At the moment life is rather hectic, having just returned from a holiday trip and organising and delivering work for two exhibitions.

But first the holiday, it was on the River Seven on a hotel barge, very nice indeed. One of the places visited was Gloucester and in particular the docks; these ancient docks were amazing. The above picture is of a mooring ring, with goodness knows how many boats tied up to it. I am sure health and safety would like a little impout there, but it does make an interesting picture.

So now two plugs for my exhibitions. 

First;  Guildford Arts at the Lockwood studios, on the Slyfield industrial estate, GU1IRR. A shared, Summer Exhibition, weekends only from the 2nd of August until the 31st of August. This is a first chance to see some of my new ands current project work, based on the returning to nature through decay of old fishing boats around our coasts.

And secondly; St Columbas Christian Conference Centre, Woking GU228AB, week days, office hours. All are welcome, however due to the sensitivity of much of the work done here it would be a good idea to ring first on, 01483766498.

Now I will put my feet up for a while.

Duncan

 

Well at last we are home, that is always so very nice. A few evenings just watching a DVD while being seated together on the settee; we are going through Foyles War at the moment.

We spent a few hours in Tewkesbury and loved the place.

Above is a quick sketch of the West door of Tewkesbury Abbey; it is not a highly polished and finished piece of work. It was produced whilst sitting on a sharp corner of a grave stone, not very comfortable, believe me, but it was the only possible seating which gave this view! It is only two and a half inch's square, but it captures the feeling of a corner of this ancient stone work. Although maybe the smallest and not the cleverest work of this recent trip, my feelings are that it says the most. Maybe it is my favorite.

So clever and big are not always the most meaningful.

 

 

You might be thinking, why has there been no blog for a few days; the answer is simple as there had been before an almighty, hectic few weeks. The culmination of this was a hotel in a barge, holiday on the River Severn, where we had a lovely time, with lots of tales to tell. Amongst the places visited were Worcester; the sun was blistering, perfect for a watercolor painting, so what transpired? See above and below. 

Thankfully I like people of all types.

I sat on a raised curb stone and relaxed, soon my solitude was broken by an unhappy lady whose marriage had just fallen apart. So I listened for a short while and wished her well. Next a friendly chap appeared with an even friendlier, massive, slobbering canine, they decided to come and join me. We chatted whilst I protected the painting from slobber damage. Then lastly a so called commercial expert joined me advising me as to how salable my work was. It was explained to him that I was on holiday and the idea was to relax a little. Others stopped and chatted a while, but no more experts, needy, or canine slobber drip owners appeared. Seriously I had a good time; Liz had been meeting an old friend for the day.

Next a while was spent in the cathedral, a short time to stop and pray was a good idea. I left the place calm, relaxed and ready for my next adventure.

We had a lovely break, more tales to follow.

 

I have said in the past that moving up from A4 sized images to A2 would present a few challenges; well it has. principally has been the digital scanning. having an excellent A4 scanner, scanning is  normally straight-forward, that is in simple terms. Oh dear: computers are not that simple!

The above A2 water colour, enhanced with a little ink work comes to mind. Four scans across the bottom, which were digitally joined. Then four scans across the top which were also digitally joined. Then those two images were digitally joined manually. The computer did not like me taking control. It took me a couple of hours; good grief!! The result doesn't look bad either.

I plan to produce several watercolor images of this size in my present project, Oh Dear! Maybe I will find a simpler way around this scanning malarky. 

The picture is of the coble landing at Filey, which is called "A jolly good read". Note the book worm on the extreme right.

Well my exhibition at St Columba's is over; it is always a pleasant feeling, having had an exhibition ending which was such a success: thank you all.

So onwards and upwards, so to speak; there is now an invitation only summer exhibition at St. Columba's which I was pleased to be invited to show in. Showing are three of my A2 ink woodland paintings, the above is one of them, it is of Hangar Woods near Newlands Corner, just to the north of one of our favorite walks along this ancient pilgrims trail from Winchester to Canterbury. Incidentally a friend of ours has just done the walk as a pilgrimage, I was a little jealous, the walk sounds super. This show is for two months and has just started.

 

When visiting please remember the sensitivity of much of the work being done at St. Columba's, so please give them a ring first. A warm welcome always awaits visitors. The number is, 01483766498.

My current project work now is looking at the British decaying fishing sea craft, which is great fun. At present my struggles are with a coil of chain on a shingle beach; that is realy stretching me a little. Keeps me out of mischief.

 

Well time moves on and my exhibition at St Columba's is coming to an end; in fact the next few days are the last week of this showing. A big thank you to all of you who visited, viewed, past comments and indeed a few of you who bought my work; affirmation is essential, it helps me on my journey.

Next week at the same venue is an exhibition of several artists and an invitation has been given to me to exhibit three of my more recent works. Above is one of them, the Hoe Stream, running through the Mayford meadows, just a few yards of the Edgley Road; basically it is a study of water surface tensions and the conglomeration of all-sorts of items and growths on the surface as it slowly passes by.

 At the present My work seems to be at a junction, image size has increased up to A2, which brings with it fresh challenges; it realy is all rather exciting. A fresh project is underway with a showing planned for next year, but that is another tale and at the same time another idea is floating around in my head, if it comes of that will be awesome.

It is early bank holiday Monday, I am sat in my study,  having painted for an hour and done my blog, so what are Liz and myself going to do today, or where will we go? It might be a lazy quiet day, or we might go somewhere. Let's wait and see.

 

Today was one of those days when with a little spare time appearing, the weather being super, so it was obvious what to do, of we went to Hatchlands for a short walk and a picnic; it proved to be an amazing nature awareness trek. 

On the way there a buzzard flew in front of the car, it was closer that ten yards; with what looked like a rabbit in its talons. Poor bunny.

Then at Hatchlands we strolled to the sheepdip lake and met two Egyptian geese with their young; they were not intimidated in the least by our presence and were happy with us walking not two yards from them. We reached our favorite bench, they followed on behind us, settling only a few yards away; we started to eat and enjoy that awaited  picnic.

Then the peace ended with much screeching and squawking. half a second later a mallard flew off in great haste, with the daddy egyptian goose hard on its tail. The mallard was minus a tail feather or two; a lesson learned the hard way to leave egyptian geese and their young alone.

 A few moments later the goose returned and landed on the water about four yards away, he as high as a kite, all full of testerone, very angry, upset, displaying much agitation, a poor analogy could be,"Not a happy bunny". He squawked and pranced around. Mum came out of the reeds with her two youngsters; she calmed him down a little, I imagined she said some thing like,"Well done dear, now you have done the manly thing, now be grown up and calm down a little" One of the chicks went up to dad, that had a remarkable effect on him, calming him instantly. withing a minuet they all curled up and had a family nap.

We finished the picnic; I also did a very mediocre sketch, which I am not going to show you.