A visit to Lewes

Tréguier

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday), Margaret and I went across to the nearby town of Lewes to join in the displays for M.E. Awareness Week. M.E. Is a dreadfully debilitating and much misunderstood medical condition affecting at least a quarter of a million people in Britain, yet something which is little understood by doctors and which has attracted little research funding. Margaret has suffered from it for 28 years now - an amazing length of time to be contantly feeling below par and with chronic pain.


There was a good if small group of people on the bridge over the River Ouse and the whole area was thronged with shoppers and other people enjoying a sunny afternoon in the town. The Green Party were also in the area handing out leaflets and I was glad to see that their leader, Caroline Lucas was there. She came over and chatted ot the M. E. People for a while which was nice.

Caroline Lucas beneath the yellow sign.  Margaret to the left looking at the camera

Afterwards, Margaret and I went for a coffee and then came home, she feeling much depleted by the afternoon's activities and in considerable pain. Despite this I am glad that she was able to go and she did actually have the opportunity to speak to Caroline Lucas.

In the evening I completed a painting of the first car I'd ever owned, back in 1968. I sold a Lambretta motor-scooter in order to buy it. It turned out to be a "rust-bucket" with many holes stuffed with newspaper and patched over with filler. I soon changed if for a Mini which while having problems of its own was an improvement.

Here is the painting of the A40.

Last week I also did two morepaintings - one of Montrésor, small town in the Loire Valley and another (at the top of this post) of a beautiful little building in Tréguier in Brittany. I love painting scenes from France as while I am doing them I am taken back in my mind I to happy times driving through that lovely country.

Tréguier

Pen and ink

Its been fun revisiting memories of France and it wonderful architecture.  The chateau at Amboise is second to none, aided perhaps with its prominent position above the majestic River Loire.  I really enjoyed drawing it and remembering a lovely afternoon with Margaret, wandering around the streets of this ancient town.

A couple of days later I decided to give a similar treatment to the castle at Chinon, a few miles up the Loire, which also enjoys a commanding position above the river.  This time I added some watercolour - not sure it was a good thing, but there it is.

That year we were staying in a pretty village called Montrichard which was also full of beautiful perspectives with a small castle of its own.

I probably overdid the hatching marks on this one but its too late to do anything about it now.  Lesson learned for the future!

Back to the Loire Valley

I wanted to try again to capture the stone colour of the Loire Valley chateaux.  I have used Buff Titanium before but somehow it seems a little lifeless, partly perhaps because it is quite an opaque colour.  I read somewhere that raw sienna plus a touch of cadmium red might do the job so I tried this and the results were quite good.  In this painting below of Chateau de Loches, I also used some Alazrin Crimson to make the shadow greys a little more interesting.

Chateau de Loches

Churning them out

I've got quite obsessed with producing these 10" by 7" small paintings at the moment and have done 12 of them in the last month which is good going for me.  I know some people paint every day, but my busy schedule makes it difficult fit in even more time with the watercolours.

I'm using Bockingford paper but have just heard that Winsor and Newton have introduced a new "Professional" range of papers in pads and blocks so I've ordered one of these.  Its a rag-based paper which is a bit over the top for these drawings but I like trying new products and will enjoy experimenting with it when it arrives later in the week.

In the meantime here are my latest two paintings, in both of which the subjects are French.