Stealthy Lines and Excessive Colour

A nice weekend trip to Helsinki.  

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A big 1m square painting of the ice breaking up in Oslo harbour as the spring announces itself.

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Sitting in the sunshine, getting harassed by local dogs, drawing the view in Thornbury near Bristol.  Drawn some time in 2011 maybe?

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This is my most climbed of peaks, near the mothership of Achiltibuie.

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My friend Ren, who so valiantly posed as a corpse on the beach a few posts back, is a martial arts expert.  On a trip to Japan a few years back, she took a couple of images I'd made specifically for the occasion to be presented to the Prince of Japan and to be added to the royal collection. 

Cuckmere.

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A couple of paintings of Brighton.

Behind the Bingo hall.

Entrance to the Pavilion.

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Here's a couple of old boats I found down in Sussex.

Blue boat.

Red boat.

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These two paintings are from a trip to Wales in 2011.  They're both 1m square.  

I went on a camping trip for a few days, which included a stay near my personal favourite spot for mountain biking at Coed Y Brenin. 

This was a follow up trip from the year or so before when I went to North Wales and did a couple of watercolour paintings of National Trust Property 'Bodnant', and Rock Climbers delight Llanberris Pass. 

When I got home I included an etching in the series of artworks, which inexplicably appears at the bottom of this post I wrote a while back showcasing etchings in America.

Pembrokeshire coast.

Valley near the coast in Pembrokeshire.

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Coombe Martin in the Sunshine - 19th February 2013.

Coombe Martin in the freezingness - 20th February 2013.

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My mate, Steve, is a creative powerhouse.  He runs the wonderful doodle manifesto thingy up north http://thedoodlemanifesto.blogspot.co.uk/ which is a melting pot of wonder.  I wanted to do an art-swapsie with him, so did a painting of the Lake District for his beautiful missus for her birthday.  

I'm still waiting for my painting in return.  Hint hint.

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I had a wonderful week in London a couple of weeks back, visiting galleries, chatting with chums, loitering around looking dodgy, and basically catching up on all the things that I'd like to do if I lived there.  It was ace.  To say thanks to my lovely chum, Emma, who tolerated me invading her house for a week, I did a painting of her favourite beach in New Zealand.

It's here (see below).

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Yesterday was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day, and after a quick stop off in Dorchester I visited the Portland peninsular.  The sky was epic, with a searing stream of light burning through and illuminating a piece of the sea several miles out.  However, I ignored that completely and drew the delightful arc of Chesil Beach instead.

Posted in: Dorset , Travels | 0 comments | |

At some point a few months ago I went on a long road trip down to Cornwall and back, to visit some friends, get some country air, see some nice scenery, and just to get away from it all.  I spent one afternoon in Portreath on the north coast and took some photos that I figured would be useful as reference for future paintings. 

Well!

As today is friday, now formally known as "Paint-Off Friday", I figured it time to take advantage of my photographic foresight and do a painting based on aforementioned photos.  So here's a work-as-it-progresses suite of pictures of "Portreath Rock".

Couple of blobs of blue paint to set the scene and get the real dark bits in place. 

Bit more sea.

Sea's done, let's get some rock colours in there.

It looks nothing like the photo, but that's OK cos it's art.

Just about done!

Finished, and now photographed under a bright yellow lounge light to really help bring out those colours accurately. 

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Somewhere in Dorset is a place called "Pamphill" which is basically a farmhouse (I think) that has lots of out-buildings that have been converted into studios for enterprising people to utilise for their work.  There's a framers, and an antiques shop, and a place that sells things that you put in the house to make it look like a old fashioned rural place, and there's a cafe and an upholsterer and so on and so forth.  

I did a little wander around looking for an interesting view and settled on this, namely because it was getting dark so in order to draw and paint the whole picture I had to be super-duper quick-sharpish.  

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I went for a walk down to the river and stood on a bridge to draw and paint.  A few people came and chatted, and one chap mentioned otters.  I didn't see any, but they're there somewhere. 

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Yesterday I went on a little outing for a quick sketching session at a place called Bradbury Rings, in Dorset.  It was cold.  

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At the beginning of 2011 I  went on a quick flight over to Oslo for a long weekend.  It was more or less the first day of spring, and all around me the snow and ice was melting.  I did this series of paintings a little while after, using lots of cool colours to try and get the feeling of the place. I'm arty like that sometimes.  I think this is one of my favourite sets of paintings I've done.

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