One very sleepy morning, I assume that I will wake up shortly. The drawing this morning is one which was finished just ten minuets ago and is straight off the scanner. It is an ink drawing which shows a line of old beech trees; I saw them a few weeks ago in Somerset. The idea is about how the light drifts through and between the trees. A slightly complex drawing which involves no traditional drawing methods; but rather lines, circles, squiggles, scratches and many other kinds of marks, a sort of shorthand, with the final image of a representation of the trees. An A3 drawing, which took quite a while to produce, with a rewarding conclusion.

A nice e-mail this morning; a gallery has approached me and want me to exhibit with them next year; we all like and need encouragement.

Yesterday when in town, Liz and myself bumped into an old friend of hers from long ago. In a few days she is off up north and spending a day or two in York; one of my favourite cities. So here is a water-colour for you Fran.

It was a lovely day sketching in York a couple of years ago. As I was sat on a low wall outside the West end of the Cathedral working, a pony and trap with passengers on board was passing by, the driver stopped and passed me a cushion to sit on, saying that he would be back in half a hour for it. Then shortly afterwards a waitress came out of Betties (the well known coffee shop) with a cup of coffee for me; I was really spoilt that day. Several passers by stopped to chat as well; all in all it was rather pleasant. Maybe the resulting water-colour shows that I was a little happy. Out of interest my last blog was of Wells and not Bath.

Sorry about my last blog (poor grammar, site layout, etc) but really no proper excuses, except for a small machine, new system strange,  surroundings, etc; I will try harder this time.

The above is the main street in Bath, done during a quick stop over to buy some shoes. The rule this year was just one water-colour image in each place visited, this one took just 55 minutes, timed; and then off and away. Good fun and sharpened me up a bit, as well as rest from the usual inks.

Liz and myself have just had a super week at the New Wine Festival in Shepton Mallet in Somerset, we went each morning going to the hungry venue to listen to amazing woman called Emma ? head of theology Trinity College Bristol. Her teaching on Ephesians was just out of this world.

Then each afternoon Liz and myself did the tourist bit and jaunted around, one day we ventured into   Bath and saw this amazing cyclist; hope you like him or her, I am not sure which it is. I suppose  

if we are being correct, it could be non-binary.

We are now in Sheffield, meeting up with lots of friends and simply chilling out a little. See you all in a few days.

 

Well a good week just gone and on Thursday, we are off traveling again. This time to the New Wine festival at Somerset where I am again exhibiting and also to our usual lovely stay in that very old barn conversion in Crossecombe. 

On Saturday just gone I was bullied by friends and wife to enter a local art festival, exhibiting one of my waste paper sculptures and lo and behold it got the first prize. IT being as it is would not let me place an image of it on this site, so here is a similar creation, this time of 1st. cent. Galilee and the type of boats which the disciples used to fish from.

We looking forwards to a good refreshing week at New Wine and lets hope that my exhibition sells something. After that we are going to spend a few days relaxing with our dear friends in Sheffield.

See you in two weeks.

 

Had a good few days during the last week, lots has been happening. One of the events as well as the usual routing was talking to new art students at a local school (year 10). There was the usual mixture of interested and the not so interested; that's ok. But amongst the interested were over half a dozen young people with rather surprisingly amazing talent. I would love to see their work after three years at art school. It was pleasant experience, everybody was so nice and kept calling me sir!!! I'm not very used to that.

 

Just so that you know that I am not ignoring my trees, here's one I finished a few days ago.

First thank you to Malcolm; indeed Melk is in Austria and not Germany. Maybe to many borders were crossed and forgetfulness on occasion occurred as to where in reality I was.

Sketching on a trip like this is always challenging, and opportunities have to be taken as they arise. The two sketches on view today were both done from the boat as we chugged along.
The upper piece is a fishing lodge somewhere in Hungary, these were every few yards even in the wilder stretched of the river. You will notice the derrick type apparatus, their fishing is very technique ridden at times; if you are interested I will explain how they do it. The lower one is of a cabin cruiser on the continental divide, we saw many small boats of all shapes and sizes; the locals obviously loved their water based pastimes.
Works like the above may not be fine art, even if they can be rather nice drawings; however they do add significantly to the work as a whole by making statements of life styles, etc.
The work on the Danube is now finished, it comprises of  91 quick works, 6 worked up water-colours and about 100 photographs, an essay and lastly a map, filling three volumes.  This is available for anybody's perusal, just contact me.