The last few days have seen me being being distracted for several reasons, as such I failed to place a blog for a few days; unbelievably face book reprimanded me for failing in my blog writing!!!! So here is a blog.

Above is a watercolour sketch of the lanes in Brighton. Liz and myself love the busyness of the area. Its good fun, go if you have the chance.

But my thinking today is about stepping back a little and recharging. The last six months have been very busy. A large six month exhibition running in conjunction with a smaller local one, group work, the NHS, individual support work, Scouting work, all in addition to my routine project work looking at trees; it has been a busy period and I am tired. So the sensible thing is to step back, just for two weeks and chill a little. Remember to look after yourself and let friends support you a little. The most important part of that for me is how I start each day; I begin with a short while with the Bible, and a time of thinking, followed by a time of prayer; now that is a super recharging session for each morning.

 

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Above is Mount Mosa in the Wadi Rum in the deserts of Southern Jordan, where the film lawrence of Arabia was filmed and the actions found in the book "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" occured. With Liz, I was seated in a four x four bouncing over the dunes. Somehow all the sunlight and heat has been captured in this sketch; this is what sketching is about. Occasionally we stopped and I managed to do a quick sketch. The above took about 15 minuets, when our driver told me that he wanted to carry on bouncing over the dunes again; he was a bit of a very pleasant maniac. All jolly good fun.

But a reminder, the last week of my exhibition at St. Columbas' starts today.

 

Good morning, this morning one of my long term favorites. It was drawn about twenty years ago in St. Ives Cornwall; when believe it or not this was still a shop. I hasten to add that I did not go in.

Exciting news, this Sunday coming I am taking part in Dragon boat racing on the lake at Goldsworth Park, in Woking. I hasten to add that I will not be paddling but rather the drummer beating out the rythmn, should be good fun. We are raising money for the local hospice. If you would like to sponcer me, visit the St. Andrews web site where details of how to sponcer me are portrayed.

Will I drown, will I be thrown in, one thing I know, it will be good fun, come along and watch, racing starts at 10 am.

 

Had a super day last Saturday, Liz was busy, so I was free to wander into London and do a little sketching; lovely. Met an Aussie who was doing the UK in one day, now that takes some beating; I would love to see the timetable for that. Joking asside she was a nice lady. It is a while since I sketched in the capital, and to be honest I was a little rusty, therefore they were binned when arriving home; so I have posted and old image for you. But I did one brave thing, by having a sushie for lunch and actually enjoying it. Walked nearly five miles, got home happy and exhausted.

My exhibition at St. Columba's is going well, a few have been sold, it's all encouraging and  remember if you want to see it, there are only three weeks left now. The exhibition is at:-

St. Columba's House,

Maybury Hill,

Woking,

 GU22 8AB 

Open office hours. Remember to ring 01483766498 before attending, as being amongst other things, it is a conference centre and occasionally sensitve events are taking place.

The last few posts have been at the seaside or holidays and not my ongoing tree work; so today an amazing tree, which is a mile or so to the east of Newlands Corner along the North Downs Way. The woods change here from decidious to evergreen woodland and this massive tree is the last decidious tree before the fir trees take over, towards the north of the path. The light stroking the trunk was stunning. At present I am working on a Crack Willow situated on the Wye Navigation, so differant, such diversity

We are so fortunate in this country having such a diverse wildlife and in particular, woodland variety on our doorsteps. 

 

 A bit of a change today, I love painting as you all well know, however my love of the arts is much broader than brushes and paints. Photography has always held a facination for me. Over my life time this art form has undergone many amazing changes; notwithstanding in the last twenty or so years with the advent of the digital aspect. And now we have the amazing abilty of mobile phone photography. The quandry is to select the good from the not so good, then moveing forwards with what you feel is the good. Today I am looking at one way forwards with the digital aspect.

Firstly, I still work out the exposure and all that stuff with the old film method, it works and as far as I can see, it is hard to learn but cannot be improved on for excellency of results; it certainly in difficult situations give the most accurate results. But digital capture has now come of age and is far better than the old film ways and cheaper. The above photo of steps leading down to the harbours water edge in Lyme regis is a good example; old fashioned film style calculating, with digital capture. Notice that by using moderm photography methods, they blend wonderfully with the  ancient black and white image style. More about that another day.

 

Mist over Charnmouth Bay

When on holiday we get a chance to do fun things which normally we do not have time for. One of my fun things is to do a painting in three ways; that is, a water colour, then an ink, which is followed by a pencil drawing or a photo. Do all three or four at one sitting, just relax, whilst enjoying yourself. It is totally absorbing and helps you to really see what you are looking at, because each media highlights differing aspects of the view. Incidentally while you are doing this you will be emotionally in a different place; its rather a nice way of doing things.

I was at Charnmouth for about a couple of hours, a water colour was produced (above) followed by an ink and then lastly came a photograph; it was windy, but not at all cold; that is by my standards, Liz would disagree. This small inlet is  big fossil hunting area and people were dotted around busily hunting for long dead stony remains. A happy place, with everybody being busy, not having time to talk to one another. That makes a change, as it is rare for me to be able to sit painting without at least one or two people coming over to me for a chat. Its a good job that I like people, because that is large part of painting outside.