Beautiful Braye...

 Braye Bay, Alderney - watercolour on paper.

When I got this commission over a month ago, I thought 'yeah, this I can do, it will be a doddle' - famous last words!  When it came down to it, firstly drawing buildings has never been my strong point.  Perspective and I are not good friends.  So I drew everything else and wondered how on earth I was going to get that line of houses correctly.  The paper was far too big to use my light box and each attempt to draw them by eye resulted in failure.  In the end, my partner suggested I get the reference photograph up on my computer screen and fiddle about with zooming in/out until it matched the rest of my sketch and then trace the buildings.  Which, thankfully, worked a treat!

Secondly, the sky was fun to paint but so very time consuming!  I was constantly worried that I would mess up the effect of the golden light so had to be very careful and paint each little cloud one at a time - no big splashy washes for this one!

Then there was the business of adding in the client's children - she'd Photoshopped them in but put one child in the water, which would have meant the girl would have to be ten feet tall to have matched the spot where she was.  So I had to tinker about with the drawing to place them together on the breakwater and hope that the girl was taller than the boy in real life!

In the middle of all this, my partner fell ill and had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance, where he stayed for three days.  Turned out he had a very severe case of vertigo, caused by an imbalance in the ears which can come on with no warning and no reason at any time, and is totally debilitating.  That was all extremely worrying and for the first few days after his return home, I was basically his carer as he was very insteady on his feet.

Finally this week I got the time to devote to finishing it off, just within the deadline.  It was a very challenging painting but I really did enjoy it - I know this beach so well, having lived in Alderney throughout my teenage years and have holidayed there frequently more recently.  

Next up - another bear!

Normal Service Has Been Resumed...

 We've just had a much needed week away, staying in Alderney, which is one of the Channel Islands.

 While the rain poured down back at home, we had plenty of sunshine and empty beaches.

 We sat and watched the gannets from the cliff top...

 ...strolled round the harbour...

...lazed in the sunshine digging sandcastles and got gently burnt to a crisp.  This was a busy day at the beach.

I caught up with old school friends, read endlessly, drank plenty of wine and beer and probably ate far too much.  It was just what we needed and while it was a wrench to come back home, I feel refreshed and ready to don the yoke once again....tomorrow!

Trawling Through The Archives...

 This week I have finally done something I had in mind for months, since giving up the day job.  I've gone through my two portfolios and sorted our various paintings that have been hidden away for far too long and I am slowly loading them up into my Etsy shop.  Perhaps there they can find homes where they will be loved and looked at!  The above is an acrylic of a coastal walk in Alderney - my friends and I hiked miles and miles along these paths as teenagers.

 A little watercolour of the apple blossom on our tree - it's nearly that time of year again, so no doubt another blossom painting will ensue.

 I love painting horses and it shows in this one - surely someone would like this on their wall?

 A lot of my paintings are a travelog - this is a watercolour of Rome after we spent a day there during a trip to Italy.

 This is a watercolour of Victorian ruins on Pigeon Island, St. Lucia - another favourite thing to paint, old stonework!

 My one and only foray into oil painting - love the effect, hate the drying time.

 A watercolour of the rainforest in St. Lucia - I used a very limited palette for this if I remember, possible only two colours, no more than three.

 A coloured pencil sketch of a saluki - you will know my soft spot for these dogs, just so beautiful.

A watercolour painting of a pair of sparrows I saw on Boston Common a few years ago.  I love to paint sparrows too - they initially look drab but once you study them, they are such pretty birds.  I love their cheeky personalities too.

So if you look in my shop, these and a few more will be making an appearance and hopefully going off leaving some room in my portfolios for more work.

Endings & Beginnings...

This watercolour of Corblets Bay in Alderney was completed yesterday - not too sure about it, but I do like the way the rocks in the foreground have turned out. 

I am now experimenting using my new Derwent Graphiks paint pens and some Yupo paper - both new to me and both very different to what I am used to.  I think with a bit of practise they are going to become quite a favourite.

This week saw the completion of the last item for the animated film.  The last and the most problematic!  However, it is all done now and very soon I will be able to share it - I have seen the trailer and it looks great! Not long to go now, just little longer...

Grapes Of Wrath.....

After a shaky start where it felt I had forgotten how to paint, this little watercolour of Corblets Bay in Alderney is coming along nicely.  I've been working on the rocks in the foreground for several days now - the idea was to use a large brush and keep it loose....well, that didn't happen, did it!  It never does when I paint, I just get caught up in the detail and when I emerge two hours later, my style remains my style.  Even when using a large brush!

I wish I had more time for painting at the moment - our grape vine this year has produced yet another mammoth crop and I am trying to utilise it.  I'm making grape jelly as usual - we like it, plus it is good for spur of the moment gifts as everyone else likes it too.  So far there are 11 jars of the stuff, a bucket of grapes in the kitchen awaiting processing and about another 20lbs of grapes out on the vine.  I have a feeling most of them will end up compost - life is too short to stand over a boiling pan of juice & sugar!

Beaches & Beasties...

Whilst I went straight back to work after our brief holiday, I have had time to start a small watercolour.  This is of Corblets beach in Alderney, the beach that has the biggest waves.  I took many reference photos of the waves, but not many of them turned out as well as I had hoped!  I feel very rusty painting again - I have not done much lately and it shows.  However, it is very enjoyable to be painting somewhere I love and I am slowly getting back into the swing of it.

I've also knitted another one of these - I had a brief hiatus from the animation work and a zombie was what I wanted to make.

This pattern never fails to amuse me!

I am currently crocheting another monster, quite difficult when using fluffy yarn, I can't see what on earth I'm doing!

No Crafting, Just Chilling...

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis will know that I have been very stressed this summer - constant building noise was driving me to the brink of insanity.  However, just before having to go back to work, we took a few days off and caught a plane....a very small plane!

To a very small island - this is Alderney in the Channel Islands, just off the coast of France and where I spent my teenage years when my parents retired there.

Not much has changed, the beaches remain the same.

No-one there but us most of the time.

Stacie's favourite pursuit, assembling a sandy Dalek army - she also did more sketching than I did!

I was too busy collecting shells....

...collecting photos for future paintings...

...or freezing myself in the sea!  Going swimming was a bit of a mad thing to do but when you are challenged, you have to step up.  It was COLD!

We also bird watched at Gannet Rock,

and explored various forts and German fortifications left over from the war.

I have often reminisced about how awful dental checks were when I lived in Alderney and that it was pretty antiquated at the time.  We as children all dreaded the visit to the school of the local dentist, it was not a good experience.  In the museum I found the actual chair we all had to sit in and it was so much worse than I remembered!  Zoom in if you can to read the notice....no wonder we all had problems with our teeth in later life!

I have been crafting since I got back - more on that in another post.

Hitting The Ground Running...

Back from a holiday of rotten weather, crowded beaches, bad food.....no, it was a fantastic few days in Alderney, with Mediterranean temperatures, deserted sands, bird watching, shell collecting and generally lazing about.  The only thing wrong with it was that it was far too short and I have to go back to work this morning.

I have lots of photographs to keep me busy painting sun and sand over the winter months - if I can get through today that is!

Song Of The Sea...

It's not long now until our mini-break in Alderney and I'm so impatient!  It's not been a good summer for me -  I know I keep banging on about it, but the noise and disruption caused by the building works three feet from our house has really affected me badly. It starts shortly after 7 a.m. and carries on until 5 p.m. and is driving me CRAZY! We can't have windows or doors open as it is too loud, which makes the house hot and stuffy.  Even with everything battened down, the vibrations can still be felt.  So no lie-ins, no sitting in the garden, no gentle summer breeze wafting through the house, no birdsong, no escape.

Usually I use the school holidays to catch up on some painting, but it's very hard when your concentration is shot to pieces and your nerves are stretched to breaking point!  However, I am manfully carrying on with this acrylic - if I put on my headphones and turn the music up, I can almost drive out the presence of the Doozers.  Plus the subject matter reminds me that I will get a few days respite soon!

I'd like to camp out in the offices of the people who say we are not entitled to any compensation for having two summer ruined by building works and play the drums while running a vacuum cleaner, a blender and a hairdryer for 10 hours solid, five days a week and see how long they last before getting annoyed...if only!

I promise I'll try and shut up about it from now on - it's boring and depressing, but hopefully goes some way to explain the lacklustre blog posts lately!

Memories.....

While clearing out a corner of the living room the other day, I came across an old sketchbook which brought back some happy memories.  This was an experiment in painting teasels and dandelions following a tutorial in a book.

This was sketched sitting in the sand dunes on Braye Bay in Alderney, one of the smallest islands in the Channel Isles.  I spent my teens living here and look back on those years as the happiest in my life.  When I went back some 20 years later, it was incredible to find it so little changed.

The view to the left of where I was sitting for the above sketch.  We used to come down here after school (a couple of minutes walk) for a swim before going home.

Some brief studies drawn in the garden of our current house - can't quite believe I did them, they look a little bit like I knew what I was doing.....

The most poignant of them all, my little dog Jasper (a couple of years dead now) who used to spend all summer long sitting on the edge of the patio gazing into the flower bed.....there used to be a mouse that crossed his path in the evenings and he just sat and watched in fascination.
The agapanthus was one of many that I attempted to grow - never with much success - I buy them, they flower, the winter kills them!

I always say that I don't sketch much - maybe not as much as some artists, but there are these half filled books all over the house and it is surprising how a small pencil drawing can bring back so many memories, more than any photo, probably because it takes time and study to draw whereas a photo is a fleeting glimpse.

I'm in the middle of painting a horse at the moment, and best of all, have just parcelled up and sent off a big box of garter stitch scarves to the USA - perhaps now I will have a few days respite in order to get on with something a bit more interesting!

Baby, It's Cold Outside.......

It is wet, dark and horrible outside so I thought I'd cheer things up with a few past paintings from sunnier times.

This is one of my favourite places in the world, Alderney in the Channel Islands.   You can walk around the island in a day pretty much, and a lot of the coast looks like this....

...or this.  This is the view from a place called the Giffoin.  On one side you can look out to sea and this view, on the other side are old German bunkers from WWII when Alderney was a prisoner of war camp.  The Channel Islands were the only part of Britain to be occupied by the Germans and there are so many interesting bunkers, pill boxes and forts to be explored.

Further afield now, and a view of Rome from a holiday we went on a few years ago. Such an amazing place and we only had one day in which to explore - we managed to cram in as many sights as we could!

Lemurs.......I'd like to say we went to Madagascar to see these, but it was only as far as Marwell Zoo.  I loved the way these guys were cuddled up together and took reference photographs for this painting - it was exhibited at Patchings Art Festival and later sold at a local exhibition.

I have nothing recent to post about - I'm still working on a detailed horse portrait (I'd have finished days ago if it wasn't for the compicated bridle!) and am knitting various things, none of which are close to being finished.
And it being half-term, it is once again for a cleaning binge around the house - carpets shampooed, tops of kitchen cabinets scrubbed, garden tidied...can you see my halo shining too?