Six-Spot Burnet Moths at Prawle Point

 

A magical experience at Prawle Point, already my favourite spot to paint on the Devon coast. I walked past the National Coastwatch Station  onto an area of sublime coastal grassland (it's an SSSI) with lots of sea thrift and  rare Autumn Squill coming into flower. What really dazzled though were the hundreds of Six-spot Burnet Moths  flying around, flashes of red and black. Some newly emerged from cocoons on grass stems  were drying out, others were mating,  the remainder searching for nectar. A spectacular sight, it was a while before I could concentrate on sketching and painting , an experience that will stay with me for a long time.  

Dusk Watercolours- Week 2 Barbican

Our final session of  Dusk Watercolours was held at the Barbican, in the seating area by the fountains, with opportunities to tackle buildings both ancient and modern. Having missed guidance for 2 sessions by  playing hookey, the tutor was determined I should experiment with techniques outside my comfort zone,  using candle wax resists and gum arabic

Not my best efforts but I enjoyed the opportunities to abstract and a new appreciation of concrete!

Lots of water to interpret - I was just about to tackle some amazing ripples and reflections when they switched some of the fountains off ( it was also quite windy) so I settled for drawing the shapes around   this round fountain . Rather overworked in the end as I struggled to balance the tones, the details look more interesting than the whole.

 

Overall I had mixed feelings about the course, nothing wrong with the tutor but having some experience already in watercolours (and being rather settled in my ways!) I didn't get as much out of it as I'd hoped. The emphasis was on colour mixing and techniques whereas I would have liked a bit more on composition as that in my opinion is what makes or breaks a work of art. I did however enjoy the challenge of urban sketching and will be looking at more courses that take me in that direction, particular the opportunities to make more abstract images. 

Dusk Watercolours - Week 2, South Bank

Back from Slapton and Festival of Quilts - time to make an inroads into the backlog of blog posts!
On the first day of 2nd week of  City Lit Dusk Watercolour course we again met at Embankment, this time to paint  in Embankment Gardens, a delightful spot I hadn't been aware of. After it started to rain , the drawing of plants and trees started to  pall for me - I can do that at work! Having glimpsed the London Eye through the foliage I really wanted to draw the unfamiliar, the urban landscape  so I played hookey again, walking across to the South bank.

The approaching rain clouds  gave ever more dramatic skies which I enjoyed trying to capture with varying degrees of success - these simpler ones worked best.

As the sun set  the  natural light show entranced me and I gave up sketching content just to watch it  unfold

Hampton Court Flower Show and Bellowhead

On the weekend of 13 / 14 July,Ian's parents came to stay and Sheila and I went to Hampton Court Flower show. It was extremely hot so it was appropriate that there were several show garden featuring fire, the best in my opinion "Desolation to Regeneration which won a well deserved Gold in the Conceptual Gardens. I particularly liked how the transitions were managed and repetition of planting was used to good effect.

Also in the same category I like the clean lines of 'Clints and Grykes' referencing limestone pavement (thinking of the wild strawberries I've scoffed from Yorkshire examples)

Among the sculptural elements in gardens, the ones I coveted most were these metal artichokes and large colourful fibreglass leaves.

The colour of the moment seems to be black foliage, used in several gardens and I bought a black elder which I've long admired and hope to get some of the black angelica (above) which had spectacular flower heads.

This I bought (along with a 'hot lips' sage in the 'taste' marquee where besides lots of food items for sale they had cookery demonstations. Perhaps buttercream iceing wasn't the best thing to show on a hot day !! Lots of herbs and edible plants  like this'raised bed' .

On the Sunday we went with Sue and Peter to see 'Bellowhead' at 'Kew the Music' , taking food and wine for a shared picnic. It was a lovely atmosphere and we had  a very pleasant evening, Bellowhead were very lively and the support in Billy Bragg and a Scottish folk singer who's name escapes me were also excellent 

Sue took one of the nicest photos of Ian and I. Happy Days!

Orchid Events

Well here I am at Slapton at the start of my painting holiday, catching up with events from over a month ago so I can blog about my current work!
After a days indigo dyeing with Janice at Art Van Go , I went down to Bath and Gloucestershire for a couple of orchid related activities. Firstly to Writhlington School for the premiere screening of 'Plants Behaving Badly' for which I was filmed last year(wearing orchid earrings of course). Amazingly I hadn't ended up on the cutting room floor! The company is Panthenon, now Sky Vision and initially it's going to be shown in Germany where it was commissioned. Fancy dubbing David Attenborough who narrated it!

Writhlington is known for its orchid project, run by pupils , growing orchids for sale to fund trips to some amazing places where they train locals in propagation techniques. One of their most recent trips was to Rwanda (I couldn't resist supporting their work by buying some basketry) .

I was mainly interested in their lab facilities but they have a dedicated glasshouse where students were giving tours. I loved the colours of this Vanda.

After an excellent overnight stay in the Griffin Inn in Bath ( shame I didn't get back in time to sample the real ales , although when I mentioned that to the staff, they did offer me some beer for breakfast which I reluctantly declined) I headed off to see orchids of a different kind.

I spent a lovely morning in beautiful woodland pollinating flowers of the Red Helleborine and collecting leaf samples in bags of silica gel for DNA analysis.

Proms and Paper

Yesterday  we went to out first Prom of the season - a Saturday Matinee at the Cadogan Hall near Sloane Square . Sarah Connolly has an amazing mezzo voice,  singing in 'Pheadra's Frock' borrowed from the production at Glyndebourne.  Afterwards, as in previous years we went to the nearby  Saatchi Gallery, where Ian bought me a colourful pair of artists brush earrings to wear on my painting holiday next week! The exhibition on 'paper' was thought provoking: used in so many ways from large scale drawings of overlapping pieces;  collage; paintings  to puppets, papercuts and diverse sculptures

Trees featured heavily from 'branches' made of layers of newsprint to delicate paper-cuts from paper bags(  I'll never look at a McDonalds bag in quite the same way again)

The structure made of kites had the wow factor.

I would have liked to have had more time to look at the suspended city made of tracing paper but the gallery was closing  and we were racing round to have a glimpse of everything  before they chucked us out ( we have a bit of a track record in that regard!)

Strangest and most intriguing was this papier mache boulder attached to the wall suspending belief.