House for sale Carmarthenshire - Sea Views

I don't normally allow adds on my blog but this is a special case! My daughter and son in law are selling their  old house in the lovely Welsh Village of Llansaint. (Llansaint has a lovely old church and two pubs, so ideal for retirement). Gwermont House was the original farm and goes back centuries. It has spectacular uninterupted views over Carmarthen Bay to Tenby and Caldey Island. I have sold quite a few paintings of Llansaint and the area. If we were retiring  I would be more than tempted myself.

It is going for a ridiculous price any enquires to paulinejcox@hotmail.com

Today I finished my painting of the City of St Truro it was too late to photograph it so I will probably post it tomorrow.

City of St Truro

Yesterday I mentioned was a bitty day. I had intended to do an oil painting of City of St. Truro. This was a train I saw and "cabbed" in Moor Street Station, Birmingham with my brother. I intended a small simple painting emphasising the locomotive at speed. However I made a slight misjudgement and made the subject slightly toooo large. I may be able to deal with this by adjusting the tonal values but maybe not.
No time for painting today though so hopefully tomorrow. It gives me time to dwell on my error.

John Mayall - The Bear

Here is the commission I have been working on all finished. It is of Bwlch Farm Abergwili, with Merlin's Hill and St. Davids Church in the background.

I have started another painting today but to be honest its been a bitty day with plenty to do and I haven't been able to get more than an hour at a time into it.

I did  spent some time with one of our grandsons today which was nice. He is 7 and he did an oil painting of a bear catching a fish in a stream. I don't think it was a scene from around here but there again it is pretty wild in Pontiets!
Only appropriate link has got to be The Bear, I love John Mayall well okay his music. So here it is from his album Blues from Laurel Canyon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ObOggb5kn8

Brechfa

The watercolour sketch above is of Brechfa a little village outside Carmarthen in the Cothi Valley. It used to have a pub called the Foresters Arms. This is shown on the right hand side. It is now a private house. The old coach house in the background is also now a private house. So this is how the village was up until a few years ago.

Theory of Time

The painting of Llanstephan above is just about dry and ready for framing so it is going onto the list that Alex has to do.  I also finished a commission this week that must be done. It is a miracle that we and particularly Alex get as much done as we do in a 24 hour day. Whoever invented time, (was it Steven Hawkins?) should have done a better job and given us at least 36 hours in a day. Einstein said, "Time is what you measure with a clock." Maybe it should be measured by what we get done. How would that work? The more you did the longer you would live. Interesting thought. Anyway I am in danger of being philosophical or even worse a post modernist!

I mentioned yesterday how we walked our 3 year old grandson with reigns. I actually remember being walked with reigns myself. I was about 2-3yrs old and on holiday in Porth Towyn. I had a set of blue reigns with bells on (cute). It must have had an impact on me to remember them, I can't remember where I put my slippers these days.

Lundy Island - MS Oldenburg

Here is a watercolour sketch I did of MS Oldenburg at Lundy Island. I have said before Alex and I used to do a fair bit of sailing when we could in and around the Bristol Channel and Pembrokeshire. Unfortunately
we had to give up due to family commitments. Anyway we have a lot of good memories.

On one occasion we anchored overnight at Lundy Island and The Oldenburg came in. She is the supply and passenger vessel owned by the Island. I believe the name "Lundy"is from the Norse meaning Puffin?
I remember the passage back to Milford Haven was a bit fraught as we didn't have radar and there was  a thick sea fog. The fog lifted when we approached the entrance to Milford Haven but we were also met with large rollers breaking on the way into the channel. It was exciting to say the least.

This weekend we have our daughter and family staying. We took our grandson to town as we had some work to despatch. We use reigns on the little chap who is 4. He may look like a dog on a lead but at least you have control over him. I haven't got him to sit at the side of the road yet but in all other respects his obedience work is good. Seriously he is a good kid and frighteningly intelligent, ( I don't know where that gene came from!).

Bathurst Estate - Longhorn cattle

Last year we stopped in Cirencester. In one of the fields off Bathurst Estate were a herd of longhorn cattle. Always a pleasure to draw ( interesting but also helpfully slow and ponderous). What I found fascinating was that a magpie seemed to enjoy riding on their backs. I couldn't resist doing a watercolour sketch. I suspect he was debugging them. Nature chooses some strange bedfellows.