It is always nice and comfortable to be back home again, whilst at the same time travel is great fun. Image making in all media for me, expands the experience and gives me lasting aids to my memories. Beer in Devon is one of those places which I return to constantly in my mind.

Beer is a small fishing inlet, at the end of a steep narrow valley, this valley opens up as it reaches the sea into a wide sheltered stone beach; idealy suited to beach landing small fishing craft. The beaching and launching is aided by this tractor, which has added tyres on all axles to help give traction over the stones beach; it is altogether a bit of a beast and I love it.

 

We spent hours there the other week as the place has everything we needed, whilst remaining quiet and reserved. No Blackpoolitis thank goodness. A friendly pub, pleasant tea room, art gallery, a few shops, church and not much more; we love the place. Liz always wants to visit the galery for the crockery, she buys a couple of pieces on each visit. This time I produced six images of the same ilk as above; good fun, even if it was a little on the cool side. However wear a good jumper and that is no problem..

 Good morning one and all, as you may be aware I have been out of contact for nearly three weeks, the reason is because we were away whilst a new bathroom was fitted and it must be said that the bathroom is rather splendid; we are very pleased.

Whilst away we lived as nomads in four hotels along the south coast, from Southampton, all the way to our favorite, Sidmouth. We paid two trips to Beer (the location and not the beverage), that amazing fishing hamlet and above is an ink/water-colour produced plen-air.

Liz is always so very suportive with my artistic obsessions; but occasionally she does stamp her feet and lay down rules. This rule this trip was; "One water-colour a day", she likes my water-colours. I almost managed the challenge. Almost because water-colours in this country can be tricky. The above image took about 40 minuets in the open air, the work was finnished of in the bar of the hotel that night. However the open air bit was a tad rough because it was lovely and sunny, but and it was a big but, the wind was blowing and it was ever so cold. That morning I produced three images like the above, so you can imagine that I was slightly chilled when they were finnished.

The trip was a story about hotels, more about that in a few days.