Tomorrow I intend to fulfil the plan I hatched after my recent visit to Leicester. I will be going back to spend a day in the Bradgate Country Park, sketching the ancient trees there. I was really impressed by these when I saw them …. it is claimed that some of them are up to … Read more
Now that the dust has settled over my exploration of the possibilities of on-line exhibition, my mind has been free to turn back to the real business of painting. During our recent visit to Leicester my imagination was really grabbed by a group of very ancient oak trees in Bradgate park,. and I did wonder … Read more
The answer, it seems, is that you don’t. Today has been really beautiful and sunny. We decided that we would go out for a walk around the nearby, wooded St. Ives estate. It was wonderfully refreshing. Entirely unbidden, I found myself suddenly thinking about how very good it would be to have a day of … Read more
…. is finding somewhere to sit. If you are going to draw an olive tree, the first thing to recognise is the fact that it is probably just one tree in a whole grove of them. This means that you will probably be tempted to sit on the roots of an adjacent tree close to … Read more
For some time now I have been planning to get out and have a good walk in the Yorkshire Dales …. and, incidentally, to do some plein aire sketching. As forecast, today has been an absolutely wonderful opportunity to do just that. So I drove to the village of Grassington this morning, and having parked … Read more
After a break for the Christmas/New Year holiday the life-drawing class is starting up again at the Ilkley Art School. I really have missed the regular stimulus of these sessions. They will be particularly welcome at the moment because I have not been very successful in finding projects under my own steam. Recently I have … Read more
…. as does life-drawing! I was intrigued yesterday to find out how the Ilkley Art School intended to cope with the distancing regulations responding to the current pandemic. Their response was impressive. There is a paved courtyard in front of their studio, and the class moved out there. A large canvas dome had been put … Read more
Well, I did try to post during our holiday in Dorset, from which we returned this afternoon. In fact, I was most of the way through composing a piece one evening when it disappeared suddenly, and without trace. Whether this was a feature of the local rural broadband, or my mishandling of the iPad I … Read more