Tag Archives: essex

Riverside Trilogy, Ulting

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I received the application form for the annual art exhibition in Langford and Ulting Village Hall as a friend and I were planning a kayak trip from Hoe Mill Lock. It was the perfect opportunity to take some reference photos of the beautiful Ulting countryside along the banks of the River Chelmer as we paddled to Paper Mill Lock and back. 

Being so low, sitting on the surface of the water, lends an unusual perspective and, as my kayak buddy pointed out, these pen and wash landscapes actually have the orientation of portraits.

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It was the striking silouhettes of the towering teasels I noticed first, I love the way they frame this little rural scene. water, langford and ulting village hall, art exhibition, countryside,ulting, river chelmer, riverbank, riverside,silhouette, landscape, essex, burnham art club, pen and wash, drawing, painting, illustration, watercolour, watercolor

I was struck by the lush green of this riverside field in contrast to the backlit branches, still bare, on the cusp of spring.

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And lastly, the beautiful old church appears to grow out of the vegetation on the riverbank.

The exhibition will celebrate local artists and raise money for the village hall:

Langford and Ulting Village Hall, Langford Road, CM9 4SS

Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd April 2023, 10am-5pm

Burnham Art Club – Winter 2022-23

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Happy to present the remaining pen and wash paintings I made between December 2022 and February 2023.

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Above and below, a couple more attempts to capture the colourful sky as the winter sun sets behind our neighbours’ poplar trees.

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And since I’m partial to a silhouette, here’s Asheldham church backlit by a January sunset.

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While taking a short, time killing wander around Maldon one December evening I noticed these illuminated leaves still clinging to a tree behind the Blue Boar pub.

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It never ceases to amaze me how winter pansies can continue to bloom after being repeatedly frozen, aparently solid. 

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The two beauties above live in the neighbourhood.

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My mum bought this beautiful Singer for £32, 12 shillings and thruppence in 1962 which is worth between £658 and £873 depending on your inflation calculator. 

Burnham Art Club – November 2022

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Even if I can’t get to Burnham Art Club meetings on a Tuesday morning, to either paint out in the open air or inside the Art Club meeting hall, I set time aside to make a new painting at home.

These are the paintings I made in November.

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I actually made a version of this view of Tillingham Church about six months ago in May. I drove to Tillingham on a bright morning and sat drawing in the street until the chill from the wind got a bit uncomfortable. The passersby were mostly curious and friendly and the guy whose house I was sitting outside kindly offered me a cuppa. He’d overestimated the warmth of the sunshine too – he came out wearing shorts and no top!

I was out of practice back then and although the painting  came out ok, I wasn’t happy with the composition so I redid it this month.

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We’ve still got tomatoes growing in our greenhouse here in Mayland. I was struck by the elegance of this particular branch as it draped over the bamboo cane. I also love the colour gradation of the fruits as they ripen at differnet rates. 

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And finding this beautiful rose blooming in our neighbours’ garden while I was house  sitting recently was a lovely surprise. Its scent was diivine but, sadly, capturing that was beyond me!

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You may recognise the form of the trees above from a painting I made almost exactly a year ago.

It’s the view from my bedroom window, and by November the sun has crept around the house to set behind the neighbours’ poplars, with Mayland Hill in the background.

Although the silhouette of the trees is basically unchanged, there’s huge variation and sometimes drama in the sky colours as the sun goes down. 

Burnham Art Club – Autumn 2022

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Back in September I joined Burnham Art Club – a group of painters formed in the 1960s based in the beautiful riverside town of Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex.

It’s been a joy to meet other like-minded painters for the weekly discipline of painting in the open air, especially since the weather this autumn has been (mostly) glorious.

Apart from the Autumn Acer, I started all the paintings shown below on site, adding the finishing touches in the comfort of home. They’re all pen and watercolour on 30.5 x 23 cm 300gsm 50% cotton Fabriano paper which has a lovely ‘woven’ texture.

Number 7

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I was invited in for coffee and a little house tour by the lovely owners of this gorgeous 250 year old Dutch built property, which they used to run as a combined antique and tea shop.

The Clock Tower

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This stunning clock tower, which is the focal point of Burnham High Street, was built in 1877 in memory of Laban Sweeting, a local oyster merchant and philanthropist. The original plan was to put up a clock in his honour but donations came in so fast after his death that there was enough money to build a tower to house the clock.

I got the bones of this drawing down while perched on my little stool in the High Street, but once the cold rain showers joined the chilly wind I retreated inside to add the watercolour.

Green Door

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After tackling the clock tower with all its bricks and angles I was in the mood for a simpler subject the following week. I was drawn to the beautiful colour of this front door and the calming symmetry of its setting.

Autumn Acer

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At the suggestion of the art club chair person we took a break from street painting and took on autumnal still lifes in the meeting hall. I plucked this acer branch from our garden as I passed because I was struck by the lovely contrast of its reddish leaves against the sky. Hence the blue background.

Wallasea from Burnham Quay

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For week five, I decided that it was time to tackle some boats. I settled on this view across the River Crouch to Wallasea Island, home to a wetland bird sanctuary, from Burnham Quay. That obliging seagull kindly stood on the post for long enough to have its picture ‘taken’. 

Blue Boat, Low Tide

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I loved the dramatic angle that this blue boat made with the horizontals as it leaned over at low tide. The River Crouch is an estuary, so tides flow in from and out to the North Sea twice a day. Of course the tide came in as I was painting, the blue boat started to float on the water, and all those angles changed. The people who came up for a look and a chat were a bit confused by the difference between my painting and the actual view!

Orange Field – Tree Silhouettes

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On my way back from morning dog walks, these winter tree silhouettes kept catching my eye. They are particularly beautiful in contrast with the orange field in the background.

Brent – Group Exhibition

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Back at the end of the 1970s, aged 10-11, I had a brilliant teacher for my last year of primary school; Janet Hall. She was a gentle, creative person with flowing hair, flowing skirts and clogs, and she lived on this boat. The Steam Tug Brent.brent, steam tug, boat, maldon, essex, heritage

I’ve had the good fortune to have had enjoyed some excellent travel adventures but one of the best was during that last year of primary school. Mrs Hall arranged for our class to travel by boat (not the Brent!) from Maldon to Saint Osyth’s Priory. I still remember that exhilarating feeling of freedom as we skimmed across the water that dark grey morning with a hair whipping wind. Below – my school photo from around that time.budding artist

I got back in touch with Janet having returned to Essex after many years away. As luck would have it she was on the deck of the Brent as I walked on Maldon’s prom one day. Once Covid restrictions eased we met for a coffee and caught up on the intervening years.

Janet told me the story of the Brent’s rescue from the salvage yard in 1971, the years when she became the Hall family home through to the Steam Tug Brent Trust being set up in 2010 as a means of raising money and a voluntary workforce to conserve and restore this lovely old boat. 

The Brent really is a labour of love and I highly recommend signing up for the supporters’ newsletter where you can see many beautiful photos and read the full story. steam tug brent contacts

The Brent has achieved iconic status after 50 years in Maldon. To celebrate, a group exhibition of Brent related artworks was staged at St Mary’s Church Octagon in July 2021. The range, number and quality of pieces was really impressive; models, paintings on metal and board, watercolours, textile pieces, primary school submissions. Really lovely.

I was delighted to be invited to contribute, I made the pen and wash sketch below and helped to hang some of the pictures in the exhibition space.brent, steam tug, boat, maldon, essex, pen and wash, watercolour, painting, drawing, sketch

Circumstances, Covid and otherwise, have so far conspired to prevent me from getting on board on one of Brent’s open days. I’d love to have a really good look around, and of course it would be marvelous to see her fully restored and sailing under steam power again one day.

Summer Sketches

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Here are a couple of pen and wash sketches I made in a beautiful Essex country garden this summer, with the bees humming in and about the lavender.

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Sign Painting – The Limes

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sign, sign painting, sign writing, hand painted, illustration, fruit, vegetables, one shot enamel, shop local, burnham on crouch, essex, fresh, sun burst, asparagus, cherries, peas, strawberries, lime, mushroom, pears, advertising, promotionBack at the start of the first Covid lockdown in spring 2020 we were delighted and grateful to secure weekly fresh fruit and veg delivery from The Limes. It’s a lovely, local, family business in Burnham on Crouch.

Our closest supermarket is also in Burnham, and on my way there and back I’d pass The Limes, see their sign (perfectly functional but a bit rough and ready) and daydream about painting them a new one. Painting food is one of my passions afterall.

I made a Photoshop mockup incorporating some of the fruit and veg drawings from my sketchbooks and sent it to them with my proposal. They were really enthusiastic, suggested a couple of design changes which led to the final version below.

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I got a full size (110 x 125 cm) copy printed in black and white and used it to trace the design onto both sides of the board after they had had a couple of coats of exterior gloss paint. Important to remember to flip the arrow on side two!

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I worked from the bottom up, turning the board over after each section had dried to paint both sides to the same stage. I didn’t fancy completing one side then having to start from scratch on side two. Below – my supervisor does his quality control check.

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I used One Shot sign painters’ enamel for the text and decorative parts. It’s a durable, high quality paint with a lovely, creamy consistency. 

one shot sign painters enamel

It’s also expensive, so I limited my order to six colours: white, lettering black, medium green, reflex blue, fire red and primrose yellow. I planned to mix all the shades I needed from them. You can see a colour chart I mixed using the red and yellow below.

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As I painted the fruity parts, I used my sketches and real fruit for reference. The sketches for a loose approach to shape and the real fruit for accuracy of colour and detail.lime, work in progress, sign, sign painting, sign writing, hand painted, illustration, fruit, vegetables, one shot enamel, shop local, burnham on crouch, essex, fresh, sun burst, asparagus, cherries, peas, strawberries, lime, mushroom, pears, advertising, promotion

My limited palette of colours worked perfectly until I got to the cherries. I just couldn’t get the shade I was after by mixing the fire red with reflex blue so I had to order a pot of kool [sic] crimson.

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I worked slowly and steadily, averaging a couple of hours a day over three happy months. I enjoyed painting this sign so much and I hope that it shows in the finished product.

The good folks at The Limes are very happy. I’ll add some photos of the sign in situ once it’s been installed. In the meantime here’s my supervisor taking a well earned rest.

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Full Moon, Pylon, Winter Sky

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Catching the full moon, as it rises bulbous on a clear night is most uplifting. 

It’s so large when it’s low that I can almost feel the weight of its pull. Being made of mostly water I probably can feel that pull…

This is the view over our neighbours’ garden through the evergreen border bushes, and while the pylon may not be conventionally beautiful there’s drama in the contrast of its strict geometry behind the softer silhouette of the branches.

Winter certainly has its consolations.

Winter Trees 1

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It’s easy to make excuses not to sketch: my shoulder hurts, the weather’s too hot, the weather’s too cold, too wet, too windy, it’s winter – I’m uninspired, there’s nothing to see…

Then I started to pay attention to how beautiful the sky can be as the winter sun sets behind skeletal trees. Its position slightly shifting everyday so that eventually it’s setting over the road and visible from my bedroom window, which has a radiator under it.

So with no discomfort excuses I succumbed to the urge to try and capture this lovely view. I drew the trees in water resistant pen at a leisurely pace and left my sketchbook on the windowsill with my brushes, a jar of water and my paint box so that the next time the sunset was dramatic I could quickly paint the watercolour wash over the top.

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I repainted this version so that I could sell the painting without disfiguring my sketchbook and it’s now my plan to redraw the trees in preparation for a new attempt next time there’s drama in the sky.