Cargodna - SOLD

On a recent trip to Cornwall to see relatives, I managed to bag myself a day out on my own; I had decided that I "needed" to paint an engine house. Not having painted such an iconic symbol of West Cornwall before, I opted for a rather touristy image of an archetypal engine house - all roofless, pointy eaves and tall, broken chimney, standing steadfast on a cliff top with the sea behind it.

In Print!

Me and my paintings got ourselves featured in a genuine, bona fide, printed, glossy magazine!

A small one.

It may not quite be Time or Cosmo or, indeed, any of your High Street newsagent titles, but it's still a very nice thing. The magazine is Hotter Shoes' Comfort Club customer magazine, and I'm in the Summer 2012 edition (which doesn't seem to be online at the moment, but you can see some of the back issues here). The article is reproduced here with permission.

I do own a couple of pairs of Hotter shoes - although I must confess that I don't use them on my walks (I've got a venerable pair of Scarpa walking boots that usually take me out and about off-road). The Hotter shoes are very comfortable and - this is the important bit, for me - they make them in my size (I'm a UK 9, which is just one size larger than is easy to buy on the High Street).

Anyway, I "liked" Hotter's page on Facebook, and then when they announced a presence on Google+ (where I have a remarkably sedate account), I added them to my circles there and they reciprocated. Which meant that they got to see my "Public" posts - which are mostly related to this very blog.

It seems that the tumbleweed blows through Hotter's Google+ account as much as it does through mine, and their PR Assistant had the opportunity to notice my painting posts, which she liked well enough to get in touch and ask me if I would like to be featured in the magazine.

And so, I was.

The images that Hotter used are "Coffee For Two", which was posted here, and "Watership Down (1)", which was posted here.

Cannon Heath Down (8)

This is a near reprise of the first Cannon Heath Down painting, except that it's 6 months later (and so a different season), smaller, relatively longer (which helped me avoid the awkward foreground detail), and, I think, more accomplished. I guess that all that practice has helped me improve!

Cannon Heath Down (7)

It would have been a shame to waste the unexpectedly glorious weather, so I packed up my kit and revisited an old haunt... this time with a long, narrow canvas that has been awaiting the subject since last autumn. The trees are rather less colourful than they were in September - it's too early for the spring foliage to have come in, even - but the view is still stunning. And using a long canvas means that I can get the whole hill in, without succumbing to the temptation to squash it in or being forced to include too much foreground.

Watership Down in the Snow - SOLD

This is another work from a photograph. It was a bit cold to sit and paint in the snow, so I took a camera out on my walk - to the same position that I painted Watership Down (1) from - and took a series of shots. I was slightly disappointed that we didn't get much snow this winter - unlike the last two years, which were, as it happens, exceptionally snowy. This, from February, was the snowiest picture that I could manage; as you can see the hill is satisfyingly covered, but you can see vegetation on the valley floor.

Vinho Verde

The fourth colour of wine is, of course, green. By which the Portuguese mean "young". I'm not going to go on about the style of wine, except to say that vinho verde is very nice indeed.

This painting differs from the previous wine paintings in that it's on canvas, and is a bit bigger. As it happens, I'd run out of the boards, but  I did have several of these 30 x 40 canvases, which offer a better aspect ratio - and a little more room to suggest the curly "V" on the label.

Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm

South African Sauvignon Blanc-Rose

Guess what we had a glass of last night? There's one colour of wine (that I can think of) that I haven't painted yet. Maybe next Friday...

Edit:  I think the names of these vinous paintings are getting longer!

Oil on board, 12 x 10"
The board is a commercially prepared canvas board.
SOLD