Hard Rope and Silken Twine

Hard Rope and Silken Twine
Watercolour.
38 cm x 38 cm or 15 inches x 15 inches

Every now and then we go to a marvelous place called McSalvors. It is a sort of huge army and navy store crossed with a chandlers mixed up with an ironmongers with a bit of builders merchant. Put simply you can find a lot of really useful things there and a huge amount of things that you didn't know you needed until you saw them there! Anyway it is all piled up on metal shelves or stacked up on the floor and for someone like me, who has a bit of a "thing" for string and rope, it is heaven.
So here we have rope and lovely labels scrawled with an iron-mongery script. The title is of course a reference to my most favorite band ever. Wonder if anyone knows who they are...

Rain Heavy Sky

Rain Heavy Sky
Watercolour
10 inches x 30 inches or 25.5 cm x 76 cm

There are lots of colours to be found in the landscape at the moment, the wet rich earth, the changing leaves. Autumn is here and the last leaves are awaiting a gale to send them fluttering to the ground.
This is the view above Frenchmans Creek, you can just see the river on the left of the painting, where it splits and goes up to Constantine one way and Gweek the other. Ancient oak woodlands make a textured cushion on Groyne Point.
Here are a couple of details.

Low Tide, Evening.

Low Tide, Evening.

Watercolour.

59 cm x 42 cm or 23 inches x 16.5 inches.

A weak sun sinks taking the colours of the day with it, leaving the wet sand like a silvery mirror. The beach is strewn with clumps of storm washed kelp and flecks of foam blow across the shining sands.

Autumn

Autumn
Watercolour
37cm x 50cm or 14 inches x 20 inches

It feels like ages since my last painting, Summer has flown and Autumn is defiantly here. I have spent the last few weeks flat out with my "job" as an illustrator, working on some illustrations with a very tight deadline. Having hit the deadline I rewarded myself with a painting workout. I have been planning this painting for a while, a corner of a greenhouse, with everything piled up ready for winter. I love the smell in greenhouses, warm earth, tar and string and I love the patterns made by the haphazard arrangement of pots and tools. I also like to be there as the watercolour washes gradually tighten up to reveal the shapes that I am trying to capture. Lastly but by no means least, I enjoy Autumn. The mists, the smells and the feeling of readying up for winter, the melancholia of it, beautiful!

In The Dark Woods

In The Dark Woods

Watercolour

50 cm x 140 cm or 20 inches x 55 inches

I am experimenting with large watercolours. I haven't seen that many around, this is pure watercolour as well, no ink, body colour, acrylic or pastel thrown in here.

I have a desire to paint a bigger picture but I don't quite have the courage to spend allot of money on a roll of watercolour paper, I have found some 300gms weight, 1.5m x 9m !! A lot of paper. So to see if this is really what I want to do I found some lighter paper that comes in sheets of 50 cm x 70 cm, I have taped some of these together and am giving it a go. This is all by way of research and development, a great way to paint, quite liberating.

Anyway this is the result, you might find it easier to see if you click on the image and make it come up larger. This is deep in the dark woods amongst the trees as tall as cathedral roofs. The painting process is the same, bigger brushes tho and lots more paint, longer drying times and a lot of stepping back, I need a big drawing board to strap it all to, and, one day, a super expensive, huge, watercolour brush!

Palm

Palm
Watercolour
40cm x 50cm or 16 inches x 20 inches

Phew! That was complicated to paint! I was wandering through Trebah Gardens and couldn't resist the light on these leaves. There appeared to be such strict symmetry amongst such turbulence of colour and shape, I was hooked. I did feel a bit like Rolf Harris while painting it..."can you see what it is yet?"
I started with a bit of a drawing, trying to plan I suppose, I was going to make careful use of masking fluid but I found doing that was utterly confusing. So I carried on in pure watercolour, laying down many washes, gradually building up the picture, delving into the jungle. I wanted to get the essence of the shadow on the long leaves and the feeling of amazing order among the chaos, the splashes of bright light and the huge array of greens and yellows.

Here are a couple of details but if you click on any of the pictures they will be much easier to see how the paint is placed, if you are interested in that sort of thing!

Tree Fern

Tree Fern
Watercolour
42cm x 56cm or 16.5 inches x 22 inches.

Prehistoric tree ferns, a slight mist rising in the warm air, deep steamy jungle, the luscious fronds making a canopy of dappled shade.

Bamboo

Bamboo
Watercolour
42cm x 56cm or 16.5 inches x 22 inches

Far far away, down at the secret end of Cornwall is a sub-tropical garden, in the sub-tropical garden there is a bamboo maze, inside the bamboo maze there is a bamboo seat, on the bamboo seat sits a happy artist, in the happy artists hand is a scrawling pencil, underneath the scrawling pencil is a scribbly sketchbook, out of the scribbly sketchbook comes the scribbly sketch, from the scribbly sketch comes a splashy watercolour, after some time the splashy watercolour becomes a painting... and here it is. Bam! Boo!

The Night Garden

The Night Garden
Watercolour
40cm x 40cm or 16inches x 16 inches

By the light of a full moon a garden becomes the stuff of fairy tales. It is perfectly possible to imagine all manner of magical beings inhabiting a world such as this. The tall bamboos and the giant gunnera all conspire to invert your own sense of scale, the silvery light throws unexpected shadows and conjure up another time.
This was a little sneaky of me to go here after dark but a bit of stealthy paddling and a tiptoe across a pebbly beach opened up such riches that I couldn't resist... I took nothing, only memories, some sketches and I left a few wet footprints, that's all.

Detail showing the white bridge, now an inky silhoutte

Detail showing the moon as she peeps through a troubled sky.

Night Lights

Night Lights
Oil
15cm x 15cm or 6 inches x 6 inches

I was out and about, making the most of the full moon, actually I think it if fully full tomorrow. This is a little study of what I assume to be a night fisherman, maybe it wasn't, could have been someone like me, intent on a little moon gazing. Or something else entirely!

Helford Regatta.

Helford Regatta.

Watercolour

40cm x 40cm or 16inches x 16 inches

Fireworks at the end of the Regatta. Chest punching booms and gasps of delight as the night is illuminated in brief glorious bursts. Colours flash and fizz into the water in defiance of the inky black of a summer evening.

Trebah Gardens

Trebah Gardens

Watercolour

Large Moleskine

Trebah Gardens drop down through a massive variety of tall trees and huge shrubs, different foliage making patterns everywhere. Wandering through groves of tree ferns and giant gunnera, past bamboo forests to a tiny beach where in June 1944 the American troops left for Omaha in Normandy. It is hard to imagine, standing among all this lush verdant peace, what awaited those poor men, what they must have been feeling, they were so young. There is a little memorial there, a bit moss covered now but still important.

Exmoor

Exmoor

Watercolour

Large Moleskine Sketchbook

We went on an impromptu camping trip to Exmoor. I haven't been there since I was a little kid, my great aunt used to live in a magical cottage miles from anywhere in the middle of this beautiful place. I was completely stunned by the space, the big big sky, the huge views. It all took my breath away. Standing on what feels like the skin of Mother Earth, watching as the sun draws with cloud shadow over the distant landscape. You might have to click on this picture to see that. It was wonderful.

Moon Rise

Moon Rise

Watercolour. 40cm x 40cm or 16 inches x 16 inches

The river at night, shapes and colours are gradually softened, lights appear on the other shore, the moon rises as night falls.

Ebb Tide

Ebb Tide
Oil

on gesso board

40cm x 50 cm or 16 inches x 20 inches.

Looking down onto the sand as the sea quietly draws in her breath. Sipping and sighing over bright glistening pebbles. The water is clean and clear, sprinkled with diamond drops of sunlight.

Rain, Frenchman's Creek.

Rain, Frenchman's Creek
Watercolour. 30cm x 25cm or 12inches x 10inches

It is early evening after a very still misty day, it is summer so it has been warm. The trees on the far bank seem to be steaming. The air cools slightly and it begins to rain, big drops of rain making beautiful ripples in the slow river water. The tide gently fills the creek and fish swim lazily in the shallow water, occasionally making a bigger ripple as they jump for a passing insect. It is very quiet.
This is at the top of the creek, close by the little cottage in the woods where Daphne du Maurier penned the hugely romantic book "Frenchman's Creek"

Just Peddling

Last December my dear friend Justin had a very unexpected bout of open heart surgery. Thankfully it was successful and as a celebration and a thank you and most importantly to raise money, he is planning to cycle across France from Beziers to Roscoff, about 900 miles.

You can help by making a donation from as little as £2.00 via Just Giving here. It is easy and you can use pay pal. It is a very good cause, please help him reach his target and make the peddling a bit easier.

Bridge, Acer and Willow

Bridge, Acer and Willow

Arms of susurrant moss,
Invite, coax, cajole
You and I, across the bridge.

A3 Moleskine

Watercolour

Buddha, Koi, Ripple

Buddha, Koi, Ripple.

Among the ferns a Budda

Watching. Silent stone.

Koi swim through circles and are gone.

Japanese Garden, Bamboo

Japanese Garden, Bamboo.

A3 Moleskine Sketchbook, 29.7cm x 42cm or 16.5 inches x 12.5 inches.

Watercolour

I went on a tiny holiday camping up on Exmoor. On the way up we stopped at the Japanese Garden and Bonsai Nursery. A hidden jem in a tiny village just outside Newquay. If you are ever in that area it is well worth a visit, it is stunning. So peaceful and beautiful that I decided to devote my new largest Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook to Cornish gardens.

In the Japanese Garden the contrasting textures and the wealth of greens were glorious. Neatly clipped cushions of Box roll silently beneath cascades of Bamboo tears. The crimson hews of Acers colour the light and a gentle breeze plays deep sonorous notes on a giant wind chime.