Coastguard

If anyone needs an image to put on a souvenir tea-towel or box of fudge then I'm yer' man.

Here's a quickie of the fields behind the coastguard cottages at West Bexington.

Later in the day I tried to recreate the feel of the place from memory. I like the way it's become more stylised but there's not much in it really. That said, the process of reimagining the scene was an interesting exercise in itself, worth doing if you get the chance.

Behind Elstead

Another empty landscape. This one is to the back of Elstead village. I 'm lucky enough to pass this way most mornings. It's pretty parched now in mid Summer but it's amazing how it changes through the seasons.

This pic' might not look much to you but I'm really happy with the way the paint is going down here and the fact that the image captures the colour/light pretty successfully. I'm going to try some other similar, simple compositions to keep paint options to a minimum and reduce the potential for messing up.

Tractor

Got pulled behind a tractor at Loseley today. Exhaust, dust and hot rubber; I love it!
This is a digital colour-up of a pencil sketch I did at the time.

Tamarisk Farm

There's a fantastic, ancient farm at the top of the hill in West Bexington. It's a ramshackle and eclectic collection of grey stone buildings enlivened by a lovely blue on the woodwork. Weather was problematic but a nice subject to work on regardless. These are pencils and (precision) felt-tip drawings given a colour treatment with watercolour.

It's sort of my fallback style I guess. A5 ish and about an hour or so to do each at the side of the road. The colour is pretty delicate and some has disappeared in the scanning, I'll have another go at them later.

The application of mechanics to the practice of Devotions

 

A bit of a legacy from my Catholic upbringing this. I managed to lose god before it was too late but it's hard to get the memories of ceremony and sniff of incense out of your sysyem. If nothing else Catholicism is always good for a spot of bizarre and dark drama.

This thing is pretentiously but very accurately titled (there is even a label on it saying): “The application of mechanics to the practice of Devotions”.

I designed it as a foolproof aid to prayer and worship, practically guaranteed to help you gain favour with all the major God figures although tuned for the Catholic Christian one from my youth. It’s quite simple really:

Instructions for use:

1. Select your saint on the top roller from a choice of the 40 most useful and popular. Padre Pio is a new addition to the line-up and a pretty good all rounder. There will be a series of collector cards to follow.

2. Genuflect (optional) and light the, now electric, devotional 'candles' using the switch provided.

3. Type your invocation using the keyset. It's a QWERTZ arrangement, Southern Europe being better attuned than the north for this purpose. Try to be brief and to the point. remember, it's a machine so there is no benefit in being overly wordy or poetic.

4. As you key, the bell chimes in time, creating a solemn and holy atmosphere. This focuses the mind and draws attention to your spiritual condition.

5. Prayers will then be answered in the normal way only moreso.

It’s not fully complete yet but so far it has proven to be extraordinarily effective as well as decorative, far better than either unassisted prayer or simple secular wall adornments.

The wings are really only there to add some ambience of the angel. From what I can tell, they don’t affect the functionality in any way. They were found, along with the rest of the crow, by an my daughter's 11 year old friend while out cycling and left on the windowsill in case I had a need. Which I did :-)

More attempts with watercolour. This time while on holiday in the Dolomites in the Autumn of 09. All of these are in the area of Ortisei in the Val Gardena and actually painted from balconies on the villa we were staying in! I'm getting marginally better (well, braver) with applying colour and am relatively happy with these but the reality is that I don't paint often enough to make significant improvements.

The night-time sketch was of moonlit clouds forming up in the Pitzberg mountains. This was incredibly dramatic at the time and even a bit creepy, just needed the cry of a werewolf to complete it. BTW the little bright dot to the right is Jupiter.

The others are looking up the valley towards the Sella Gruppe and are effectivly the view from the kitchen window!

Went all went on a day trip to London last Sept. I had intentions of doing all sorts of scribbling and drawing but once I'd done this sketch of the pillbox at the end of Putney Bridge tube station the pad never came out again. I guess I was having too much of a good time or something.

Beer

Beer is a lovely little seaside town in West Dorset. It's also a working harbour though, only without the harbour; all the fishing boats get hauled up onto the shingle beach by winches. The boats themselves are very characterful and an easy target for sketching. This started off as a drawing with my brush-pen but I decided to colour it up once as it turned out OK.

I quite like water colouring on this cheap cartridge paper. The paint stays fluid for quite a while and I'm not so precious about the paper so I get more done. Only problem is the paper buckles badly so I've got myself some heavier weight stuff to work with.

This pic is all very twee, make a good postcard, but there's still some good stuff going on with the paint which I was happy with.

West Bay

Back in Dorset. Lovely place lovely weather. I promised myself I'd try to capture something of the crazy cliffs in West Bay and Burton Bradstock. All this area was a river delta millions of years ago and the ebb and flow of the water has resulted in really striking strata. Add some uplifting (?) and erosion and you get something very unique.

It feels like the setting for the closing sequence of Planet Of The Apes

"You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

As so well re-enacted by Alberto G' V' when we were there last year.

These are very much sketches I quite like the graphic one but either way you get the idea.

Holycombe

We visited holycombe for my daughter's birthday http://www.hollycombe.co.uk/. It's an amazing collection of steam machines and engines going back 150 years or so. The centrepiece is a fully working steam powered fairground which looked fantastic in the sunshine and is surprising fun but I was really drawn to the rusty old industrial iron in the repair yard. This is, I'm told, the last steam crane used on british railways, oooh! fancy that.