Wednesday 26 September 2012

A Week On The Isle of Arran

What a beautiful inspiring place Arran is. It is described as Scotland in miniature and it certainly is with mountains, standing stones, rivers, lochs and stunning views wherever you turn.
We had perfect weather for photographers and painters, lots of sunshine but with heavy showers producing sparkling scenes, great skies and rainbows. I think this photo is probably the best of the whole holiday and was taken on Machrie Moor.  I painted it en plein air as well as now in the studio. I am also working on a lino print of it....very much value for money!
Below my painting sketches completed in situ.
Standing Stones, Machrie Moor

                                                                                            We were really lucky to see lots of local         wildlife too, red squirrels, golden eagles, common and grey seals as well as red deer..magic.


Machrie Moor

Friday 14 September 2012

Off To Arran

I am going on a painting trip to Arran tomorrow. Got everything packed. Hope to keep a daily blog of my stay with sketches and paintings. Well, that is the plan.

Friday 7 September 2012

A Busy Time

Sorry I haven't been up dating my blog much recently but my son and his wife have been over on a visit from Siberia where they live. They were only here ten days so wanted to spend as much time with them as possible so not much time for painting, but a lovely break.
I did manage to complete one painting which is a little different from usual style. A fishing boat coming in to the harbour of Staithes from a night's fishing. I wanted to show what they might have caught and as there was a lot of space at the bottom of the canvas I decided to do a sort of abstracty collagy thing with paintings of a mackerel, cod and herring gulls. As I still had some space I added two familiar icons in the village, smuggler's cottage and the end of the northern breakwater. I am quite pleased at how it worked out and may use this technique some more in the future.
Hope you like it.