I suppose ever since Napoleonic times the British have had a hankering to get away to Corfu and it does remain a place with a very good feeling in the autumn sun as home dives into rain and cloud. We stayed a couple of nights at the Belle Venezia though I was told the Hotel Cavalieri was supposed to be better and with a with a roof terrace atop. So I visited the platform for an expensive beer whilst doing a sketch but and realise our little place was preferable [caption id="attachment_2040" align="alignright" width="315"] The ok view of the mainland ...
WE made it to the Uttarakhand region of the Himalayan hills on the north-eastern reaches of India in the nick on the map bordered by Nepal and Tibet. At about 150 km south of the highest peak in India, the 21,000 feet of Nanda Devi, loomed on the horizon in the gin clear air as though it was a short walk away from our mere 7000 feet hillocks. Steep and intriguing hills rolling into the distance alive with activity. With eagles souring and woodpeckers sounding, the local doves and great barbetts make the most sound in the short twilight when ...
An olive tree is a fine thing especially when you realise it may be many hundred years old and it survives on scant ground with extremes of weather on steep slopes of an island to which they were introduced and established against these considerable odds. For us sweltering on a fine summers day on Paxos the mere 40 degrees and high humidity meant all we could do was to rush for the shade and hope for a breeze. The olive tree nearly always our sanctuary. And as we meandered the inland parts those lovely ranks of dark twisting trunks with a ...
Only an artist impression can begin to portray the horror of a crazy tourist entering a hitherto unexplored cave on the west cost of Paxos earlier this month. Expectations by a vulnerable group of seeing ‘marvellous rock formations and unseen animals of the deep ocean’ were soon dashed as a female voice was heard yelping “I am leaving. .. I have to get off….” . But of course there was no-where to go and undeterred the captain pressed on and the expedition continued in somewhat silence: with the party disappearing through a narrow creek into the vast cliff of limestone. At breakfast that ...
My father as a WWII soldier always used the expression "remember belgium!" not by way of direct reference to the 1915 campaign to recruit into the allied forces - see poster - which in itself was a reference to the tremendous atrocities in that country in 1914: but to emphasise that when lobbing artillery fire towards a german force from allied lines in the spring of 1945 might go a little too far and so to speak over their heads and of course land in Belgium.... and in so doing, bring back those endurances the dear folk suffered in WWI. And of course they ...
On close inspection my knees were unusually nut coloured for the time of year. Far from the minus-white mottled palour with those odd purple oblations ascending those knobbliest of joints in winter - just a bonnie brown. And why was not difficult to work out, as Africa carries a blissful climate in which we were immersed for a few days. And strangely ones knees being situated between the bluff of the shorts and the top of the socked leg swishing through the grasses bears most exposure to the elements. More than the hatted head which in turn shades the beak ...
PHOTO-PEINTURE: Thalia rushing to St Catherine's Lighthouse Eleven hours in a boat race is a trial but when its on the oldest craft in the fleet with gunnels continually running the water, a pretty strong blow and a lumpy sea then its an adventure. For Thalia built as a gentleman's cruiser in 1888 will have seen such seas before as crew will have white knuckled to haul the un-winched sheets at the wetted sharp end as we did to trim the acres of cream canvass. And what fun to understand the heavy and purposeful slosh through the water as six tons of long keel kept us from ...
On the emerald coast of Brittany going west from St Malo I met Jack in a garden of a house in which I was passing a few days. Often in the morning in between activities with the other other children Jack took to his bike and hurtled around the long dry paths bathed in sunlight and darting in and out of the shadows, quite content, alone and all at great speed - everything a free and easy ten year old would want. Then without warning he stopped and looked at me scribbling on my pad. With the bike thrown down in ...
I have had a nice invitation to join several others in an 'Art at Home' collection of paintings,drawings,sculptors, ceramics and pottery set in her home setting at Threa Compton Vallence Dorchester DT2 9ER by Sarah Sclater. Do come along between 10am on Friday 3rd October and 6pm Monday 6th October 2014. I will be around most of Friday and for the evening drinks until 9pm and Saturday afternoon and evening. Refreshments all day. All pictures framed. I have brought together a collection of work mainly local to the Cornish Devon and Dorset Coast with some further afield [caption id="attachment_1187" align="alignnone" width="300"] picnic at ...
Very very rarely an English summers evening in the countryside there are burnt grasses, shimmering light across the fields, not fading very fast and that waft of intoxicating warmness, utterly dewless, somewhat earthy and full of the day gone by such that it does transport one to more southern climes more appropriate to the Mediterranean - rather than east devon. But there we had it as we sat high above the Axe Valley looking south to where the tributary Coly wonders towards the coast and tucked up behind Janey's vineyard - so cleverly set sunward and taking up much time and pleasure when the London ...
Using a variety of media and styles the work responds to mood and geography but is more than often an observation of simple scenes in everyday life and on the travels across Europe.