Down to Reeth Bay, Isle of Wight

Already, much of the greenery has faded - this was a view from last month of the path leading down to Reeth Bay, also known as The Haven, on Niton Undercliff.   Oil on 8" by 10" board.  

 

ACF canvas - first trial

 ACF canvases are a new company offering terylene canvases - the sort of cloth you can make trousers out of.  And although I've only used the one so far, I entirely recommend them - terylene is a long-lasting material, and offers a very smooth surface, for a cloth.  I was pleased with the way it handled oil paint - and the paint I used for this one was from several manufacturers, notably Rublev, Michael Harding, Daler Rowney, and Cass Arts own brand - all of them well worth your attentioon.

The painting is a 12" x 14" oil of part of Knowles Farm, a National Trust owned slice of land near Niton, Isle of Wight.  The only thing I have against it is the proliferation of cows with explosive digestive systems: you can have too many cows, I find.....  They make walking a hazard....

This one is for sale, at around the £200 mark.  

 

An 8" by 10" oil - I wish I could remember where this is, but I didn't make a note of the sketch from which I painted it: an omission of which I'm often guilty.  I've broken a rule here: the tower is bang centre, and normally one would place it to one side, to comply with the Golden Section: but there it is, I thought it was probably best placed dead centre, and hope the small building to its right helps to balance it.  Cremnitz White, Lemon Yellow, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue Red Shade, Viridian, Buff Titanium - and probably other colours I've simply forgotten: there's almost certainly Burnt Sienna in there somewhere: we try to keep the palette limited, but in practice all sorts of colours get thrown in, in normally tiny quantities.  Should anyone feel like buying it, well - don't hesitate to tell me.  Prices always negotiable. 

 

We all have to have a play sometimes - this was one of those plays: very loosley based on King Henry VII: an acrylic which I could see as being a portrait for a film set - should anyone wish to buy it, and if they do - well, here I am, poised to receive wads of cash.  It was fun to do - of course I could have refined it, but play is play, and I was playing!  If all portraits are really self-portraits in some degree, as I believe they probably are, well.... I hope it's not too much of a selfie.. I don't have that much hair to start with..

A couple of oils - and a story of stupidity

 Still struggling with cameras, and more particularly with Microsoft's various updates on uploading photos to my computer: I do feel that I'm getting a little old for this sort of thing.

Not to mention cack-handed: I've managed to stop myself from posting on or moderating on the Painters' Online website, by deleting the wrong person, i.e. me, rather than an AI post.  Took just one slip of a silly old fool's finger, and - I slipped.

Have a couple of oils, one 10" by 8", of a wet and windy path which I painted in the Winter but couldn't get a good photograph of, and another - which again: t'ain't perfect, but it's the best I seem to be able to do - of a more Summery bit of coastline, not far from the Wintry one I showed earlier.

I used Prussian Blue - not a colour I often use, and - now I know why.  Came around in the end, though. 

Actually a bigger painting - but let's just say I cocked up, and leave it there!  

I may have another crack at it later: but patience with technology isn't one of my stronger points. 

Goodbye Charlie, you were a champion

 

Chased her last rat, nipped the last dog tails or legs as they hung over furniture, begged for her last treat or substantial portion of my dinner - Charlie, my landlord's dog - whom I've known for just about her whole life - passed on very quickly, thank God, a few days ago.  Why I wept buckets I'm not sure: I knew she was ailing - she had been for quite a while - she was very old - she could drive you right up the wall and back down again.  In her last year, she didn't quite know where she was: she would stand stock still, look at nothing in particular, and bark; she evacuated her bowels (sorry Charlie, I know this is indelicate, but come on, you did!) right outside my door, and occasionally in the landlord's flat when she felt she needed to make a point: this is not something she'd ever have done when younger - she got ornery, forgetful, irritable, deaf - you could walk up to her from behind, and she'd suddenly jump when she caught your scent.  

My landlord, one Chris, inherited her from his mother: Charlie then imprinted on Chris's partner, the lovely Pat, who died in due course; Chris was told Charlie was vicious - she was as vicious as a marshmallow on a feather cushion once you got to know her, and vice versa.  Feisty, yes!  Absolutely she was feisty - aggressive, conscious of her status and dignity, mistress of all she surveyed: biting my second landlady in the bottom when she got cross with Chris .... oh yes: she was all of that.  But never vicious - that was a vile calumny, and if Charlie had understood it was, she'd have had your throat out......  Vicious!  Tush...  

I painted her portrait in 2017, as she flopped, in hot weather, in a crack in the paving outside my landlord's flat - she didn't pose: she got up at the most awkward moment, but!  I had thought to take a photograph, and there she is.  I miss you, dog: I expect to see you coming round the corner, wagging your tail when you realized it was me - never over friendly to other dogs (well after all, who DID they think they were, trespassing on her domain? - coming round here, sniffing her backside!  The very idea!): yapping at my door when she sensed fish and chips - she was very partial to a chip; even more so to a bit of fish in batter - chicken was popular too; a slice of pork; a bit of roast potato ... all she asked was a little consideration, a nibble, the occasional succulent slurp - and that's all she got, but she was quite reasonable about it, on the whole.  

Then, a few days ago, a gasp, a stagger - and that was it.  It could have been so much worse, and I'm grateful for her sake that it wasn't.  This may well be sentimental - yes, it probably is: but I'd rather be sentimental than as cold as a witch's wotsit - a lot of emotion was wrapped up in that dog, for all of us living here: and she deserved an In Memoriam, so - this is mine. 

Wintry coast, Isle of Wight

 I've been working on this 20" x 8" panoramic-type painting, in oil, off and on for a while - for a long time it existed as just underpainting: I was urged to leave it like that, because it worked (or anyway others thought it did).  This plunged me into a not untypical agony of indecision, but ultimately I thought there were bits that at least needed tightening up; and from there - well, OK, you've tightened it up; now finish it.  So I did.

The subject matter reflects that it was Winter when I started it; I'm planning to do a Spring/Summer version, knowing that not everyone will like these de-saturated (i.e. muddy, though in my opinion natural) colours.

It's on stretched canvas - which I don't often use these days -  consisting of Flake White NT, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Viridian, and Ultramarine Blue - now there's a "limited palette".  

A couple of tiny watercours - a couple of bridges

 Ransacking my old sketchbooks, I came across a couple of sketches of bridges; I know one is on the Isle of Wight, I'm not entirely sure where the other one was: maybe it's even another view of the same bridge.  The one with the green tree is 12 x 17 cm, the rather more wintry one is even smaller, at 10 by 10 cm.  Two Hahnemühle papers, the bigger one on their Rough Torchon, the other on Veneto.

Call me absent minded by all means, but as I used a couple of watercolour palettes, the portable type, with pans, and the colours aren't identified - I'm not sure what I used; but certainly Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, a primary yellow, and Viridian.

Acrylic on Seawhite wood panel, ca. 16 1/2" by 12" - using the most basic Daler Rowney Graduate acrylics, just to see what can be done with the cheapest paints I have - I was quite impressed by their quality: desaturated colours, very suitable for late Winter and very early Spring greens on the Isle of Wight coast: no need for brilliant colours here, unless you're one of those Scottish colourists de nos jours, who zhoosh everything up: which, I suppose, sells - though not to me.  

Wet in Wet - and then some

 Wet, Wet, Wet - this was February and March 2024 on the South East Coast of the Isle of Wight.  Worrying amount of rain given the cliff on which our house is perched is a mix of shale and mud, held together by trees such as these.  You can't help wondering just how much more climate change we're going to be able to stand.

Don't tell me the climate isn't changing, or "it's just weather" - I've been infesting this earth for 74 years come November, the climate is certainly changing, and governments aren't meeting the challenge.   Not a very cheering message, but then - it's time we ALL faced up to the facts.  

This watercolour is 12cm by 17cm, painted on Hahnemühle Rough Torchon - the technique is known as wet in wet, because it consists of wet washes being allowed to bleed into each other. 

Misty Morning

 Watercolour - in a format which suits the Isle of Wight coast - I ought to make use of it more often!

And a small one:

The Pastel that nearly blew away

 My flat is dark - so I have to take photos of pictures outside.  At the moment, this is a question of dodging the rain, and battling the wind.

This pastel nearly blew away - hence it's skew-wiff.  I rarely use pastel, but apart from the dust, they're a bit of fun now and then.

This is based on a lane near here, and I say based because (as is typical) I've forgotten where I sketched it; I've changed the sketch a bit, to reflect the fact that everything just now is wet, muddy, and generally 'orrible.  It's got to dry up a bit soon, hasn't it.....? 

Whale Chine, Isle of Wight, Winter

 Two paintings, oil, 8" by 10", of the ever-changing Whale Chine, subject to frequent erosion and land movement.  I confess that I used an old sketch for the view from the sea, and an old painting of my own - it's very dangerous to get down to the beach, far too risky for someone of my age - and anyway, the Council warns you not to try.

These are both in oil, colours used Ultramarine, Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Chrome Yellow (Hue), Flake White, and Quinacridone Violet - just the Siennas, Ochre, the two blues and white used in the second painting. 

And a very small watercolour of a frequent visitor to this coast, 12cm by 17cm - too small for me to photograph well, so I had to scan it, losing some foreground depth of colour in the process.  But there we are, such is life, and the Shag has a harder life than mine.  (A now deceased colleague and I were visiting St Mary's Hospital on the island, on an inspection: we saw a magnificent specimen of this bird alight on one of the ponds in the grounds - my colleague wanted a closer look, so cautiously moved nearer: "If anyone asks," I wittily remarked, "don't say you're looking for a shag."   My how she laughed .......

Footbridge, from Somewhere in Sussex

 

A rather selective version of a photograph from my brother - so selective that I doubt he'll recognize it.  Showed it on Painters Online, but I think I've managed to take a rather more accurate photo here.  Oil, on birch panel, 42cm x 30cm.

For sale, as is everything on here provided I've not sold it already.....  Inquire within, on anything.  Well, it nearly rhymes.

Chine, Isle of Wight

 We have chines on the Isle of Wight - and doubtless they have them elsewhere.  Areas of eroded land, bordering the sea - sometimes quite a long way back from the coastline - forming a valley.  Some are well-known tourist areas, such as Shanklin Chine.  This isn't Shanklin Chine - its a composite.  Call it Composite Chine....

Watercolour on Hahnemühle Rough Torchon, 12 x 17cm.