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.

 

Thinking about current events, some years ago I had the good fortune to spend a short time in Rome, whilst there a visit St. Peter's was a must do. Being on a walking tour we crossed the square and then walked on into the central city.

Obviously I wanted to share this image with you because of the events, with the passing of the Pope. It was the passing of a very good man, he was a superb example, who believed in scriptural Christianity, he was loved and will be much missed. Let us pray with compassion for comfort towards all Catholics and especially for wisdom to be given the cardinals as they begin the selection process of the next Pope.

On a lighter side, the sketch above was produced as I walked across the square. Water colour palette and pad in my left hand, with a brush and pencil in my right, this was as I walked with my group. Impossible to carry a water bottle as I had no more hands, so sadly and I apologise for this, spittle had to do for water. No cadmium based paints were used, I think.  Amazing that the picture turned out as well as it did.

Seriously, it was a little heath Robinsonish and the rest of my walking tour did laugh. But we all agreed that we got the picture and it caught the mood. 

Take wild risks, they often work.

 

This morning both being sleepy, we had a ly-in, not waking up until nine; now for us that is lazy.Then looking at our diarys and finding today having a blank page, we realised that we had a free day. So a quick breakfast was consumed and then out to play.

Tangmere was the decided destination. For those who are not aware, it is the site of a Battle of Brittan fighter airfield, which now has a museum on site. An hour or so later we arrived and at the museum which was splendid, we would recommend it to all. The only down fall was that there wasn't much to paint, now for me that is a disaster, so out came my camera.

The idea was to not take any documentary type photos, but to go along the arty line. That's what I did , looking for colour, reflections, contrasts and any thing else. This was the side of a Hawker Hunter fighter.

Occasionally to do some thing different is refreshing and jolly good fun.