Life is exciting on the Twigg studio desk at the moment. Over the last weekend the volume Woodlands 2 was been finished; it contains forty eight, watercolors, photographs and ink drawings and with quite a few of the pieces, I am rather pleased. So now the next step is the start of volume Woodlands 3 of which number 1 is above; of autumnal beech tree woods behind Fairoaks airport. Number 2 is an ink which is about halfway way towards completion. I am so fortunate in having this art work to do; I love being busy this way.

Am giving a talk this week to a group about my adventures as an artist, that will be fun. I love relating the tale of when  guy with a Kalashnikov rifle ran out of a building towards me in Cairo; suddenly I remembered how to disappear very swiftly, which I did. That was one guy which I had no desire to have a chat with. It is nice to realize that life is a little more peaceful around here.

See you all soon. Duncan.

 Good morning all, a photograph today, or more accurately about twenty photographs. These multi image photos are such good fun and the images they produce are rather clever; believe it or not the above image is approximately a 160 degree view, with virtually no observable distortion. Now I have a lens which will do this, but it is big and heavy: now this way is taking many shots overlapping each other. You might notice tas mentioned earlier hat there is so little distortion, which you would expect in such a wide angle shot of this type when taken with super wide angle lens. The tricks are;-

1  Keep the camera dead level, do not tilt the camera in any way at all, as if you were using a spirit level in your head.

2   And two, use the camera in manual setting, taking  the exposure from the center of where the finished image, will be, then using the same setting for all the photos.

3   Putting the images together in photoshop is relatively simple, well not to hard.

You will also notice occasional duplication of certain parts of the image, that's ok, it adds to the ethos and fun of the shot.

Well must go, as the slave driver wants me!

 Occasionally when you are around with  cameras or sketchbook something of note happens We had just finished our recent trip in Sidmouth, just before we arrived there was a significant land slip on the cliffs a couple of hundred yards from where I was seated, just look how the land slip colored the sea. Landslips on this coast are common, having said that the sea isn't often that color.

 We  I am back and agreat deal has happened since my last posting, but lets keep it to the art world.

The workshop in Taunton Somerset went exceedingly well, they were encouraged and I certainly was.

The above watercolor is of a tiny bay near where we stayed on the Rumps Head in Cornwall. During our trip around Cornwall and Devon we visited many small inlets and bays and most resulted in a watercolor. A finished watercolor can take quite a while to produce; the above picture is a good example of this. So I have developed a system of quick watercolor painting, illustrated below, which incidentally is of Heddons Mouth.

The method is ever so simple; splash a lot of watercolor around, with a relaxed attitude to draughtman's skills. Let it half dry and then tighten it up with a pen or pencil; it works. There is another even quicker way which I will show you in a day or so.

Duncan