Sunday 27 August 2017

Adventure Clydesdale ride

Wow!....I got an amazing Birthday present from daughter.  She booked us a ride on Dartmoor at

Adventure Clydesdale (click link)


No ordinary riding school trek.  It is called Adventure for a reason.  Okay, at times we followed the leader and there were times we did a bit of roadwork, but mainly it was 2 hours across the Moor, we crossed a river (my horse decided to stop half way for a drink, fair enough he was thirsty, but the river was flowing quite fast and I couldn't see where he would take his next step, totally had to rely on my horse Ecco knowing what he was doing.  That comes a little difficult for someone that likes control of their horse, lol)....Onto the moor we negotiated Rocks, lots of rocks, small rocks, big rocks, through heather and overgrown areas and between rocks that you would have difficult walking on foot!  Then, up Yar Tor, around 1600 ft above sea level with a 360degree view.  It was stunning, and then down the other side, over rocks, only rocks.  You get the drift, there were a lot of rocks.   

Enough of my rambling, here are some pictures.  Daughter took most of the photos of me and the pictures of Lil were taken by the organiser of the trek.


Daughter took the top left photo of me waving to her. One of the short areas where we were actually on a road...


Here's daughter on her horse Faro.  Everyone (except me) stood on this ridge for a photo opportunity. 
I opted out, having just ridden down a 1-in-4 gradient of rocks to get to that spot, 
I thought it was a step too far for the sake of a picture!!!!!
As it turned out, daughter said it looks like the ground drops away, but
in fact it extended out much gentler and safer than it looked.









there I am on the right, waiting my turn to negotiate this. It looks so straight forward, but believe me it wasn't!







The horse was 17hh 
(for those who don't know about hh it's hands high
and one hand is basically 4 inches, I'll leave you with the maths).

The tricky part was sitting for 2 hours doing the SPLITS!
YES, it was a stretch believe me. 
Doesn't do it justice in the photo, but two days later my legs are still trying to recover.
In the above photo it looks as though my near-side stirrup is shorter,
whereas in actual fact it was slightly longer, purposely so that I could relieve pressure on my knee, which had been aching somewhat)....

WORTH IT THOUGH
and
YES I WOULD DO THIS RIDE AGAIN


footnote......The views were stunning beyond belief, as no doubt you can see.  And Yes, I wished I had my sketchbook with me, and YES I would have sat on the horse and sketched at the same time :)


🏇✍️🏇✍️🏇✍️🏇










Monday 21 August 2017

Across a toll road to the beach


The other day we had a nice walk next to the estuary, along a toll road (very cheap £2, well worth it) and down another road past fields.  Thought I would share some of the photos I took on my iPhone for you.....



















the sheep in this next photo haven't actually escaped their field.  The whole area of the toll road is farmland too, so the sheep graze their way along it.


If anyone would like to use any of the photos in this post for drawing, painting, sketching, please go ahead and use them.







Friday 18 August 2017

Ipad stand

A fellow artist happened to add photos of her iPad Stand on Facebook.  Since I have gone to great lengths in the past, to try and set up my iPad (and iPhone) to record videos, I was obviously going to ask her about it.

Turns out it's a good way to record videos, so I went ahead and ordered one.  Here it is on my workspace










I'm very hopeful this will do what I hope it will -
there's plenty of room for me to work without the iPad/iphone blocking my view of what I'm trying to paint.

The only thing to do now is to try recording a video.  

(here's just a little 'tester', I'm removing masking tape, riveting stuff I know, but I have to start somewhere - for some reason my hands are flapping about to begin with, sorry about that!)





(many thanks to Judy Coleman for her advice
about this iPad/iphone Stand).








a slight blip earlier on my blog...

apologies if anyone saw my blogpost earlier about '3rd party hosting'...this was something that cropped up on my blog and left me somewhat confused.  I have since worked out what the problem was and so am now a happy blogger again.



Sunday 13 August 2017

Another bike ride


Had a lovely ride on my bicycle today via the old railway line, now a tarmac trail for walkers and bicycles.   There are so many lovely views along the way, but this time I stopped and took a quick photo of this farmhouse...


I felt sure it would end up as a painting, so it wasn't surprising that the first thing I started drawing when I got home was this scene.  Initially was on going to do an ink outline then leave it for another day, but as soon as that dried, I just had to add watercolour.

Here it is on my easel and you'll notice I used artistic license in changing the building from white to rustic....I thought it added a bit more to the painting.


Not completed at this stage.  I'm trying out some new masking tape around the edges, and so far am very pleased with it.


Once I removed the tape, I could look at the painting objectively.  I can see I need to add more details to this.


Although I am currently working a some other artwork - Commission pieces - this painting is allowing me to switch my brain off and give them a break for a day.  I will then go back to my Commission work with fresh eyes.


I've added more detail now...


 (close-up)


(close-up)

Completed 

"The Old Farmhouse"

(Overall size: 12" x 9"    Painting/image size: 10" x 7")

Now on my

ETSY shop (click link to view)


🎨🎨🎨





Tuesday 8 August 2017

A bike ride, a walk and some sketching...


CROW POINT & BRAUNTON BURROWS  made for a perfect bike ride.   It follows the estuary and at the Point turns the corner to the open sea.





the bike ride down the private road was an opportunity for me to take some photos.  This definitely needs to be a visit in itself for sketching and some plein air painting.




It didn't take long to ride down to this....







Is it old age, but I couldn't remember the name for those large A-Framed metal things in the field (you can just see them in the pic....then husband said they're called PYLONS...oh yes so they are).








Husband walked William whilst I sketched







although he was a little bit tired when we stopped for our picnic.




Monday 7 August 2017

New paintings on my shop

https://www.etsy.com/shop/studiohydeart

Church & Harvest

overall size 10.5 x 7"


(close-up)
 (close-up)


And a couple of Miniature ACEO's 

this one is titled: "Country Cottages"

and this Miniature of a Village scene


Paintings move quickly ....
this one is already heading for a new home in the United States.