail in sepia

It may be difficult to tell from the small picture above the loose and expressive nature of the brushwork up close, so here's a small part shown closer...

detail of donkey

Sunday market part one

Mixing up the same colours

Yesterday I showed you a small plein air oil study that I painted in Morocco at the market at Hedra. I spent most of last week in my studio painting a larger scale version while the scene, the heat, the sounds were all still fresh in my mind. 

Using my painting and a variety of photos that I'd taken I worked out a fairly detailed sketch putting different elements together. I don't always need to do this but it was going to be quite a complicated scene.

I then stretched up a pretty big canvas, big for me anyway at 22" x 34" and set to work.

Compositional sketch

Early stages, blocking in lights and darks

Market at Hedra

Market at Hedra
Oils 10" x 12"
Buy this now!

In the middle of our stay in Morocco we took a taxi ride to a weekly market and wow, what an experience! I had really wanted to see donkeys as they are used all over the place in Morocco but not in the médina of Essaouira where we were staying. We walked all the way through the market which was huge and covered everything from fruit and veg to clothes and shoes and blankets and household wares, all the way to the end where the animals were being traded. The last field was full of donkeys and the one just before was cattle. Apparently there had been camels earlier on but we only saw a couple of those briefly.

It was a really hot day and we'd been warned by several people to expect pickpockets there so we all stayed together for safety and Aziz our driver stayed with us too. We didn't experience any problems but lots of confused looks!

I'm glad we settled down to paint quickly because in the space of two hours the field went from packed to almost empty and even the refreshments marquee was being dismantled (the tent structure in my painting). 

I was very very glad of the Moroccan mint tea when we made it back to a bar :-)

Linda Matthews, Mo Teeuw and I
Photo by Eric Davis

Monsieur Bouabid

Monsieur Bouabid

This was one of my most exciting painting moments from my trip to Morocco last week. Monsieur Bouabid who is the wc attendant near the harbour in Essaouira remembers me from my painting trip last year and so, as we exchanged pleasantries I asked him if I could paint a picture of him right there and then and he agreed! I was a lot braver this year about attempting to put the people into the paintings and I felt that attempting this portrait in the street was a pretty courageous move. 

Of course, the doing of it attracted a lot of attention from the other workers and passers by but I had to pretty much ignore them and crack on. I just didn't know how long I would have and thought that he could have moved off at any moment. (It could be, I was thinking, that I'd misunderstood when he'd apparently agreed to sit for me, in French)

Unfortunately I soon realised that I wouldn't get his whole self in unless I did a naughty thing and shortened his legs by a couple of inches. Usually I would have restarted at that point, with the top of his head higher up on the board but I was in a major hurry thinking that this glorious moment wouldn't last long. So I had to make a decision and I sacrificed accuracy for the added information of being able to include his feet, which will come in useful if I start a studio painting based on this. And if I do I will know I need to lengthen his shins :-)

The painting in situ, outside the toilets

All was not as simple as first appeared with this white jacketed figure lit by bright sunlight. I was amazed at the amount of reflected light bouncing up from the ground, it certainly made things tricky.

Fresh fried fish, Essaouira

You might remember this studio painting from last year, that's my friend Monsieur Bouabid there on the right hand side, underneath the WC sign. 

With a little help from friends

And on this photo taken on a different evening last week I am wearing Mr Bouabid's lovely coat (he lent me it because I was cold) and eating chocolate given to me by another new Essaouira friend. That is why I love love love plein air painting. Unforgettable, unmissable experiences. The kindness of people.

The butchers

Butchers shop with chickens

I love painting on the high street here. It's very very busy so it's hard to get out of the way, but I have a sympathetic shop owner who is happy for me to stand in front. In fact he asked me to mind the shop for ten minutes today while he nipped out!
I'm here with a group of painter friends from the UK, plus we have met with some American artists - one of whom I was already friends with on good ole Facebook. We managed to get eleven of us together one evening for a delicious seafood dinner so that was fun.

Silver light at Mousehole

Silver light at Mousehole
8" x 10"

On the one day that it didn't rain for me in Mousehole this is the other painting I achieved, and I'm really pleased with it. You get such blinding sunlight on the water in Mousehole when the sun is shining. Although this looks a lot like a sunset it was actually painted in the morning. In the foreground of the painting you can see that it's high tide in the harbour. The other noticeable feature is the one boat. In winter the vast majority of boats are taken out of the harbour and onto dry land to decrease the risk of damage. A very good thing too when you consider the awful storms we've had this winter.

When I next visit Mousehole in April there will be a lot of boats back in the water, which is good for me for painting. Although, I do very much like this simple uncluttered scene too.

The colours in the dark area of the harbour wall have subtle differences of hue and value which are not apparent on the photo really.

All three of these paintings were delivered on Friday and available to buy now at the Harbour Gallery.

Today I am travelling to a hotel at Gatwick airport ready to fly to Marrakech in the early hours of tomorrow. I may not have any access to wifi while I'm over there so if you don't hear from me that's why. I'll show you all the paintings when I get back.