I love to paint the coastline and this is one of my favourite places - Bosham. I like to experiment with different painting styles and this is based on paintings by Steve Hall. Steve uses a giant mop brush to produce all his paintings and this is also my weapon of choice when painting. Mops were originally used in French polishing but their ability to pick up vast amounts of water makes them ideal for watercolour. They do take a while to get used to but it is well worth the effort.
Had an adventurous evening with the Woodley and Earley arts group on Thursday evening, rather than sitting watching a demonstration we had a workshop with Dee Carrol. This comprised of making chalk and charcoal pictures of movement. As it turned out it was a valuable lesson in observation. It was so good that I had another attempt at home with my conte crayons that I have been looking for an excuse to use. You can get some great pictures of people doing actions in the sports pages of the newspapers or buy online at fotolio.com
Whilst in Woolacombe in 2011 we stayed in a rented flat called Lundi Set. The nearest beach was Combesgate and was approximately 400 foot away – straight down! When I did my morning physio and medication I managed to make some sketches looking out of the window at the surrounding landscape. There was no mobile phone signal so I couldn’t look up news on the internet! Anyway I saw this wonderful little shed that was perched like a goat on a hillside and I thought I must draw that. So I did. And this is the sketch. I have ideas on developing this into a painting. The original sketch was worked up in pen and then I added some tone with my Derwent sketching pencils.
The actual accommodation was lovely and well presented. Because Sam was under 1.5 at the time we thought one bedroom would be okay, however Sam refused to go to sleep at his normal time and by the end of the week we were in need of another holiday.
Another version of the same view…I worked on this one back home in my studio. To make the painting work I think I am going to have to move bits about to get a better flow.
I visited Sizewell in the 1990’s when I was at a steam fair held in Bressingham Steam gardens. There is an unerringly quiet beach which appears devoid of wildlife and this is where the boats were along with some old sheds. The day according to my diary was clam and overcast but was overshadowed by the looming monster of Sizewell itself (whatever that means). Why did we go there? Because we had been to the Garrett Steam Museum and felt compelled to go after seeing a scale model of the area! We also had some time to kill.
I started this sketch using a blue pencil to outline the shapes and then blocked in the main areas of colour. Finally I added the details like the blades of grass by darkening the shadow and negative space areas. There are too many strong verticals in this image and I think I should have broken up the picture by rotating the propeller to push the eye round the scene.
Below are my initial sketches and the photo that i took on the day.
This is a sketch that I have done twice now. It is of Aldeburgh in Suffolk and I liked the Tudor building that is so out of place amongst the fishing shoreline. The seafront is littered with little sheds selling fresh fish. And to top it all off you can see the Sizewell Nuclear Reactor.
During my last week at Thrive I noticed a brilliantly green tree on my way to work along Church Lane, Three Mile Cross, Shinfield. Everything else around it seemed to lack colour but the tree really stood out and it felt unreal – Like a lot of things I like to sketch it caught my imagination as painted correctly it looks wrong. So I have used a real acid green to highlight the tree and I have included the jumbled chris-cross of telegraph poles.
Sue always greeted people with a smile on her face and a spliff in her hand...’Tales From Trunkwell’ was a book that Sue and I were writing when I worked at Thrive. It was meant to be a light hearted look at the work of therapists in the garden. This is the first picture for the book and the story is based on part truth and part myth, and most definitely it happened before Sue and I worked for Thrive…
The story goes that in the garden before the Geoffrey Udall Centre there was a small out crop of cannabis grown by an enterprising client – who just brought in some strange seeds and wanted to see if they would grow. Grow they did and medicinally speaking the project, clients and staff were favourable pleased with the results. Then came the fateful day when the stash was found and burnt to the ground sending wafts of paranoia towards the villagers of Beech Hill – In fact the day is recorded in the Beech Hill council notes…7.00 pm meeting opened big dog, strange pink elephants floating around the Elmtree. The meeting closed inexplicably early.
If this story has affected you please speak to Frank.
Due to a very complicated set of circumstances I had to mail a sputum culture to the hospital (If that sound disgusting I apologise and welcome to the world of Cystic Fibrosis – but take it a step further, worse than having to post such an item is being on the receiving end of the aforementioned posted sample!). Anyway I had to catch the first post so I got up early and aimed to be at the post office counter bang on 9am to avoid the queues. I was beaten to the front of the queue by someone’s granny. Dressed in an itchy Edinburgh Woollen Mill woollen suit, with matching hat. I think she was withdrawing a pension and she couldn’t enter her pin. FOUR Times. ‘I’m Sorry dear, it’s my fingers.’
‘No love, it’s because you are old and should be in bed waiting for the rush hour to die down before venturing into the big wide world’, is probably how I would have reacted in the past. But I have seen my future and it involves getting up at the crack of dawn, driving through rush hour traffic like it was a Sunday afternoon and paying my bill at the Tesco’s checkout in pennies. And I think I am going to enjoy it.
For more thoughts on getting old try this poem Warning by Jenny Joseph
By the way if this was your granny please ask her to try a lay-in, so the rest of us can muddle through our lives until we too can enjoy retirement…
The Wokingham Fireworks Spectacular – Last year, we took Samuel to his first ever firework display following on from an afternoon of frolics at a birthday bash in a 10 pin bowling hall. Organised by the The Windsor Forest Unicorn Club (You’d expect it to be the Wokingham Forrest Unicorn Club but there you go…), the weather was great apart from a slight breeze. Unfortunately we missed the processional walk from Wokingham Town Centre to Cantley Park as we were busy eating burgers and playing with a glowing head Lisa Simpson toy in Burger King. We brought our tickets in advance and were able to neatly jump the queues to the beaconing of ‘Oi…this is the queue for the fireworks’, from those not organised enough to pre-purchase. While we waited for the spectacular to begin I found myself surrounded by a group of iphone owning parent piers and I began to feel the pangs of school playing ground envy as I was the only one without an iphone – an unnecessary expense according to Debs (who has an ipad2). Anyway my iphone loving friends – watch this video and feel the quality of an LG Cookie…Bet you’re jealous.
I found this cartoon I did of Thrive’s training manager in 1998 on my computer. I don’t always manage to capture a true likeness more a feeling but I have noticed that some people do morph into their caricatures…see below and tell me do you agree has Kim become more like my drawing?
Every Tuesday evening I am subjected to cries of, ‘Daddy no away, bottle mummy.' I then have to patiently sit through half an hour of hide-n-seek and maybe an episode of Justine’s house before Samuel will accept his bottle and go to bed. Why do I do this? Because Deborah goes to Zuma. An exercise class with her friends and some bloke called Ian Waite apparently he’s a dancer on BBC’s Strictly come Dancing. Having looked at his website I now realise he’s a bit buff and probably works out a bit. I’m not actually sure why Debs comes home all hot and sweaty. She has shown me the moves she has learnt, but to be quite honest it all looks a bit raunchy. I may have to buff up a bit and infiltrate this gang of giggling girls.
Any guys out there fancy a bit of body buffing?
Bosham Harbour, I like this image and thought it fitting to start the New Year, as it was originally drawn 4 years ago when we took a yearly outing to the coast before we had Samuel. The picture works well for me as I think I have created a nice balance of corresponding lights and darks which has created a feeling of depth to the painting. It also gives the viewer the opportunity to roam around the scene before spotting the main character Debs walking along the path. I think I probably should have made Debs look to the right to help push your eye back around the painting, you may notice that there is no facial detail and this is a trade mark of one of my sketches.
Skies can be particularly daunting because with watercolour you can’t go back and repair! This sky was painted with the yellow highlights first that went into the sea below the horizon and then a wash of blue was brought into the yellow areas – Always add a little bit of red to your blue to stop the colours mixing green. The colours used in this image are :- Cobalt blue, French Ultramarine, Windsor Yellow, Raw Sienna, Burnt sienna, Permanent Rose and Burnt Umber.
