Prussia Cove cliffs

Prussia Cove Cliffs, oil on linen canvas, 46 x 55 cm

Prussia Cove is a secluded part of the south Cornish coast, with a turbulent history of wrecking and smuggling. Now, however, it is known for its natural beauty and an International Music Seminar. When the tide is in, the beach is all rocks, pebbles and rock pools. Here I have focussed on the cliffs, which had some reddish vegetation clinging to them. I don't know what it was, but I do like the extra colour, which drew my attention away from the sea back towards the land.

Prussia Cove Cliffs
oil on linen canvas, 46 x 55 cm

£360

Devil's Den, or, The Resting Place - SOLD

Devil's Den, oil on linen canvas, 46 x 38 cm

The Devil's Den is a reconstructed (c. 1921) dolmen (neolithic) near Marlborough in Wiltshire. As far as I can tell, it is the closest such monument to where I live (there seems to be a shortage of suitable stone in Hampshire; certainly the chalk and flint in the immediate vicinity would make very poor building material). Dolmens, which look like stone tables, are actually the structural remains of burial chambers that were once covered in earth. Most have three or more uprights; this has two, but one of them rests on a third, recumbent stone. The stones are sarsens, which are blocks of sandstone created by glacial flow. They are plentiful in that area (which is not far from Avebury and Stonehenge).

I have visited the Devil's Den before, with sketching equipment, but this time I took my painting gear. It was a gloriously, unseasonably, hot and sunny day. I spent maybe two and a half hours on site and completed the picture in the studio, where I empasised the darks (which have a tendency to get lost on site) and the reflected colour on the stones.

Included in the group exhibition, Traces of Prehistory (Artikinesis).

Devil's Den

oil on linen canvas, 46 x 38 cm

£160 - SOLD

Porth Moina

Porth Moina, oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm

Porth Moina is in Penwith, Cornwall, on the north coast (and on the southwest coast path) . Porth means "cove" and Moina probably means "mines" in this context.

Purbeck Eddies

Purbeck Eddies, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

I started this in the last few days of Open Studios, working from a 2014 photograph taken off the beach at Winspit in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset. I finished it today, having taken a few days off.

Kimmeridge

Kimmeridge Bay in Purbeck, Dorset is all about the rocks. It lies on the Jurrassic Coast and is a favoured destination for fossil-hunters as well as rock-pool afficianados and snorkellers. It has clear, calm water and a folly on the headland - Clavell Tower, which in 2006-8 was moved away from the crumbling cliff. 

So, of course, my painting is all about the rocks. The flat rocks in the centre dominate the image. I spent most of my time on their colours, curves and cracks, their attendant pools and the wet reflections of the summer sun, but it was the seaweed that worried me most. It was a curious colour - a bright mix of yellow, green, red and orange - and it was underwater, right in the foreground. How could I indicate that with my knife, a blunt painting instrument if ever there was one? In the end, it was all a matter of observation and approximation, as is often the case, and allowing the viewer's visual cortex to fill in the gaps.

Kimmeridge 

Oil on linen canvas, 50 x 70 cm

£400

The Only Way is Up

This isn't the whole picture; you'll find that further down this post, next to the unwashed line drawing. This climber was at Winspit in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, on the day that we were visiting the former quarry and cove during our summer holiday in Dorset. I took a photograph from a fair distance away; strong light and good fortune gave me a clear enough image to work from.

Lone Stone - SOLD

To stylise or not to stylise, that is the question. Do both!

The stone - and the tree - is at Avebury. The curly foreground vegetation isn't.

Acrylic on box canvas, 30 x 30 cm

SOLD

Tintagel Cove

I had a brief opportunity to visit Tintagel this August. It was packed full of people. I gave the castle (nice though it is) a miss and went down to the cove, where I made a sketch and took lots of photographs.

The Hurlers, left and right

This is a "housekeeping" post intended to simplify navigation. It is not a new painting.

The Hurlers is a complex of stone circles on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.

Avebury Evening

Well, it was late afternoon, early evening.

Bradgate Heights - not for sale

This is based on a photograph of my two children at Bradgate Park, Leicester. The image stood out from the many photographs that I took; it was full of rich contrast. It was begging to be painted.

Ironstone

Once upon a time, they quarried ironstone here; there are even mine workings where, I imagine, there was a particularly good seam.

Avebury Sheep - framed and due to go to London

Avebury Sheep has a frame (a lovely deep rebate oak number from Moonshine) and will be visiting London with me tomorrow, where I will abandon it to the tender mercies of the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition judging panel.

Eek.

Rocky Outcrop (Twisty Tree)

Would you believe that this is just a few miles from the centre of Leicester?

Temple Old Bridge, Bodmin Moor, New Years' Day 2013

On our way home from West Cornwall, I suggested a small diversion onto Bodmin Moor. It was a gloriously sunny day, and I was keen to snap a moorland scene for reference purposes. And my husband was quite keen on a pasty break (it was lunchtime, and he is, indeed, a true Cornishman).

Waiting for the Tide

This is another scene from Portreath on the 30th of December. It's a open-ended cave in the cliffs that I painted on Thursday; we all trooped through it and then looped back around the end of the cliffs. There was a very nice rock just the other side - more, no doubt, of that later.

The fellow you can see here was not so lucky as us. He got caught out by the waves; there he was, standing on  rock, keeping his feet dry and waiting for the tide to recede when I started waving my camera around. I thought he looked rather picturesque - romantic, almost (in a Walter Scott sort of way, rather than a Barbara Cartland sort of way).

Oil on box canvas (edges painted plain Paynes Grey in acrylic), 30 x 30 cm
06 January 2013
For sale

Edit: I managed to get a daylit photograph this afternoon (10 January 2013), so I've replaced the photograph taken under artificial light. 

Breakers at Portreath 7 x 5

A usin' up the paint sort of painting. This is the leftovers from Gull Rock (with some extra white).

Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 "
For Sale 

Gull Rock - SOLD

Gull Rock is off the beach at Portreath, Cornwall. This painting is based on photographs that I took there on Sunday, when the weather was mostly dry and the sea (the Atlantic) was entirely rough. Every now and then, there was a hint of sunlight - not enough to brighten the sky, but enough to brighten the colours of the land and sea a little.

Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm
SOLD

Godrevy Summer 2009 - SOLD

A Godrevyscape with sunshine! Unlike the other Godrevy paintings, this isn't based on a photograph from New Year's Day. It was sunny when I took the photographs (on 35mm film) that this painting was based on - and getting towards the end of the day, as is evident from the pink tinge to the clouds. It must have been quite warm, still, because the people on the rocks are wearing swimming costumes. 

Oil on canvas, 20 x 16"
15 December 2012

SOLD

New Forest Heather 1: From the stream bed

One of this summer's most far-flung day trips was to the south of the county; we were planning to visit a specific historical attraction, but it turned out that it was closed on Wednesdays. So was the next random attraction that we found via the increasingly popular pastime of "brown-signing". Refusing to believe that Hampshire was closed on Wednesdays, we continued on to the New Forest. Which was, naturally, open.