Oh well the exhibition for Fordingbridge is all ready to take down there and hang, so for a few days I can relax a little and just simply enjoy my art, for arts sake. That is taking the form of ink work along the Wey navigation, around Woking and Guildford as it meanders through the most beautiful countryside. But one of those images for another day.

One of the media which I have been exploring recently is wire sculpture and painting, like the above. Its all good fun and goes like this, obtain a roll of .58mm copper wire (Maplins) and construct, weave, sculpt, or whatever you want to call it, your object. Then paint it in a very loose ipasto  style with acrylics. After which the work is stitched with the afore mentioned  wire to a base board. Very fiddly, can be a tad messy, but good fun. Comments have been very positive, lets see how they go down in the New Forest Next week?

A quick water-colour sketch of Port Quinn done on a recent trip to Cornwall. If it is warm enough to allow for reasonably quick drying time, water-colour is a super sketching tool. My palette is about the size of a box of Swan Vesta match's, two collapsible brushes and only a 100ml plastic bottle for water. Very small and compact; all the above will easily fit into the jacket pocket or bag. Small palettes of the above mentioned variety, are readily available at most craft or art stores.

But the good news is that the Augustus John, an art pub in Fordingbridge on the western side of the New Forest, has invited me to exhibit there from the 1st of March this year for a month. Brian who runs the place, pulls a good pint, the food is very good indeed and it is nice place to spend a short while  relaxing within its walls. Incidentally it is so called as it was the local pub for Augustus John, an artist whom you will no doubt know as an artist of great national renown.

I keep saying how important art is as a communication tool, well the other day whilst at a hospital where I work and chatting to a lady, we talked about both our artistic endeavours. She produced photos on her phone of rather super wooden turned creations, amongst other things. In the chat we talked about Lincoln Cathedral where I had the privilege to work as an artist some years ago, I said that one of the Lincoln drawings from that period would appear on this site this week.

The drawing was one I produced when leading a group in learning how to handle painting in very public places. It was  glorious sunny August, Saturday, early afternoon at the west end of the building and we had hundreds of tourists surrounding us and watching we the twenty or so artists image making. It was a lovely friendly, chatty sort of day; lots of confidence levels were raised to new levels.

To paint whilst being surrounded by people who you have not met before, is such a privilege and honour; barriers go down and people just become friendly, dropping many of their prejudices and hardness's of life. Try it.

Maybe I have gone on enough, To the lady I met; I hope you like the drawing and the rest of you, see you soon

You will no doubt have heard all the fuss about the blue moon the other night, well it was to much to resist so of Liz and myself went up to Newlands Corner (a hill away from light pollution) to try to photograph the event. It was my first attempt at astrological photography.I remembered a few things which Andy (Sheffield) told me years ago, and learnt a few more things.

Andy's wisdom!!! The exposure for the moon is normally the same as an exposure for a bright sunny day. It seems a funny exposer to use in the pitch black, but it was a good starting point. The other way of getting the exposure right is to use a 1% spot meter, if you have one!

And the lesson was, practice using the camera and tripod blindfolded beforehand (it was pitch black). My tripod head is a geared one, a bit of a beasty, enough is to say it is complex and not easy to use without the use of eyes to see with. Fumbling in the dark was tricky, but we won in the end.

I might try something a little more ambitious in the future. 

PS. Liz didn't move from the car as it was a tad cold.