A glimpse of Montegabbione

Montegabbione from the terrace
8" x 10"

I'm here in France now thinking that I really ought to have sent you a few postcards from my Umbria trip the week before last. The views from the terrace were absolutely beautiful, we enjoyed watching the nearby town of Montegabbione and surrounding hills changing in a never ending array of colour and value. Sometimes hidden, sometimes revealed, sometimes the house facades lit, other times the rooftops, as the distant landscape showed itself through mauves, lavender grey, blues and dusty greens.

I would love to visit Umbria again at a more modest temperature. For the week we were hampered by temperatures of over 35 degrees daily, and sometimes 40. It seems petulant to complain about the non stop blue sky but the humid heat and lack of breeze and places to gather a group in the shade really did make for a difficult week of plein air landscape painting. My band of painters were absolutely fantastic though and managed to produce vast amounts of work despite the difficulties while avoiding heat exhaustion and sunstroke and having lots of fun throughout. So all in all a terrific time :-)

Some of the groups work

Some of the groups work

Some of the groups work

Some of the work produced

Spotted dog at the allotments

Demo at the allotments
12" x 16" Oils

I've enjoyed some great workshops in the last month, here are some photos from one I did in Nottingham with the Spotted Dog art group. Hello to you and the guest artists who came! We had a great day with gorgeous weather and were based in Inham Nook allotments. The allotment association were very good to us, and we also had use of the village hall so all in all a perfect set up.

Here's the demo I did before lunch, I probably could have gone for a simpler subject but well! It was all about that light hitting the glass greenhouse roof. A few of the members said to me that they weren't sure they would even find a subject of interest to paint at an allotments... but I think they'd seen the light by the end of the day. :-)

"How does it all fit together then?"
"Well it's like this...."

Better crack on with this so folks can have lunch

Thanks very much to Dave Singleton for these two photographs.

Old Bank Studios

Giving a demo

Almost two weeks have gone since we last spoke! I haven't painted much since then, we travelled back to England from France and had a four day working week due to a bank holiday Monday. One of those days I drove into the centre of London to deliver some works for the Society of Women Artists exhibition. The other three days were taken up with admin, bookings, photography, printing, framing, shopping, haircut and preparing for my workshop at Old Bank Studios. Oh and an interview for a forthcoming feature in the Lincolnshire Journal magazine. No wonder that week went quickly.

The seascapes workshop on Saturday was a really great day in a fantastic venue with lovely people. Here are some photos of the day. I was bowled over by the quality of the work produced, some of which is shown here. Thanks to Nigel and Bev for the photos and for everything.

Student work

Student work

Student work

Student work

Student work

I know, amazing job all round! I'm looking forward to returning next year :-)

St Clements studio

St Clements studio
Oils on Arches huile paper

I've been breaking myself in to working in the studio again after my long absence in France with some small and quick paintings while preparing for my next big studio paintings. I'm particularly pleased with this one! I think it's a classic example of a painting which says everything it needs to say and no more, which is the message I'm always trying to preach. 

In fact yesterday fifteen brave souls attended my 'Painting faster with oils or acrylics' workshop and tried to do just that - making essential decisions and simplifying the subject down to it's important elements. They tackled all my mad projects with gusto and did the most fantastic job! Seventy-five paintings were produced throughout the day and here's just some of them... the results speak for themselves!

Florida here I come!

Great work from the figures workshop

I'm on the plane on the way to Florida, taking off in five minutes!
It's been a hectic few days (maybe that's an understatement!) so I'm sorry I haven't been in touch!
Just had to show you these paintings from my workshop yesterday called 'painting with figures in a setting', aren't they just amazing?!
These were all completed in less than two hours, as in the morning everyone was hard at work with drawing/design exercises and watching a quick demo.
I am absolutely bowled over by how well everybody did ! :-)

I'll see you in Florida!

Early doors!

Day one at Brunel's old station Bristol - a very busy one! I'm here with the SAA at their 'It's all about Art' event. Here's a photo I took right at the beginning of the day- getting ready to rumble!
After that, I didn't have time to take photos (of course!). I have painted that scene with the beach huts seven times today, to give lots of lovely people the chance to have a try with Winsor & Newton Artist's acrylics.
By the way, the people from Bristol have wonderful accents! I didn't know that before, and it's a pleasure hearing them speak. Although mostly it was the sound of my own voice coming through the speaker behind me that I could hear I'm afraid.
It was especially nice to see you there Joy and thank you for the Friday cake- so sweet of you!
Bit tired but I enjoyed the day, and am looking forward to a lovely dinner tonight :-)

Sketching workshop

Milly aged 7

Milly aged 14

Sketch from Staithes

Today was my drawing and sketching workshop and I would like to say a huge thank you to the fabulous Hare and Hounds pub in Fulbeck for accommodating all eleven of us for the whole day when we found ourselves unexpectedly locked out of the village hall! Please eat at the Hare and Hounds whenever you are passing between Grantham and Lincoln - you will love it! 

Thanks also to Pipa for providing quick poses when we were working on gesture drawing - which was the highlight of the day! We also did a little line and contour drawing, tonal values, notan sketches, upside down drawing and gridding! 

I had a ball yesterday looking through my old sketchbooks, they are such a treasure! Especially lovely to be able to see your children when they were little, there is nothing so tender, so personal, as a drawing.

Tomorrow I am going to be painting antiques... watch this space, as they say! :-)