#476 'The North Downs'

Mainly cloudy 1:1 plein air teaching day. This was the view near his house. We enhanced what was there - I liked the wheat field so made it the feature. Also when the sun came out to put the foreground shadow in. I walked a little left to see the hills int he background so I could paint them in even though they weren't in my eye-line - adds compositional interest!

#475 Sunflowers

An apt flower with all this sunshine and heat! I seem to paint flowers better when they are in the garden instead of inside my studio with sunshine falling on them. 
Chunking together petal shapes not painting individuals.
Cadmium Yellow deep a useful colour & mixed with Cerulean - for the background.
The composition took so long to arrange and paint and repaint - over an hour of doing this. But it pays off, and I like how it fills the edges and suits the boldness of the flower. Also looking at the ellipse brown centres, drawing them correctly and not to even shapes across the canvas.

14x15" oil on canvas

#462 'Early Summer The River Wey' 35x45cm

Clambering over dewy wet grass some of it as tall as me in search of an inspiring composition and scene....Morning light with the greens so bright plus the gate and reflections, worth a paint!

A canvas bigger than usual 35x45cm as I want to challenge myself which I do with so many greens to mix and get right, focus on cool and warm, light and darks. Considering there isn't much to the composition I'm pleased with the outcome.

This is the start with my mixing palette as well.

#421 'Summer Hay Bales' 30x40cm

Painted from a sketch I made in July, spotted from the car as we drove into Patchings Art Centre, near Nottingham. Hay bales, tree lined and shadows/light what a fab combo! I didn't have my painting gear with me so thought I get the warmth of summer back in the studio after all this rain!

I can recommend Patchings Art Festival if your a keep painter in the UK, with loads of art equipment to buy, and demos and workshops....

#362 'Sandymouth Beach 10x12"

Last painting in Cornwall. I really enjoyed this part of the world, it helped to have amazing weather, light and skies!
This is a wet sand and sky painting. I worked on the tones - the sand was surprisingly dark and the sea even darker. I tired to paint the waves over the top of the dark sea colour it didn't work so I wiped out wave shapes with kitchen towel and was able to get a better purchase and make the waves light enough.
The wet sand puddles were quite dark too, reflecting the sky in colours. People went into the sea as I was painting which helped with scale and interest.

I did some sketching through the trip so hope to do more paintings of Cornwall in the studio...

#350 'Summer Grazing' 10x12" & National Garden Scheme

I did a 1 to 1 plein air day with Elizabeth St John this week. She wanted to paint the view from our garden as we focused on mixing greens. 

Sheltered by a big pine tree we weren't too hot and managed to get two paintings done. I suggested she mixed her colours before we paint - getting a light and dark tonal version of each colour - especially the greens! I always mix my colours before I paint as it gives a pile to dip into and your not frantically mixing with a brush and running out of paint! It also allows for good harmonising within your colours as you mix the piles of colour with each other.

We were lucky to have the cows coming into our scene at the end which really helped the composition and give a good focus.

My husband Nick and I are taking part in the National Garden Scheme this weekend at a friends house, she has a wonderful 2 acre garden in the middle of Haslemere and has kindly given us a pitch in her gazebo to sell my paintings and Nicks photography. A percent of sales will go to the N.O.S charities. Come and visit us and the beautiful garden if you're nearby.

Address: 'Barsdey', 11 Derby Road, Haslemere, Surrey GU27 1BS
Open Times: 1-5pm
Entry cost: £5

This is one of Nicks photos of Bardsey Garden:

#348 'Evening Light, The South Downs' 11x14"

Late summer evenings are wonderful to paint, I tent not to make them very often because I'm too keen to paint first thing and I'm usually tired by the evening, but I geared myself up for this one and went for it! 
I loved the shadows on the white chalk path. they are similar to shadows on snow, really tricky to get the tonal value and the colour right, scraped off several times but happy now. 
Being a late evening I mixed the colours on the warm side. 
Here are the early stages of blocking in and getting the path shadows right before the sun moved down.

#347 'Box Hill Surrey' 12x16"

I was feeling confident from my previous large scale peonies painting so decided to go large on this one as well. I wouldn't usually on a new subject but was egged on by Sarah Manolescue who also went big.
We struggled a little with noise pollution - young people with there beat box & kids doing rolly pollies down the hillside and passers by wanting to know if we were at college!! 

Once I'd got into the painting it was ok, and quite enjoyed the scale. 
Not an easy view as there isn't much structure and its a big space, although I made the most of what was there, the sweeping down hill and the buildings. I put the horizon on the Golden Mean - or 1/3rd way down the board. Which is generally known as a pleasing point in composition. I also broke that line up with a big tree.

#345 'Chicken House' 10x10" & NEAC

Back in our friends garden, I didn't plan to paint this but thought is had a charm. I made a quick 'Notan' sketch before - which is a Japanese name for light and dark design:

This allowed me to see that most of the painting was mid and dark tones with a few pops of lights - the chickens. I used Tombow pens they do many greys, I used 3, a light mid & dark.

This pic is trying to capture the chickens while they were moving and having a bite to eat from their red bowl.

I used fresh marks and not too worked especially around the chickens. Their house was tricky as it was in a lot of shade, but still enough to show the light and dark sides. Simplified the background as it wasn't important.

Last week was the Private View of the New English Art Club exhibition at the Mall Galleries, London. So proud to have one in this show, really tough competition to get into as the standard is very high. 

The NEAC call themselves the Contemporary Impressionists, which really fits my work. My painting is hung in the main room of the gallery on the small painting wall - at the top 'Silver Birch in Snow' The show finishes on the 23rd June it's worth a look if you can get there.

#343 'The River Wey, Tilford' 24x30cm

It was a toss up between Waggoners Wells and Tilford Green. I was painting with Sarah Manolescue when we got to Tilford there was bridge works happening and it wasn't obvious what to paint. We walked around thinking we should maybe try Waggoners, but often the grass is greener, so we looked from the bridge and this is the view. Quite lovely! The sun came out and the cows even wondered into our scene.
Not easy standing on the super old bridge (built 1128) as it has one narrow lane and we were so close to the traffic, so much so they even stopped to have a nose at our paintings!
Here we are:

Enjoyed painting this, a challenge with all those greens, but it helps to mix pools of tonal colour before painting and I applied a burnt sienna underpainting....

#333 'Morning Meadow' 8x10"

We looked out the window and saw gorgeous morning light so dashed down to the end of the garden. My husband hopped over into the field and being a photographer lapped it up. But the camera wasn't enough for me so I grabbed my plein air gear out of the studio and started painting in my pink wellies and PJ's! Yes, a sight but I didn't want to waste any time getting changed.

I tried the option of not pre-staining the board with my usual Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine warm grey colour but using a Burnt Sienna underpainting instead as my base. It's surprising how different it feels and lot lighter in tone, so I will try more of these.

I also was focusing on limited brush strokes. What you put down counts. So its a quick and immediate response to light.

Burnt Sienna Underpainting

Our garden backing onto the field