More seagulls

Greedy Gulls

This is another image of gulls, black-headed summer ones,  having lunch at East Head. A more traditional kind of lunch than that nasty old woman's Jamaican ginger cake.

Seagulls

"Stupid Gulls ... Piss Off." An irate picknicker on West Wittering beach as captured in my sketchbook

Spoke to one of my daughters at the weekend and heard the cry of Cornish seagulls, the sea and some wild wind in the background. It was, apparently, pretty cold. Green with envy I was as the heatwave continues here as we head into September.

An urban gull in West St., Chichester

It was also good to hear the seagulls. Considering this is an island in the middle (well not exactly) of an ocean it is surprising how comparatively few seagulls there are. Or at least how unaware one is of them. Even down at the harbour they seem a pretty well-behaved, comparatively untalkative and rather scarce bunch, unlike their rowdy and numerous British brethren.

Sizzling August

Malpaís with Black Birds

We are all suffering from the heat and scanning the horizon for cloud cover and a let up in the relentless battering from the sun.

Southern Landscape with Vapour Trails

South

It's a feeling I tried to convey in some small paintings on paper, done from a few quick lines in my sketch book as I jolted along in the bus to the airport in the south of the island a few months ago. How those people down there can take the sort of weather we in the north are experiencing here and now for a whole 12 months of the year I cannot imagine.

Two More Paintings Go Up

I find I am having to think backwards - and it isn't easy. Which to put up first - the picture or the text?  The little dogs on the beach picture is a study for something larger I may do at a later date. Or maybe not.
The Mazeppa is based on a Staffordshire pottery piece which I decided to place in the green and pleasant land of the England of my imagination. I do love the black-and-whiteness of things like magpies, badgers, sheep, cows and timber framed buildings that populate the English countryside.

Mazeppa's Ride

Regatta Day Off the Isle of Wight

My first blog attempt

Rain Over the Pennines

Well, I feel chuffed at being able to get this far but I see it's not going to be easy.

This will be a mainly pictorial record of paintings old and new. In no particular order (I shall just be jolly thankful if I manage to get them to appear after much fruitless clicking, no doubt).

I started with Rain Over the Pennines because it's a favourite of mine which had lain forlorn and forgotten at the back of my shelves (well it is a very small painting after all) among the dust, cat hair and general studio debris until I fished it up. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, but saw it with fresh eyes (as you do) after not seeing it for a couple of years and now am very fond of it.

Rain Over the Pennines