Author: Jane

Posted on by

Beaches in Cornwall

Selection of miniature paintings and drinks mats

One of the reasons I love my little, miniature acrylic paintings, is that I can paint them relatively quickly! My latest selection are of beaches in Cornwall.

selection of acrylic paintings

Three of them are my easel paintings, and they include looking from Porth Kidney Sands, across Hayle towards Godrevy; Portreath and also two of St Ives Harbour – one is the view from the bus station looking across to the Harbour and the other is of the Lighthouse that is at the entrance to the Harbour at low tide.

drinks mats of cornish beaches

Then I have had fun with my “drinks mats”, one is another painting of the Lighthouse and the other is Godrevy, which I just love painting!

Painted Pebbles

I also experimented with painting on stones! These are very random beach scenes, mainly because the stones are so tiny it is difficult to paint, but I thought they might make nice paperweights!

I used Gesso first to create a surface on which to paint. I quite like them!

Posted on by

Sketches from Scotland

Illustration: Edinburgh Castle

Recently I was lucky enough to spend time in Scotland, mainly in Edinburgh and Oban. As always I took my Moleskine Sketchbook, Pens and Paints so that I could capture the scenery. This blog is all about my sketches from Scotland.

Edinburgh

Our holiday in Scotland started with quite a different experience from what we had been expecting. It coincided with the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The whole country observed a period of mourning. Because Her Majesty passed away whilst at Balmoral, Edinburgh led the way. We were able to pass our respects in person as she came to Lie in State at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. Something that living in Cornwall is not usually possible due to the distance in travelling to London. However it did mean that access to a lot of Buildings and Places were closed or restricted.

The weather was lovely during our stay, with a lot of blue skies and here are my sketches from Edinburgh.

Oban

We left Edinburgh and transferred to Oban, via Glasgow and the West Highland Railway. Our Flat had the most amazing views. They included Oban Harbour and Bay, looking towards Kerrara, with Lismore and Mull in the distance. These islands provided a stunning backdrop. I could have just stayed in the flat and looked (and sketched) the wonderful view all the time.

Sadly the weather was not as good as Edinburgh. Whilst we avoided heavy rain it was mostly grey and as a result my sketches include a lot of grey clouds. Despite this we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Oban.

Our flight was nice and easy, flying from Newquay Airport to Edinburgh Airport with Loganair. I can highly recommend. We decided to travel around Scotland using local transport, mainly trains. There was a risk of train strikes and as a result we decided to restrict where the places to visit. Our visit to Scotland was thoroughly enjoyable and I can’t wait to explore more of Scotland.

Update:

We have visited Scotland since! Once on a weekend break to Glasgow. Where I did a few sketches, read my blog post. Then another longer trip, mainly travelling around the Highlands. We stayed in Fort William, Skye, Inverness and Pitlochry, read my blog post.

Posted on by

Small Paintings of Godrevy

Godrevy painting landscape

It will come as no surprise that I love painting Godrevy and the miniature easel’s are just perfect for small paintings of Godrevy and I just can’t stop painting them! Luckily people like to buy them, so win win all round.

  • Godrevy low tide painting
  • Good surf at Gwithian easel painting
  • Godrevy beach acrylic painting
  • Looking to Gwithian painting
  • Godrevy splash painting
  • Nice surf at Gwithian and Godrevy little painting

I have painted them as portrait and landscape, some look towards the lighthouse, and some look towards Gwithian. You will notice that most of them are painted at low tide, mainly because I love to see lots of sand! It reminds me of walking across the beach in the sunshine, looking at the various rock pools. got very ambitious and painted a small version of one of my larger paintings, with the waves crashing against the rocks — and I am quite pleased with the result!

Illustration: Loving Godrevy

This one was using a different kind of canvas, it is quite thin and didn’t look quite right sat on the easel, so my daughter suggested adding a magnet! It works, so I see a new range of products coming on.

I could carry on posting these little, small paintings of Godrevy, as I just keep painting them! Have a look and see if I have some available for sale. If your chosen scene isn’t include then please get in contact with me and I can paint another one!

I hope you enjoyed looking at them, you can like to look at my other paintings of Godrevy.

Posted on by

St Ives Painting take 2!

I have decided to have another go at painting the same photograph of St Ives but using a different style!

My painting of Venice turned out well using a stippling method. By drawing the buildings in ink, the background were given a solid structure. Then when I added the watercolour paint and I didn’t need to worry too much about the detail, as it was already there.

St Ives gets ink

So I decided to paint St Ives using the same pen and ink method, only this time not using stippling but using my lovely old ink pens. Dipping in the pen regularly into the ink gives a different vibrancy as the pen stroke is not consistent. I am still struggling get the depth of field correct, with the boats in the water, but hey I am not going to worry about that too much!

St Ives just started

Next stop add some colour. I am quite happy with the sky, so now just need to work on the foreground sea. I already prefer it to the other one, which is shown below.

St Ives Painting using Pen and Ink

My second version of the St Ives painting is now complete, my aim was to give more definition to the background of the buildings of St Ives. However I am not sure how well it works, which one do you prefer?

This version of St Ives harbour is now available as an A5 Greeting Card.

Original St Ives Painting

St Ives harbour

This is the original, I suppose that is the joy of art, everyone can have their own opinion!

Posted on by

Quick easy watercolours

acrylic images on easel

I have a variety of styles, some are quick easy watercolours – these are watercolours that I can paint in 10–30 minutes. This is usually when I am outside trying to capture the scene quickly. Other watercolours take me a lot longer and these are my larger paintings, and are not usually painted in one session – an idea for another blog post I think!

Acrylic paintings

Sometimes I paint using Acrylic paint and I have to be quick with these because they dry so quickly. Never has that been more evident than this summer when it has been so hot! I have been painting my little easels but also drinks mats.

4 drinks mats of Godrevy beach

I did a few more but using different colours this time.

more drinks mats of Godrevy beach

I have been visiting the beach on quite a few occasions and after taking a dip I got my paints out. Here is my attempt to capture how busy Godrevy beach was, with so many people swimming, on paddle boards and inflatables. Everyone was really enjoying the lovely weather.

skethc of a busy Godrevy beach

Greeting cards

I like to convert my quick skethces and make them into cards. As mentioned I I love painting outside, so afterwards I cut them up into squares and turn them into greeting cards that hopefully people enjoy. They are purposely put on to 6×6 square cards so that they fit a standard square frame that can be purchased from a variety of supermarkets and other shops.

making greeting cards from my sketches

Visit my Greeting Cards page for what is currently available for sale, although as they are original paintings, once they have gone there is no guarantee I will paint the same scene again.

Lastly, this sketch is of Noto Cathedral, which I haven’t personally visited but was for an anniversary card for a special couple who got married there.

Sketche of Noto Cathedral

I hope you have enjoyed an insight into what I have been working on during August, don’t forget to find out my latest paintings that are availble to purhcase.

Posted on by

Godrevy paintings with texture

Godrevy beach and lighthouse with texture-LR

I have been working on, and now finished further paintings of Godrevy using Gesso to create texture, however this time I have added a little bit of landscape, rather than just focusing on the sea.

The image above looks at Godrevy lighthouse at high tide and I have used gesso to illustrate the power of the waves rushing towards the shore.

Looking towards Gwithian

The top one one is looking from Godrevy Beach towards Gwithian Beach and Towans. This one is of low tide and the gesso is used as a close up of the white foam as the small wave is about to crash on to the sand. Small amounts of gesso have also been used on the waves further out.

Godrevy with Gesso

This is viewing Godrevy Lighthouse from low tide on Godrevy beach. This time smaller amounts of gesso has been used, as the waves are very gently rolling in, and the gesso is used for the white foam.

What do you think, do these images work better with a landscape in it? I personally like them with just the sea, but I have actually sold one of them, and had great interest in the other one, so I could be wrong!

I would love your feedback, you can join any conversaions on Facebook or contact me direct..

Posted on by

July Sale 20% off paintings

Screen Shot of Watercolour Painting of St Michaels Mount

For the month of July I am running a Summer Sale in my Etsy shop and offering a 20% reduction on my smaller original watercolour paintings. These come already mounted to fit a standard 9×7 inch frame – so you can choose your own frame.

These paintings include

Visit my Etsy page to view the full range

Posted on by

Painting the same scene

Godrevy painting the same scene

I do find myself quite often painting the same scene, which some people may consider odd or perhaps like a production line but I don’t – I love it!

There are particular places in Cornwall namely Portreath, Godrevy, St Ives, Logan Rock, St Michaels Mount and so on, that I could just keep painting.

You never what you are going to get with Watercolour or even Acrylic, have I mixed the colours in the same way, perhaps used different paint brushes. It is what makes it exciting, how will each painting turn out different!

Porthcurno and Botallack

Then of course I get paintings that I absolutely LOVE. Thank goodness paintings are not like children where you love them all equally, I am allowed to have my favourites, which must include Pedn Vounder Beach at Porthcurno Bay and The Crowns at Botallack.

  • Turquoise waters at Porthcurno Bay
  • Pedn Vounder beach
  • Pedn Vounder Beach and Logan Rock
  • Porthcurno bay
  • Pedn Vounder beach
  • The Crowns, Botallack
  • The Crowns at Botallack Mine
  • Sketch of The Crowns, Botallack
  • The Crowns, Botallack Mines

So if I paint a particular scene then if I sell it, I can’t wait to paint it again!

Portreath

  • Portreath harbour
  • Watercolour painting of Portreath Pier
  • Portreath splash
  • Watercolour painting of Portreath Beach
  • Portreath beach
  • Portreath sunset
  • Portreath in Winter
  • Portreath Beach with texture

And I can only paint where I love, so why not keep painting places I love, for example Portreath, just down the road from where I live. Portreath has a variety of scenes to paint, including the harbour; the beach with Gull Rock in the background, not to mention different times of the year (a great spot for summer sunsets) and storms in the winter

Gosh I could just go on and on! P.S. you can click on any of the images to see them larger.

Posted on by

Sketches of Norway

Fjorydhutter close-up

If was about this time 5 years ago that we visited Norway and luckily I was able to do some sketching. I wasn’t sure if the weather would be warm enough to sit outside and paint, but here are my sketches of Norway. Click on the images to see a larger version.

  • Bryggen Wharf, Bergen
  • Bergen wharf warehouse

We were doing a train tour and flew from Gatwick to Bergen, where we stayed for a few days. The first day was very much what we were expected from Bergen i.e. wet! However in the afternoon of the second day the sun came out and it was glorious. We sat outside close to the Bryggen, where I tried to capture the Wharf houses, which are the iconic buildings that are associated with Bergen.

The next day we were off to Flam, where luckily the glorious weather continued and it was just magical to sit alongside the Sognefjord and get my paints out. Even better was in the evening, where I sat on the beach at past 10 o’clock at night and was able to do another sketch. I loved the four small fishermen houses, or Fjordhytter, that sat below the dramatic mountain above it with their reflection in the water.

We had two days in Flam then we were off on the train for our final stop – Oslo. Oslo is a vibrant and relatively small city and we had another glorious day, so we grabbed a coffee and cake from a local shop (very cost effective) and I sat and sketched the University building. Then later in the afternoon we sat alongside Oslo Fjord looking across to the Oslo Opera House, I just couldn’t capture this building, with the sun shining on all the glass and white walls. Yesterday evening we had visited it, not long after arriving, and climbed on the roof (along with everyone else!) to watch the sunset, quite magical.

Norwegian airlines
Time to go home

All too soon it was time to go home. A wonderful holiday and I am delighted to have captured the scenery with my little sketches as a permanent memory of my time in Norway, including a quick sketch of our plane getting roead to take us home.

Posted on by

Online shop now open again!

online shop

I took a rather longer than anticipated break in selling my paintings but after over 5 years my online shop is now open again! Post and packaging is included in the final cost – so the price you see of each product is the price you pay.

Visit my shop where I have a range of products including original paintings, prints of my paintings, greeting cards and my miniature acrylic paintings (that come with their own easel). Each category will display what is currently available and more products will be added regularly.

You don’t need to create an account to purchase any of the items and payment is via Paypal so that I don’t store any of your payment details.

Here is a small selection of what is on offer – does anything take your fancy?