Robin Hood’s Bay is full of memories. I was just fifteen went I first went there. I got off the bus and fell in love. I was used to falling in love every couple of weeks, but that love grew and stayed and is still there within me.  And the village looked good too. I lived in and around the Bay for many years, and still live not too far away. This may be the start of a new series, smaller ones just started…

The Bolts. Acrylics on canvas, 40x80cm

The Old Bakehouse. Acrylics on canvas, 50x100cm

Bay. Always inspiring. This is my latest.

The Bolts. Acrylics on canvas, 40x80cm (16×32″) RRP £425.

In January, I’ve been mostly playing with angels…

Happy Christmas, everyone. I hope you are safe and warm.

We are entering November and its chill winds, but it has been a great summer and a wonderful autumn. Even my grapes have ripened, and on the North East coast this is rather good. The colours have enchanted me, and they have reminded me of a lamp which was in my grandparents’ house near Villemur. It stood just outside my grandmother’s bedroom. It was a lifetime ago, I was a child, but I remember an arrangement of leaves and bunches of grapes made of translucent glass, possibly 1920s, and the soft light shining through them. The house was beautiful, if formal and somehow severe. At night we would go upstairs by the wooden servants staircase, leaving the warmth of the Aga and the glow of polished copper pots in the kitchen. Upstairs were long corridors, tall and dark. Most of the bedrooms were usually empty, a bit sad in their grand but slightly faded loveliness. The Empire bedroom was impressive with its gold ornamentation, but I liked the Blue bedroom, its soft tones, the bed in the alcove and the long curtains you could draw across it. In the darkness at the top of the stairs, between the light from below and the safe haven of the bedroom, there stood the soft glow of glass grapes.

Here are the results.

Grape Vine study I
Acrylic inks on paper, 20x29cm

Grape Vine study II
mixed media on paper, 20x29cm.

Grape Vine
oil on canvas, 40x100cm

Sandsend Wave II
oil on canvas, 40x80cm
£450.

Usually one avoids this sort of half and half composition, but I love both land and sea, and tried to get a hint of yingyang in the wave. Does it work for you?

One from earlier this summer, near Grosmont, looking towards Aislaby side. I’m told it isn’t a Giant Hogweed, just a very tall one…

Currently in Coast Gallery, Cloughton.

Thank you to all who came to see my work during the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage last weekend. Old friends, kind patrons and new faces, thank you for your comments and support. This old fishing village was buzzing with artists and visitors. I hope to take part again next year, and hope to see you there!

Just a week before Staithes Art Fest. Over 100 artists exhibiting in this small coastal village. The village was the home and inspiration of the Staithes group of artists, and is now the home of Old Jack (in case you have children and watch CBeeBies). There will be lots to see, displays of chainsaw carving and old lantern slides, and more… http://www.staithesfestival.com/

I’ll be there, sharing cottage 4A (on the left in the picture above) with Kate Rider and Liz Collier. I hope it will be sunny, and you will be able to visit.

I’ve just finished this one, and I’m rather pleased with it. I usually paint places I know, but this was painted as a commission, from a photograph.

It was just a photograph, but I liked the distant hills and there was a story which came with the image, and I thought it would be a challenge. I started thinking about it in May, and by June had a black and white underpainting.

Then it was summer, North Yorkshire Open Studios, going back to my roots in the South of France, enjoying the sun, finishing another commission, making jam till I ran out of empty jam jars…  But the thinking/incubating time is a very precious time indeed, and seems to lead to better work.

This is the finished piece. Oil on canvas, 30x90cm (12×36 inches).

My art tutor (from college over 20 years ago, but we have kept in touch) came to see me yesterday. He was keen to see what had happened to the striking black and white sketch. He was pleased. He said this may be one one of the paintings I’ll be remembered for. Praise indeed. (He doesn’t usually do praise, more constructive criticism, which is most useful).

I’ve really enjoyed painting commissions in the last year or two. They’ve been challenging, but rewarding, all different as the final image is a weaving of the patron’s ideas and mine. If you want to commission me for an oil painting, please give me 2 or 3 months. It seems to have worked so well for the last 2 commissioned oil paintings, and I don’t charge for the thinking/incubating time, just the painting time.