Muddy Boots

My over-riding memory of the winter 2013/2014 will be of rain. It rarely seems to have stopped. We have been much more fortunate than many in the UK - the sea defences held and the work done on the River Rife prevented flooding. However, everywhere you walk is so muddy.

This pastel painting depicts my walking boots after a walk with the dog along the banks of the Rife, down to the beach and back again. It measures approx 11" by 9", and was created with Conte hard pastels on Winsor paper.

Let's hope the spring brings drier weather.

What is the word for looking up your own name on Google?

Trying to find where I had posted a copy of this picture (Mirror Lake) on the web I entered my name into Google. It is amazing what comes up. Even with an unusual name, there are loads of "googlegangers".

The site where this picture resides was found and there a number of very nice comments. The original now lives with my daughter and son-in-law.

Not so good was that I found my own obituary. Don't think I'll bother with that again!

The House in the Woods

This was started at Sky Blue as an exercise in counterchange, and finished off at Lancing Art Club on the theme of warm colours.

The light roof against the dark trees is a fairly obvious example of counterchange, but check out the tree trunks. Against the dark foliage they are light; against the light sky the same trunk is dark. Not "right" but it is effective.

Approximately 12" by 8", it was painted with St Petersburg White Nights watercolour paint on Winsor Aquafine 300 gsm paper.

Rain Forest

Sometimes it is fun to just paint with no detailed goal in mind, and see what happens. This my latest piece of "abstract realism" and contains elements from four of my earlier paintings. Measuring approx 14" by 10" it was painted with Atelier Interactive Acrylics on Bockingford paper. It can't be all bad  -Jean likes it!