Withyhedge Beacon

Withyhedge Beacon is a naval navigational mark situated at the southern end of Jennycliff Bay.  It is overshadowed by two large communication pylons which are significant landmarks on the eastern side of Plymouth Sound.  The Jennycliff landmass offers a sheltered haven in an easterly wind for boats at anchor and a fickle breeze for yacht racing.

                                                                 
                                                              size 2' x 2'6"



Mount Batten breakwater, Plym Yacht Club race start box overlooks Plymouth Sound, regularly sending boats on their way for the Friday night series and weekend events. the start line is a visual line between a portable orange pole and the sturdier white flag post.

  

size 2'6" x 3'6"

Four paintings were submitted for the  2017  National Acrylic Painters Exhibition, held at the Crypt Gallery, St. Ives. The work included the two pieces shown above plus two smaller abstract images. Visitors showed a keen interest in the images and how they were produced and one of the small paintings was sold.

Passage Plan 1 was a reflective response sailing out into a wet and breaking horizon with references to charts, course and tidal direction

                                             size   12" x  15"


Passage Plan 2 another reflective image relating to clearing skies and calming seas as the evening draws in.

         

                                                  size 12" x 15"

Eddystone and church images

Eddystone Lighthouse

Back in the 'summer' of  '15, I took part in the Eddystone pursuit race from Plymouth, around the reef and  home again as quickly as possible.

The outward  leg was a steady beat to windward in 20 knots of southerly breeze. After rounding the rocks to port it was kite up and away for an exhilarating roller coaster of a ride to Plymouth Sound.

 

Church studies. St. Edward's. Peverell, Plymouth.

When I taught Art, architecture used to form part of the A level curriculum and in order to embrace the discipline I always thought it desirable to engage with subject matter as a direct experience. This involvement lead me to a deeper knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the buildings through which I and my pupils roamed.
Later, after retirement, I decided to keep up the visual study on a regular basis by utilizing my local church as a subject and exercise in drawing from observation. Initially this took the form of sketch-book, pencil, black gel-pen/water drawings, colour pencil studies and some larger colour pieces in paint or pastels. More recently I have experimented with working on plaster. I had hoped to work onto wet plaster, as the old masters might have done, but the ready mixed plaster that I purchased seemed to dry out too quickly for my intentions to realize, so I reverted back to the use of acrylics, though I very much enjoyed the quality that the surface and texture of the plaster added to the images I produced.

Spot The Artist

I was recently invited by the St. Ives Rotary Club to submit some art work for the St. Ives  Charity Art Sale, which encouraged me to experiment with smaller scale pieces , A5 in size. The paintings are less figurative than my larger pictures, although they generally refer to specific areas of the Admiralty charts. About 10 were produced , two of which were entered for the exhibition and sale.
The venue was the Porthmeor Studies, viewing on Saturday 19th Sept and sale day Sunday 20th Sept,  2015.

NAPA Annual Exhibition 2015

2015 National Acrylic Painters Association exhibition held at the Crypt Gallery, St. Ives. Saturday, August  29th until Saturday 12th September. The show featured 34 artists and displayed  134 paintings across a wide range of themes and approaches.

 My own contribution consisted of 4 pieces painted on Kevlar sail, again using a backdrop of a  relevant section of Admiralty chart to link in to the subject matter.

 The titles listed were;-

The Breakwater Fort        1060 x    900cms

Tinside Beacon                  1060 x   760cms

The  Lizard                          760  x    605cms

Rame Head                         760  x   605cms

The work  drew a great deal of intrigue from the viewing  public and sufficiently arrested the attention of the adjudicator to award a prize for Highly Commended Contemporary Painting.

The Circus

For as long as I can remember I have been a regular attender of the circus. The childhood experience involved lots of performing animals; lions, tigers, elephants, horses, dogs  and  even  zebras ,  complemented by the clowns and illuminated with trapeze artists and acrobats . Nowadays the animals have been excluded   from   performances   but  there  are still plenty of circus performers of the human variety.

Back in the mid-70s I spent a summer in Paris  staying with RCA student friends  and we regularly visited the circus school ' Nouveau Carre'  Cirque Gruss  at the Square  Emile-Chautemps';  to draw the performers in action.

Since the early 90s I have regularly revisited the travelling circus when they have come to Plymouth Hoe and Central Park,  ostensibly  to introduce my young son to the joys of the 'Big Top' but more truthfully to satisfy my own interest.  This fascination with the circus has continued to pull me back to observe and draw the action and atmosphere of the' Big Top'. Scribbling away in the semi-darkness, often trying to respond to the movement without looking at the pages of the sketchbook  until  the lights came back on and then wondering if the marks I had made conveyed any recognisable meaning.

Over many years my circus sketchbook has gradually filled up but I was uncertain how to make use of the drawings  until in the summer of 2014 I visited Plymouth Art Gallery  to see a show entitled 'Four Printers' , featuring  Matisse, Dali, Wharhol and Picasso. 

Among Picasso's work I came across two black and white  lino prints, one of a bull fight and one of a circus. It seemed only natural  to follow in the footsteps of the master and transcribe my black/white sketches  into print form.

Experimenting with the lino offered the drawings a new life of their own, dictated by the medium and opened the door to further  possibilities of tonal paintings.