A Day on the beach

Here is a painting I finished yesterday. I guess I was inspired by the weather.  Anyway the subject is self explanatory.

The snap above shows how I started the painting. I loosely outlined the figures with a brush in red and stuck in a line for the horizon. Red because it is the primary tone for the flesh and is the complimentary colour of green which I chose for the sea. I did the outline of Worms Head in grey. The rest just followed.

Link Tenuous I admit I could have chosen "surfin usa" or "fun fun fun"... but I think this is their best track..

Rhossili

This painting is an iconic view of Rhossili Bay. A great spot for  surfing, ( apparently, I don't surf). We have sailed passed Worms Head on a number of occasions. The Vikings apparently named it "Wurm" as it looked like a sea serpent.

Alex has been busy mounting prints and I have been on the computer as we had a bit of an issue with printing. It wasn't the prints themselves they are done by DOT Foundry a fine art printers. Basically all our labels had been written on publisher in a 32 bit format and we now have a 64 bit operating system that won't print them correctly. Sounds like I know what I am talking about? (Don't put money on it).
Well anyway I resolved the issue by converting them to pdf. files. I also updated my Welsh page on my website, a bit more of a task. Who knew what bluebells were in Welsh? I settled for, "Bwtsiasen y gog".

Dryslwyn Castle painting completed

Here is the completed painting of  Dryslwyn Castle. I have used  very limited palette of colours and concentrated mainly on tonal contrast. Incidentally did you know that the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other colour?
Although the outcrop is fairly central the castle walls are at one end and that with the addition of a foreground tree balance the composition. Nothing difficult in the composition but it is still essential to have the completed painting in your mind especially when working without any preliminary drawing.

Dryslwyn Castle

I had put aside a painting of Dryslwyn Castle for the exhibition but as it sold this week I thought I had better do another. It is a view I have not painted before. It is from the North West and shows the whole outcrop of rock that the castle stands upon.

You can see I just got straight down to painting it with no preliminary drawing with pencil or brush. It may not look much at the moment but it will be fine, trust me I am an artist?! 

The other day my son in law said to me words to the effect that our granddaughter was the alpha out of their children. I repeated the conversation with Alex and slowly it dawned on me all the females in the family are the alphas. Or maybe we just like them to think that! Or maybe and more likely I just like to think that we like them to think that.

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Seashore

These cheerful little birds are a joy to watch at the waters edge. Often when we anchored we would dry out in an estuary to hear little groups of Oystercatchers calling and flying along the shoreline to their next resting feeding place. This painting is newly finished and going in the exhibition.

Yesterday we went to one of our grandson's schools to watch him doing ballet. This was something of a defining moment for me. When we were in St. Petersburg Alex went to watch the Russian Ballet, Swan Lake. I found an armchair a pint, of beer and read a book. Yes maybe I am a Philistine (or even a stuckist) but its not really my thing. However having watched the children I confess it was very clever and demanding. I was glad we went and that had nothing to do with the fact that we went to "River Cottage"in Bristol for a meal afterwards. It was a very late night but a good day.

I am working on a new painting today.

Three Cliffs in the mist - Gower

The above painting for the exhibition shows the early morning mist in Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower.

We had a visit by a couple of charming ladies yesterday who took away two paintings. Other than that not much to say.

As an aside our son Martin has now moved to Citreon Bassett in Carmarthen so if you are after a fair deal with a car...you know where he is.

Merlins Hill - Greetings

My favourite view from the top of Penlanffos looking down the Towy Valley with Merlins Hill on the left. I used to walk this every morning with Jac but since he did in his cruciate ligament I am reluctant to let him over do things so he has a good walk on the flat now.

Yesterday a delivery man came to the door, a very cheerful pleasant young man. Now I can't remember exactly what he said when I opened the door but it was something like,

"Sup" ???!!!!!

Now I am from the generation that was taught that even the word "Hello, " was reserved for use on the telephone (if you had one).

 So a departing, "Have a good one," left me equally bemused.

I am at ease with a shake of the hand and a hearty, "good morning". Other physical contact is really not my, "thing". I guess I could be considered reserved but that is how we were brought up.

So at the end of the day  I was grateful I didn't have the embarrassment of the delivery guy doing a bump fist type thing with wiggling fingers accompanied by exploding noises!

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