Thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to Bristol on Saturday for the preview of the Great Welsh Journey at the Lime Tree Gallery.  

It was really wonderful to meet and talk to so many lovely people.  I'd like to thank everyone very much indeed for making the effort to be there, as I know some folk had travelled a long distance to attend.

Given the biblically wet weather on Friday and Sunday, it was a miracle that there was a break in the clouds on Saturday that allowed so many people to come along!

It was a great to chance to enjoy a glass of champagne and some beautifully made Welsh-themed food (served on slate - nice touch!).  Whilst it was the first time for some visitors to see my work, a lot of people already owned one, two or even several of my paintings, so it was good to hear what happens to my pictures when they go to their new homes!

I think everyone enjoyed not only the fun idea of going on the 'journey' along with the guidebooks, but also the little 'postcards from the paintings'.  

Each of the oil paintings has a postcard attached, showing where the picture was painted, and on the other side I've written a little message to tell you about a bit about the scene itself.  

 Flowers by the Shore near Swansea (Oil on linen, 20 x 20)

(It was my son's idea, so I'll let my 12-year-old take all the credit!)

So if you're going along to the show, which runs until 16th May, then do take a few minutes to have a look at them.

VIEW THE SHOW ONLINE HERE.

Painting in Neath, the Valleys and Powys

Final day of my trip to Wales, and last part of the Great Welsh Journey!

Another day of sunshine and showers, heading out from the city of Swansea towards Neath and on to the Black Mountains.  

Small  villages dotted a patchwork of fields, and bales of hay lay in autumn fields with all the colours of the harvest.  The sun brought out the contrast of the acidic greens of the late summer leaves and grasses.

Harvest, Brecon Beacons (Oil on board, 10 x 10)

At Merthyr Tydfil, I took the road up to Brecon.  The road wound through gentle sloping hills whose sides were all greens with the purple of heathers, and accented by the occasional waterfall.

Road to Brecon (Acrylic, 5 x 7)

Lunch at Brecon gave the chance to reflect on all the places I'd seen, and I started to make notes about how I wanted to arrange the exhibition and articulate all the material that I'd collected.

It had been quite a trip, and there was so much information to deal with.  However I was clear that I wanted the visitor to the show to come on the journey as well, and to feel as if they were involved in following the route and the adventure round Wales. 

At the core of the show were to be 20 oil paintings, with the key things that I'd seen, and then acrylic sketches and drawings, along with the note-taking postcards, which would inform and add to those core paintings.  Other artists involved in the show would provide different perspectives on Wales and the whole Welsh experience, including landscapes and still lifes.

I also wanted to have a 'Guidebook' to the exhibition - something which would help you get your bearings on the journey, something a little bit different.

Seven months after the trip, the next part of the journey starts with the opening of the show in Bristol next week...

If you'd like to see the fruits of my travels, you can view the paintings online here and the all the postcards here.

If you'd like a Guidebook and an invite to the show, please contact the Lime Tree Gallery here.

Painting in Swansea and the Gower Peninsula

For the first day on the south coast around Swansea, it was again all rain.  A trip round the Gower peninsula, ending at Rhossili Bay, was biblically wet.  A long walk to Worms Head ended in a complete soaking!  

Worms Head (Acrylic, 5 x 7)

A herd of patient cows with their calves stood in a field on the headland and they, too, became models.

Cow and Calf, Rhossili (Oil, 5 x 7)

I hadn't appreciated that Swansea had such a lovely big beach, and on my way back I was able to get some end-of-the-day photos (once I'd dried my camera out again) across the sands of the sunset over the Mumbles in the distance.

End of the Day, Swansea (Oil on linen, 16 x 16)

The next day was completely different - blustery and sunny, with bright skies full of lovely quick-moving clouds.  Exploring the little bays round the peninsula, which had beach-huts and surfers, the bright sun and blue skies made the scenery look almost Mediterranean.

Caswell Bay (Oil on linen, 30 x 30)

Once again at Rhossili Bay, with its wide sweep of sand, I took a series of photos which would later be turned into a number of postcards, acrylics, and the centrepiece of the show, a large 32 x 48" canvas.  

 Big Cloud over Rhossili Bay (Acrylic, 5 x 7)

Rhossili Bay (Oil on linen, 32 x 48)

I find that it's easy to get mesmerised by one particular aspect of a landscape, and to concentrate on that to the exclusion of all else, and with such a wonderful coastline, it's obvious to look at the sea the whole time.  However, I found that there were some beautiful fields on the Gower which had just been harvested, and the round bales of hay made beautiful shapes, as well as being a rich contrast in colour to the blues of the sea.

Harvest, Gower Peninsula (Oil on linen, 32 x 32)

Painting in Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire

A windswept Aberyswyth on the Welsh coast also rather reminded me of Eastbourne, with its rocky beach and long dark groynes stretching into the waves.

The long lines of the shore gave the opportunity for lots of lovely fluid work in acrylic, with the overcast sky and drama of the waves rolling in across the rocks.

Green Sea, Aberyswyth (Acrylic, 5 x 7)

Then a really beautiful sunny morning found me working on the coast around Dinas Head in Newport.

Farm Gate, Newport (Oil, 5 x 7)

The beautiful blue skies continued down to Fishguard.  The sun caught the little boats in the harbour, making everything bright and colourful, with beautiful reflections.

Boats at Fishguard (Oil on linen, 24 x 26)

Lastly, after visits to Broad Haven and Little Haven,  it was over to Haverfordwest, with the mysterious, brooding outline of Wolf Castle on the horizon.

Clouds over Wolf Castle (Acrylic, 10 x 10)

Painting in the Conwy Valley, Anglesey and Snowdonia

Preparations for my Great Welsh Journey show found me starting out in September last year at Llandudno in the north.  It was the beginning of a journey that was to take me right round Wales from top to bottom.

Llandudno has a lovely, long Victorian pier.  This was really exciting for me, as it reminded me of the pier at Eastbourne, which I have drawn and painted on many occasions.  I did a number of small postcard sketches as well as a mixed media drawing.

Llandudno Pier (Oil, 5 x 7)

Rainclouds Over Llandudno Pier (Mixed media 29 x 24)

Using watercolour, acrylic and pastel, I tried to get the feeling of the great man-made structure striding out into the great organic swell of the sea, something at once grand and strong, and yet also vulnerable.

Moving round to the bay at Conwy, there were dark rainclouds moving in from the Irish Sea, but these made a lovely contrast with the subtle colours of the sand.

Conwy Sands (Oil on linen, 32 x 32)

In the morning at Anglesey, it was raining pretty hard, and it was often difficult to see the Menai Bridge through the mist.  Then the clouds would lift, and I took a lot of photos of the bridge spanning the straits, which I later made paintings of using acrylic to convey the loose, watery feel.

Morning, Menai Straits (Acrylic, 10 x 10)

Travelling through the mountains of Snowdonia, the weather was again terrible, with heavy rain and low clouds obscuring the mountains, which would sometimes lift to reveal glimpses of the landscape.  There were lots of sheep at the side of the road (which became models for more postcards), and purple heather and waterfalls up the hillsides.  

On to Betwys y Coed, all wet slate, autumn leaves and a river with waterfalls running through the centre of the town.  I took photos from the bridge and did little studies and acrylics as well as larger canvasses.

 Waterfall, Betwys y Coed (Oil, 5 x 7)

River in Early Autumn, Betwys y Coed (Oil on linen, 24 x 26)

By the time I got to Blaenau Ffestiniog, the rain was torrential.  Great heaps of slate rose up above the town, and it seemed as if everything was wet and grey.  It was amazing.  

I climbed up one of the heaps, and took lots of pieces of the beautiful shiny slate.  It was gorgeous stuff, and I became quite engrossed in looking at all the different pieces and all the colours and patterns.   Every piece was different.

However, by this time I was covered in mud, soaking wet, and my camera was full of water between the filters.  Time to dry off!

Using Acrylics

For some of the work in the 'Great Welsh Journey' show, I've used acrylics as they're great for quick note-taking.

Acrylics are a synthetic paint which can be diluted with water.  They dry quickly, and once dry, they are plastic-like in nature, and are pretty impossible to get off clothes or brushes because you can't dissolve them with a solvent after they harden, so be careful, and always wash your brushes out as soon as you can! 

Acrylics are like a cross between watercolours and oils to use when painting.  They can be used thickly or drawn into like oils, or thinned down with water to use in washes like watercolour.

Here's some close-ups of some of the work from the show.

This is a small painting called Afternoon at Rhossili.  The card has been prepared with a gesso primer and a warm grey acrylic base coat.

Afternoon at Rhossili (Acrylic on card, 6.5 x 10)

When looking from the clifftop at Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula, you can see the wide sweep of the bay with the water shining over the wet sand.  To get the effect of the water on the sand, I used the acrylic in washes of creams and then blues, with a lage soft cats tongue watercolour brush and plenty of water.  Coats of colour dry very quickly.  You can also see the warm grey of the base coat showing through.

 Afternoon at Rhossili (detail) (Acrylic on card, 6.5 x 10)

You can also draw into acrylic with the end of the brush or a stick, as you can with oils - this is called 'sgraffito'.  It reveals the colour of the canvas, or a dry layer of underpaint beneath.  The marks at the top are the distant lines of waves, the thicker marks at the bottom are grasses on the cliffs.

 Afternoon at Rhossili (detail) (Acrylic on card, 6.5 x 10)

This is a detail from Clouds over Wolf Castle (pictured in yesterdays blog).  Wolf Castle in a dramatic collections of jagged ruins on the crest of a hill which you can see rising up from the road across from Fishguard to Haverfordwest.  

To get the looseness and airiness of the clouds, I again used a large cats tongue brush, but using white on a dried background of sky blue, so that the colours didn't mix but retained their integrity.  The white was also thicker and more substantial, so didn't apply so thinly over the blue, although still allowing for a very free form of mark-making.

Clouds over Wolf Castle (detail) (Acrylic, 10 x 10)

Lastly, this is Houses at Betwys y Coed, which shows how you can apply acrylics thickly with a palette knife or edge of a piece of card.

Houses at Betwys y Coed (Acrylic, 10 x 10)

This is an area with autumn trees, so the paint here indicates volume and foliage.  I've also drawn into the paint so that the lilac of the base coat shows through (lilac being a complementary colour to the yellows of the foliage of the trees)

Houses at Betwys y Coed (detail) (Acrylic, 10 x 10)

These various ways of applying acrylic build up to form a vocabulary of different marks, which you can use in various combinations as part of a painting.   There's no right way or wrong way of applying the paint.  Find what's right for you.  When it looks right to you, and says what you want it to say, then you've got it right.

Next show heads for Bristol

My next show heads off in a van to Bristol today.

Called 'The Great Welsh Journey', this very special event is a one-off collection of landscape paintings, drawings and postcards from a journey around the Principality.   

 Rainclouds over Llandudno Pier (Mixed Media 29 x 24)

I went on a trip round Wales in September last year, from Llandudno and Anglesey in the north, through Snowdonia (very wet!!), down to Aberyswyth and the coast, Fishguard, across Pembrokeshire, Tenby, Swansea, round and round the Gower Peninsula, and then across to Neath, Merthyr Tydfil and the Black Mountains to Brecon.  All the while, through sunshine and showers,  my trusty camera was on hand!

 Rhossili Bay (Oil on linen, 32 x 48)

It's a really exciting show, as it was a chance to do something a bit different, with a real mixture of work in different media.  I'm hoping it will give a flavour of the excitement of documenting a journey and discovering a place.  As well as oils, I've used acrylics and mixed media drawings to give a sense of this fluid, quick response to a landscape.

 Clouds over Wolf Castle (Acrylic on card, 10 x 10)

The postcards were also very nice to do, as they're almost like postcards to myself about the journey, and their size means that they look really cute.

Bwlch (Oil on postcard, 5 x 7)

The exhibition also includes works by Welsh artists such as Vivienne Williams. There's a 'meet the artists' preview (I'll be there) on Saturday 28 April 11am - 4pm at the Lime Tree Gallery, 84 Hotwell Road, Bristol BS8 4UB. All welcome!