Plein Air at Arlington

It's so nice to be back at Arlington Court doing some plein air painting.

There aren't as many visitors at the moment (the beer virus has changed a lot of things!)

Plus I'm corralled with my own invention of posts/tape to keep the social distancing issue clearly defined - I feel a bit like a zoo exhibit (shush now)

This painting is still a work-in-progress

and if you click the pic ↑ I've done a short video-clip  🎥

- heck you even get to see me briefly -

A walk on Holdstone Down

We had intended to drive down to Hunter's Inn the other day, 

but when we got as far as Trentishoe

we were faced with 

a sign to say Road Closed

Thinking 'outside the box' we turned at the junction on the left and followed the road up there, intending to outwit the system and turn right at the top of the hill, then make our way back down to Hunter's Inn.....but no, there was Another sign to say Road Closed.  Seemed like they didn't want anyone visiting Hunter's Inn, so we opted to stop at

Holdstone Down instead.

Nobody else about when we arrived, and being able to park easily in this pull-in and walk up the hill to the Triangulation Station at the top - well worth the walk for the view

and William had a good time too.

I took a short video of the 360° view
~ click the picture below to see ~ 

When the inspiration is there....I go for it

It's like a little bell rings and says "Time to paint that scene"

Easy to ignore, but also so very easy to follow that bell

and

PAINT

Here again, I have been inspired by the Chateau Diaries and couldn't resist 

this painting of

The jardinier en chef at Chateau De Lalande

Title: Elegant Simplicities

- Oil painting 10" x 8"  (25x20cm) - 

(if you click the image, I've done a little glimpse at the painting when it was on the easel)

⚜️⚜️⚜️

Inspiration strikes again

My painting inspiration comes from many corners and this is from France, namely 

Chateau De Lalande

@chateau_lalande ⃖ link
Oil painting30x30cm

If anyone is after something different to watch on tv, then try this

Youtube - The Chateau Diaries

(click the above for link)

🎨 🎨 🎨

(my painting was from ref. photo permission S Duin)

Throwback look

Throwback look at the oil painting done en plein air at 

Arlington Court - National Trust

~"The Lily-pond" ~ 

Hope to get back there one day to continue my Artist-in-Residence role.

Ideas a plenty

I'm working on a few painting ideas and whilst they run madly around my head,

and before I forget them in the crowd,

I'm making a note of them here so I can come back to them and eventually see if they will work.

One is from 'part' of the porch project (you can see about that in this blogpost)

A close-up of that painting highlighted an area that could well work in its own right

Now it's just a case of deciding how large I paint it,

and should I use a canvas or art board.  

I'm tempted to paint it LARGE with lots of juicy buttery Oil paint.

In the meantime, I'll go back to thinking and you'll be sure to hear about it again here.

Oh Deer!

The other day we had a lovely walk over at Heddons Mouth.

We park near Hunter's Inn and, if you look at the image below, we walk along that small path

That takes the route towards the sea, but we turned off part way along and stayed in the woodland, eventually making our way back to the road, coming back out here




 Throughout our walk we didn't see any wildlife, we know there are deer in the woods,
but not today, they were obviously social distancing!

I have to say we were delighted to have spotted
 this little sole
watching us in the field next to the lane

I'll zoom in...

and it watched us for a few minutes before making off, hopefully back to its family.

(If you click on the above image you will see how it watched us and then made off).

🦌 

A porch project

This painting, isn't actually on canvas, art board or paper...it's actually on a rough piece of hardboard attached to our letter box.  For a while now the blank white hardboard has stared at me, til finally the other day I decided to deal with it.   From inspiration of Irish Artist Roisin O'ffarrell  - I used my own interpretation of a welly boot painting, using Oil paint and palette knife.

● The wellies were our daughter Lil's (who spends her life in wellies)
 I do love it when she gets the Joules ones though, I get to keep the box they are sold in, it's always such a lovely happy design, which I repurpose for my paints....
yes, I really did say I am happy with an empty box!

● The door colour is taken from the paintwork on our house

• The flowers were quick twirls with a palette knife, so please don't try to identify them..they only exist in my head!

 Now that blank space under our letter box has something in it AT LAST!

Job done 

Update on blog

Sorry to change the appearance of this blog - again - but for some reason Blogger didn't want to load the sidebar.  So I made an executive decision and decided to take those sidebar gadgets off completely.  I think I can manage without them.