Lobster Pot Drop

This painting I did from a photograph I took whilst we were out dropping the lobster pots.  The sun broke through the cloud for a few minutes and I really loved the colours on the small island in contrast to the cloud dappled sky and deep sea around it.

acrylic on canvas paper, 16x12"

I have been having a bit of a break from painting as I've been fully immersed in researching things for our upcoming renovation project which is somewhat taking over my every waking hour! However, today I locked myself in the studio to work on a larger painting from the North Uist series and I will post it here shortly once it is finished.

Loch Maddy, North Uist

This painting sketch was done from a photo I took whilst out on the boat dropping off the lobster pots and fishing for mackerel. A bit of a departure from my usual style, but I think it works nevertheless. I really like how the rocks turned out, all it took was a few simple brushstrokes in a lighter tone to show the light shining on the right hand side and it just  worked - if only it was always that easy! 

This was the day we pulled up 2 big lobsters and something like 15 crabs for dinner!

"Loch Maddy" acrylic on canvas paper, 16x12" 

Paper Sketches

Thank goodness it's the weekend, it's been a swelteringly hot week here in New York. We will hopefully be getting some respite once it breaks with a thunderstorm or two. I spent the day hiding away in the studio with the A/C blasting. Decided to work on some small sketches on paper to work up some ideas for new work. Here is one of them.

"Some Days are Just Better Than Others" mixed media on paper, 7.5x7"

Going Horizontal

I think I am becoming addicted to the horizontal line. My work has been getting increasingly stylised and whilst this may not necessarily be a bad thing, I think I need to to set myself a challenge to get away from the colour-block horizontal lines that keep appearing. This last painting was the tipping point (please excuse the painters tape and poor image, I only had my iPhone in the studio today). 

"North Shore" acrylic on paper, 3x 16x20" 

You may well recognise this painting as I first posted about it here. I had been looking over it and felt it was really lacking life so I decided to develop further it and lo and behold, hello horizontal lines! I definitely feel it has something more interesting about it now that it was lacking before despite the colour-blocky (is that a word?!) nature.

Now I just have to decide how to frame or display this piece. It's on 3 separate pieces of acrylic paper so I could either mount them to boards or frame each one individually...thoughts?? 

Sunshine Flowers

Finally, the sun has come out in London! For those of you not currently experiencing the highs and lows of the great British summer, this is BIG news. I celebrated by painting these positively summery abstract florals bursting with colour and expression. Then I went and bought an ice-cream.

Grey Days

Oh London, why do you rain so much? I returned from Bermuda to a VERY grey, wet and freezing London, more November than mid June. So to keep my post-paradise spirits up I have been drawing on all the inspiration I gathered over the last couple of weeks. Today I was experimenting with a slight departure from my usual style in something that I've been wanting to paint for ages - people in the water. So, still seascapes but with a human element introduced below, above or on the surface of the water. I took the opportunity to take lots of photos one day when we were on a boat and incredibly, the water is so clear and shallow reefs so abundant in Bermuda that even though we were over 4 miles off shore and it was still a light turquoise blue. I had a friend take some photos for me whilst I swam under water and here is my first experimental painting. Painting the waters rippling surface is so hard to capture but I'm really excited with the results!

"Boilers" on the North Shore

"North Shore #1"

"North Shore #2"

"North Shore #3" acrylic on canvas paper, 16x20"

Here is the finished triptych I have been working on this week. The term "boilers" refers to the circular reefs found here that when the waves break over them, give the appearance boiling water frothing out over the top. The paintings are each acrylic on paper that is textured with a canvas like finish and I plan on framing them under glass individually but to be hung as a trio. I have also just discovered the the Bermuda Arts Centre that I visited yesterday has an open call for their juried summer show so I have decided to enter some of my recent paintings, fingers crossed!

Rainy Days

It's been pretty cloudy and rainy here in Bermuda but it's meant that I've had more motivation to spend my time painting rather than on the beach! Here you can see the finished version of the painting I blogged about the other day:

"Jobson's Cove" acrylic on paper, 16x23

I visited the botanical gardens today and the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda art which is well worth a visit if you are on the Island. It stopped raining long enough to do a little sketching in the gardens, the flowers were absolutely amazing and make me think I should revisit my floral series sometime in the near future. Today I have also been working on a series of three paintings inspired by some photographs I took a couple of days ago along the very northern tip of coastline just as the light was changing. The colours of the ocean changed so dramatically as the clouds moved over to block out the sun. I'll post the some pictures of the paintings in the next few days once I've finished them but for now here are a couple of the photos I took. 

Bermuda Seascapes

Continuing on my travels, I am now in Bermuda, a place very close to my heart having lived here for 5 years as a child. It's been 4 years since my last visit so it's great to be back and I am always astounded by the vividness of the colours, particularly in the sea. I haven't seen water such a vivid shade of turquoise anywhere else, it almost doesn't look real - a perfect place for some seascape painting! Yesterday morning I took a long walk along some of the south shore beaches some of which had an abundance of the pink coral sand that Bermuda is so well known for. Later I tried to capture some of these pink tones and here is the resulting painting in progress.

Feeling Peachy

I have not been good at blogging this summer, a combination of being away a lot and not having done much to write about! However, I have finally finished the giant peach. I have also been looking into doing my own framing which obviously works out cheaper than having it done at a framing shop.  I was worried it wouldn't look as professional but I think this looks pretty good! I used www.pictureframes.com and so far the frames I've bought have worked out really well. I've started a collection of their samples so my studio is beginning to look like a framing shop already! They come fully assembled so all I've had to do is attach the art work. This one is a really lovely walnut.