I have been inspired by the photography of Genius Loci to go and visit Prussia Cove and Perranuthnoe, not along for a walk along our beautiful coastline but also to sit and do some paintings.
Continue reading Prussia Cove and Perranuthnoe
Here are my sketches from a holiday to Switzerland back in September 2016, when I travelled from Lucerne to Interlaken, then finally down to Montreux.
Sketches from my holiday to Switzerland back in September 2016, when I travelled from Lucerne to Interlaken, then onto Montreux.
We caught the 7pm flight from Bristol airport, and after our 3 hour train transfer we arrived whilst it was enjoying a mini heatwave. We quickly unpacked, walked along
Matthias Luchsinger Platz, sat under a shady tree and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the lake with the mountains in the distance, with locals and tourists alike enjoying the sunshine.
I kept the colours muted, as the sunshine created a heat haze however I wanted to focus on all the boats on the lake.
Next morning (Thursday) the weather broke and it was raining, luckily the showers didn’t last long. We decided to do the golden trip to Mount Pilatus, which included crossing the Lake on boat to Alphnachstad, where we ascending the moutain in the steepest cog railway. Sadly the weather was very changeable and whilst it didn’t rain the clouds were coming and going.
This is me capturing the mountain summit with the little red train climbing up.
Friday and the weather was still quite cloudy but undeterred we set off on the Lake again. Whilst walking from Weggis to Vitznau I tried my fasted painting yet! This was capturing a paddle steamer as it sailed past.
On Saturday we left beautiful Lucerne and travelled by train through the Brünig pass to Interlaken, unfortunately by the time we arrived it was wet. Whilst we did do a little sightseeing I didn’t get my paints out.
Sunday and it was still raining but we headed off on the local bus to St. Beatus Hoehlen
As it was raining I tried a little sketch from the side, which was a shame because it was just so unbelieavably beautiful. Waterfalls fell down the hillside and to me looked like Rivendell.
Monday and the sun decided to show its face and we ventured up to Murren. We were rewarded with stunning views of the mountain, waterfalls and valley.
We walked from Murren to Winteregg, which has a first class view of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, although by this time the clouds were covering the top of the mountain.
Tuesday and we sent off to visit the sun on top of the Jungfrau, the sun shone and it was glorious but sorry no painting.
On our way back down from the mountain we visited Wengen, and that had a wonderful view down the Lauterbrunnen valley.
Wednesday and we are back on the train travelling to Montreux.
Our hotel was right by the Lake, so whilst it was a little cloudy it was so peaceful and I sat and did this little sketch.
Thursday and we enjoyed walking along the lake by Vevey, where I again tried to capture a passing Paddlesteamer!
Later on I ventured down to the lakeside. Montreux has a long promenade and it has little hidden spots with seating areas, just perfect for another sketch.
On Friday we walked along to the Chateau de Chillon.
Saturday and time to come home, however our room had a wonderful view across the Lake so I had time for one last experimental painting, where I didn’t use pen and ink. I wanted to capture the mood of the mountains that kept disappearing into a heat haze as the day warmed up.
Well I hope you enjoyed my sketches from Switzerland, I love this country and visited three different locations, they all had a different personality, not to mention weather!
In the space of just three months I had been asked whether I had paintings of the Helford River, and the answer was no! So clearly I needed to do something about it.
The Helford River is quite different to my usual subjects, it involves a lot of green fields and trees. It is a beautiful area and I love to visit but I tend to shy away from any landscape that has a lot of green!
In this scene I felt I was “playing safe” because it had a beach in the foreground. However it also had grasses in the foreground of the photograph I was using and that wasn’t successful.
Lastly I decided to use my stippling style, so that I could get more detail. This is the Ferryboat Inn at Helford Passage, which is a favourite spot for families as it is safe for boating, and a lovely spot to sit and watch the world go by!
In the end I think the painting of The Ferryboat Inn was the most successful, but I will do some more as it has given me confidence to paint using green a little more!
I hope you enjoy them.
Here are some of my sketches from a holiday in Mayrhofen, during September in the beautiful Tyrol area of Austria, back when we were able to travel freely!
Click on any of the images to see a larger version.
The weather was good during the first half of our week, and the second half was a bit intermittent with some damp in the air. That proved to be great fun trying to still be able to paint!
We travelled, via the local bus, to Hintertux, where by travelling on three cable cars we found the snow! After exploring on the top of the mountain we came down one cable car to Tuxer Fernerhaus, a large restaurant area where we had warming soup and I did a sketch to capture the skiers and cable car. Then after descending two more cable cars we decided to explore the area around Hintertux and found a delightful waterfal, so out came my paints againt!
One of the, looking up the entrance of the Gerlostal valley, was painted whilst at the train station at Zell am Ziller. I had 25 minutes until the next train so I was a woman on a mission!
The last day I found a beautiful spot just on the outskirts of Mayrhofen, which was looking down towards Finkenberg and the surrounding mountains. Well it might have been spitting but I took cover under the trees and managed a quick sketch.
I hope you enjoy them as I enjoyed the holiday.
We visit London on a fairly regular basis, and on this visit a few years ago in November, I did manage to squeeze in some sketching whilst sightseeing and here are my results.
The sketch above is of Richmond Bridge, we had planned to go to Hampton Court but hadn’t reckoned on the International Rugby match and the number of spectators, so we gave up en route and had lunch sat by the river at Richmond, where I painted this.
We then walked along the Thames footpath, via Kew Gardens and came alongside Gunnersbury and sat outside a charming pub where I sketched this. Mind it was freezing that day!
Previously we had gone on a river boat trip down to the Tower of London and I sat and sketched Tower Bridge, not one of my best! But it was exceedingly cold and I didn’t have my correct glasses on – whoops!
We have visited Vienna on two different occasions and the buildings were so magnificent, so grand and they are hard to grasp that in a tiny little sketch! On this occasion it was mid March and it was freezing cold, so it wasn’t easy to find the right spot to sit down to sketch, but that could be me making excuses! I was in two minds about whether I should post them or not, I don’t think they are my best work – anyway here they are …
The painting at the top shows my first attempt of the Schonbrunn Palace painted from the Gloriette, but I have got the proportions wrong.
Then I tried a closer sketches, there weren’t any seats in the middle, so this is from the side
Then I decided to focus on one of the many statues they had in the garden, plus by this time the gardeners had planted a few Pansies, which added some colour. But I still haven’t done this beautiful Palace justice.
We then visited Stadt Park and I was struck by the Kursalon, a place where Johann Strauss conducted Orchestra’s, and nowadays they hold concerts every day with a selection of his music. There is so much detail in their architecture, and again proportions are wrong.
It rained one day, so painting was definitely out that day, and the following day it was very cold, but I did manage to find a little spot at the Orangery at Belvedere Palace. This I feel was my most successful.
One of my daughters lives in the Southampton we have visited the area of many occasions but hadn’t really been down to the waterfront. On this particular visited we decided it was time to remedy that, of course I took my paints with me, this is my selection of Southampton Sketches.
It was beautifully peacefully walking through Manor Farm Country Park, in the upper reaches of the river Hamble but being early in the season there weren’t many boats about.
Weather wise it was a funny old day, warm when the sun was out but cold when the clouds came over, and as you can see from this painting dark clouds were gathering over Botley.
The following day we walked towards Bursledon, not quite as peaceful as the M27 runs overhead, but they’re more boats! Quite a lot were moored up at the boatyard with some owners busy preparing them for the upcoming season’s sailing.
Walking back towards Hedge End there was a very high spring tide and the ground was quite boggy, it turns out it this area is a salt marsh. It was very pretty, but there was a cold wind, so this was painted quite quickly!
The following day we did something a bit different and changed our usual mode of transport travelling back to Cornwall via boat! We did a mini cruise. It was quite an experience and it turns out I am not a good sailor! But the best bit was sailing through Southampton Water where I attempted to capture Royal Victoria Country Park but of course it was moving rapidly away from me!
On another occasion we visited during the summer when the weather was a lot warmer!
Our daughter has now moved and we there is a lovely riverside walk along River Itchen. On this sunny day, it was very busy, children were playing in the river, families were out walking along and you could even find a shady spot under the trees.
In my eagerness to visit a local beach we visited Lee on Solent. It was actually surprisingly close and didn’t take long in the car. The beach is quite different from Cornwall but it was lovely to see all the boats out on the water.
Another place we visited is Warsash. I don’t know what this place is like in the summer, very busy I should imagine, but on a sunny March day it was lovely. Warsash is opposite Hamble-le-Rice on the River Hamble as it meets Southampton Water.
We walked along the Solent Way, with its views across to Hamble village towards Southampton Water. This is a very peaceful spot and I can imagine in the summer the water is full of people enjoying sailing on the water.
I stopped to capture the scene, although I feel I am being a little unfair – whilst it is a shingle beach it probably isn’t as brown as I have depicted. The sun was glinting on the water and that was enough to detract from the Oil Terminals that we were looking at! It is interesting to see different waterscapes, it is such a different landscape to Cornwall.
This sketch is looking across Hook Spit, a special area for wildlife and birds, looking across towards Hamble.
We had had some glorious weather recently, and it was just calling for me to get out in the sunshine and fresh air and do some painting. We decided a day out on Bodmin Moor would be a good idea, having never done any walking on the Moor. So we drove up to Minions, a lovely little village, parked the car up and went for a walk.
We walked up past the Hurler’s, where I realised I hadn’t packed my little painting stool! So onwards we trekked up the hill to the old Cheesewring Quarry and group of rocks perched on top of each other!
I managed to find a little spot out of the wind, and perched on a rock sat down to do a quick sketch. Then we had some lunch and I found another spot, and a slightly more comfortable rock and had another go.
I must admit to struggling a bit with rocks, I am happy with painting the sea and sand, but it was a record of the day, and it was lovely to be sat up there on such a sunny Cornish day.
My latest blog features Falmouth sketches, painted a few weekends ago we had glorious weather in Cornwall and I was lucky enough to get out and not only enjoy the sunshin
We were at Castle Beach at Falmouth – the sun was sparkling on the sea, the tide was high, people we re out sailing, children were laughing and playing on the beach – a beautiful summers day. To make it complete I got my sketching equipment out and did three little sketches.
This was my first, looking across Castle Beach towards Swanpool and the opening of the Helford River which was busy with lots of boats out on the water.
This sketch is looking towards Pendennis Point, you can just about see the Castle hidden amongst the trees.
On this little sketch, I tried to capture the magic of the boats on the sparkling sea, but not sure how well it worked (I was working from quite a distance)!
Today I moved away from my usual cool palette and used a lot of Cobalt Blue, as shown in the sketch below, because the sky and sea were such a rich colour.
This sketch was from painted whilst sat on Gyllyngvase beach, it was on a cartridge paper sketch book, hence the lack of texture and simple lines, as the paint doesn’t blend as well.
I hope you enjoying looking at my sketches of Falmouth, as much as I enjoyed my lovely day at the beach.
A few weeks ago we had glorious weather here in Cornwall, so I went off to one of my favourite places – Godrevy. This area is so lovely looking at Gwithian, from Godrevy. So i had to sit down with my paints and do a few quick sketches. What do you think?
The image above was painted from the car park, where I did take a few liberties and not include the cars! The tide was coming in and was covering Gwithian beach, but the surf was great, although not being a weekend there were not a lot of surfers about.
For this one I went “walkabout” and went closer to the cliffs, there is a lovely spot where the grass is kept short, so I found a decent size rock and sat down with my paints.
All in all, a lovely afternoon painting.
