Thérese of Lisieux

I love the Normandy region of France and have been there many times.  I live near the ferry port of Newhaven and ships from there take us straight across the English Channel to the Normandy port of Dieppe.  From there it is only a short drive to some very beautiful parts of Normandy, not least the lovely Calvados country with its apple orchards and farm-based Calvados distilleries where the farmers let you sample their apple brandy.

The ancient town of Lisieux is interesting and contains a huge church - the Basilica dedicated to the Catholic saint of Thérese of Lisieux.  While I am not a Catholic, I have to say, there is something quite special about the story of Thérese and I can see why she inspires to much devotion, particularly among Normandy residents who now have their very own saint.  When you go to the Basilica and descend to the crypt you are confroned with a beautiful chapel dedicated to St Thérese, rich with colour and decoration.

Anyway, hear is a painting I did yesterday of Thérese's childhood home in Alençon (also in Normandy).

The house is open to the public and the website says (English translation), 

 . . .the family home of Saints Martin Spouse, also birthplace of St. Therese, opens its doors to get closer to them and find the authenticity of the time they lived. The visit accompanied by the house introduces the life of the Martin family - Saints Louis and Zélie, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and his sisters - to Alençon, thanks to five spaces: the reception hall with the historic gallery, the exhibition of personal objects, the auditorium, the house and the chapel. A film from the family correspondences presents the life of the family in Alençon, the only city where she lived in full, from 1871 to 1877.  

The staging allows to recreate the atmosphere and atmosphere of the family life of the Martin, and the youth of the little Saint. The chapel with its sculptures and frescoes evokes Saint Therese and opens on the conjugal chamber of Saints Martin Spouse, also birthplace of Saint Therese and place of the death of Saint Zélie. 

Whatever you think of this sort of thing, this is a fascinating place and very picturesque.  Well worth a visit to either Lisieux or Alencon.  

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

Post-Easter

Well, Easter came and went - this year I was following Tom Wright's book on the Gospel Of John, John for Everyone and had timed it so that the crucifixion and resurrection narratives fitted in with the festival.  At Seaford Baptist Church, East Sunday was marked by the adult baptism of two people who had both become Christians "from nowhere" - one in particular told us how a year ago he was struggling in despair with everything in his life going wrong and excessive drinking, but now everything was new and fresh.

Since my last post I've been doing an online course in drawing pencil portraits by the Canadian artist France Van Stone.  Its been really good learning how to build up volume and form from pencil lines.  Here are two of my efforts, firstly  Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag (from the BBC 3 series)

And another of the writer and speaker Jordan Peterson (I express no views on his opinions - he just had an interesting face).

Finally, to add some colour to this post here is a painting I did in the garden of our lovely Clematis Montana - the blooms last such a short time I felt I had to try to capture them.

For those who read my previous post in which I mentioned my newly-aquired tortoise "Hilary", we have definitely agreed that he is a male not a female as we first supposed.  The behaviour in the video below apparently proves it.  Some people say its territorial behaviour but who can read a tortoise's tiny brain?  Anyway, he's providing us with a lot of fun and its surprising how much we've taken to having him wandering around the garden (now totally tortoise-proofed - or so I hope).

Real life takes over . . .

I have had a long period of doing about 5-10 small paintings a month and have had one on the go most of the time.  However, following the illness and demise of my cousin I have had to take many visits to hospital about 40 miles away and then to arrange his funeral and begin dealing with his estate.  All this has made me realise that I can only paint when I have loads of "space" in my life.  If I am pressured in various ways, the painting seems to give way to less demanding things like reading or watching tv.  In some ways I'm quite ashamed of this because surely the painting should be exactly what you need to relax during tmies of pressure?

However, I was able to do a couple of sketches this weekend so perhaps my art-equilibrium is returning at last. I have missed it dreadfully and its been a nagging demand at the back of my mind all the time I've not been painting.

So here are a few works done over the last couple of months, rather more few and far between than before.  The first one is painted from Google StreetView.  I had intended to paint Cowes Baptist Tabernacle which is opposite Chip Ahoy, but when I "turned around" in StreetView I preferred this little scene.

Victoria Road, Cowes

The next one is from a photograph I took in Stavanger when we were on our Norwegian Cruise a few years ago.  Its just a quick sketch really  but shows something of the character of the town.

Stavanger

Finally a small steet scene fro a photo I found on Pixabay.  None of these painting took me very long and were more "fillers" than anything serious.

Italian street scene

January in England – not the best time to sketch

This next one is painted from one of my phone’s screensavers (thank you Huawei).  It turns out that its a lighthouse in Maine USA although I didn’t know this until Google identified it for me without me asking.  It is in fact  Cape Neddick Nubble Lighthouse.

This next one is painted from one of my phone’s screensavers (thank you Huawei).  It turns out that its a lighthouse in Maine USA although I didn’t know this until Google identified it for me without me asking.  It is in fact  Cape Neddick Nubble Lighthouse.

Christmas 2018

Another year has flown by and I am pleased to see that I have continued to paint and sketch throughout the year.  Painting small pictures and sketches with no pressure to produce "finished" works ready for framing, is a very enjoyable pastime.  I am always planning my next sketch and whenever I go out I am on the lookout for new views or buildings.

Here are three recent painting, the first is Combrit in Brittany.

I enjoyed painting this little Cotswold shop - I've done it before but this one is very different to my first attempt.

Finally this wonderful doorway is at the Parish Church in Kilpeck, Hertfordshire.

More Moleskine watercolour sketchbook work

It is unusual for this time of year in England to get such a prolonged patch of dry sunny weather.  Its been a delight to keep going out with my sketching equipment and to spend an hour or so sitting outside drawing the lovely views around East Sussex.

Here is St Mary's church at a tiny village called Tarring Neville, nestled into a fold in the South Downs (a range of hills on the South Coast of England)

And then another one painted on a gap in the hills overlooking the sea at Birling Gap

I painted this first one on the cliff-tops at Eastbourne, our nearest large town.  At first I find myself a little embarrassed to be sketching alone perched on a my tripod seat but within no time at all I am so absorbed by the drawing that I don't notice anyone passing by.

Finally, here's one from the church at Bishopstone village, about a couple of miles from home.

Just me and my sketchbook

My wife couldn’t come away with me to Southwold this year (a quite coastal town on the east coast of England) so I had four days on my own in a lovely little cottage right in the middle of town, next to the lighthouse.  I decided to use this short period as a “retreat” both for drawing and Christian reflection (don’t worry, I won’t write about the latter here!).

I had just bought a new sketch stool and had all my supplies in a small rucksack.  The weather for once was fantastic for the whole period so I was able to be out morning and afternoon sketching in this extremely picturesque little town and its coastal surroundings.

On the Sunday morning I went to the 11th century Parish Church of St Edmund and then drew one of the many “greens” in the town, with the lighthouse visible behind a row of cottages.





Then later in the day I went out to another part of town and drew “South Green”



This is a double-spread in my Moleskine watercolour notebook of course.  It was glorious sitting in the sun doing all the details of this interesting view.

The next morning I went back to the old church to try to do a church interior (Stephanie Bower is so good at these) and I wanted to see if I use her approach to this complex scene. Unfortunately I couldn’t!  Its come out a bit messy and confused but at least I learned some tips for next time.




As a bonus, a pianist came in to the church to do his practice and it turned out that this was no ordinary pianist but a concert-level musician who played Liszt’s etudes while I was painting – what an experience to be sitting in the ancient church with these sounds washing over me.

Later in the day I went down to the little ferry (one man and row-boat!) across a river to cross over to the little village Walberswick where there was so much to draw – here is one of three I drew there.



After that I went home and after a short rest went out to the local pub where I had a pint or two of the local Adnams ales sitting outside on a bench in the sun and reading a paper.

The next morning I went back to the church and tried to do the entrance from outside in the church yard with local people passing by all the time and trying to glance at what I was doing.



Above the doorway you can see a statue of St Edmund the Martyr who was tied up by invading Vikings and then shot with arrows and beheaded.  Poor Edmund!

Back to the harbour again and couple another river scene



Then on the way back to my cottage I sketched “Gun Hill” with its row of cannons



In the evening after another couple of Adnams ales I went back and sketched the view from the window my my little house with the lighthouse again visible behind cottages.



And that my friends was what I did with four days on my own in the delightful little town.  I will finish with just one more sketch

Crossing the Pyrennees

I have been watching a series of programmes on BBC about people who escaped from German Prisoner of War camps (in World War II) and then had to travel immense distance, often across mountain ranges, in order to get home.  We have heard of people who had to travel down through Italy and crossing the Dolomites, others for whom the Alps were their greatest challenge, but this week I watched an episode about the freedom trail across the Pyrennees from France into Spain (the Spanish never joined with Hitler and so were neutral territory).

I have been across the Pyrennees myself but in a car and remember the long and winding road running alongside deep chasms with views of long ranges of mountain peaks.  What forbidding country it is.  Anyway,  I felt inspired to seek out a scene I could paint of this spectacular countryside and soon found one on the website of Collett's Mountain Holidays.  Here is my painting, followed by the photograph on which it is based. 

On gentler territory, the fine weather we have had this week encouraged me to paint from a photograph I took a couple of years ago of two women walking on Lullington Nature Reserve, near where I live in East Sussex.

This is so typical of the countryside around here - chalky paths crossing gently rolling hills, always with white cliffs and blue sea in the distance.  I hope these two enjoyed their walk on the South Downs Way - they seemed to sum the easy companionship of two walkers on a fine morning, in no hurry to get anywhere.

Pixabay as a useful source of images

I'm loving Pixabay which is a huge resource of photographs which can be reused for any purposes you want with no copyright or royalty issues.  It says in the Pixabay FAQ,

You can copy, modify, distribute, and use the images, even for commercial purposes, all without asking for permission or giving credits to the artist.

I never think copyright is much of an issue anyway when using photographs for paintings, especially as in my case, you never sell them.  Whenever I've used "Internet-found" photographs I've usually based my paintings on several images and grabbed bits which I like where I can find them.  The SAA support my view by stating on their website

You won't infringe copyright if you use someone else's work for private research or study - so you can copy a photograph, a picture from a book, or a painting by another artist, whether you're working at home, at your local art dub or visiting a gallery.  However, if you decide to exhibit, publish or sell that painting, you are then benefiting financially, so would need to seek permission from the artist or photographer who owns the copyright. If you want to copy a famous work of art or sculpture, you won't infringe copyright if the artist who did the original has been dead for more than 70 years"

Anyway, here is a painting I based on a Pixabay image - its Ivar's fish restaurant in Seattle (I am grateful to @helloheidilh on Instagram for identifying it as the Pixabay image didn't reference the exact location.

The bridge at Ronda, Spain

Still watching the BBC TV series Great Continental Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo which I've got stored up for watching at my leisure. The episode on Southern Spain was full of images which you could paint if you wanted to - the flamenco dancer dancing with a specially trained  Andalusian horse, the fair in Cordoba, the wonderful buildings in Seville.

However, this bridge in Ronda grabbed my attention first and so I had to have a go at it.  The first job was to do a drawing.

Not too bad, but then I had to work out how on earth to tackle those cliffs!  I painted them first with a loose wash, varying the colours from Raw Sienna to Raw Umber with bits of Alizarin Crimson and French Ultramarine to give some variety.  After that it was just a matter of adding more layers to bring some definition into it.  I don't usually work into a painting like this but with this one it was never just going to work with only one layer of paint.

I'm reasonably pleased with the result but if I was to do it again I would try not to put so much detail in the cliffs as they could be a little overdone. 

Here is a photograph of the bridge from a different position

Recent work

One of my favourite television programmes is Michael Portillo's Great Continental Railway Journeys, in which each week he travels through a European country by train, stopping off at various places to see what the place is like and to meet various interesting people.  This week the journey was through the little-known country of Georgia but last week we were in the Ukraine, a fascinating place with several different culture exhibited as you travel north to south.

I find that my watching the programme on catch-up on the computer, I can pause when I see a paintable scene and capture the image with Windows Snipping tool. I then print off the "photo" and do a sketch of it - here is St Sophia's Orthodox cathedral in Kiev.

I don't paint many still-lifes but was inspired by looking at our "Pebble" tea-pot to set one up on the dining table and have a go.  With the addition of a Denbigh cup and saucer and a box of jasmine tea I think it came out well enough - its a very small painting - sketchbook size..

Finally, here are a couple more doorways, both based on photos I found on Instagram (with the photographer's permission!).

Cherubim

In my daily readings I've been working through the book of Ezekiel with the John Goldingay's wonderful book Ezekiel for Everyone by my side to guide me.  John has a very historical approach to the Bible, looking at is firstly as a record of an ancient people and then finding those aspects which may apply to us today.  There is a lot in Ezekiel about angels and other spiritual creatures such as "cherubs" and "cherubims".  Forget about rosy-cheeked winged babies fluttering around paintings by Venetian masters. Ezekiel's cherubs are fearsome creatures with faces of lions and wings like eagles, which make you collapse on the ground in fear when you see them.

I did a bit of research and found that these creatures are found in the art of many Near Eastern cultures and in fact the Phoenicians of roughly Ezekiel's time were carving images out of ivory which resembled Ezekiel's visions.  Perhaps they were a frequent sight in those days!

Anyway, they looked pretty good to paint so hear are two Phoenician cherubim from the archealogical site at Arslan Tash in Syria, drawn in pencil then painted with watercolour.

Seaford Head

Its always nice to get out and about with sketchbook and pen. I went up to Seaford Head with Margaret last week, on a beautiful sunny day, and sat at a picnic table drawing the view up the Cuckmere Valley.

The wide-angle camera lens doesn't do justice to the rolling hills however and has the effect of flattening everything out.

I much preferred drawing it and focusing on the distant hills, while also getting in a more panoramic view in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

A couple of days later I found myself with an hour to spare in nearby Brighton (while Margaret took t the grandchildren to the cinema) and so sat in the Old Steine gardens and drew a couple of buildings.  No time to colour them in, so I did the watercolour painting when I got home.

I made the lampost far too big and shoujld have done better with the foreground generally, but time was short and this was the best I could do. Here is a photograph of where I was painting from

If I'd had longer I would have added the fountain in but it was really quite tricky with fish curled around the base.  A job for another day perhaps.

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

Something different

I've been thinking for some time that I ought to try something different than buildings and landscapes so I've painted a couple of cars.

The first one is a Rover 90, a classic car from the 1950s.  I actually owned one of these when it was quite old.  Unfortunately it needed quite a lot of work doing to it and the cost was too high for me to afford at that time, so I sold it.  It was a very comfortable and luxurious car with wood dashboard and leather upholstery.   I saw a similar one (but a later model) the other day at a motor museum and have included the photo below my painting.

My second car is another car from the 1950s, a Fiat Topolino, a predecessor of the famous Fiat 500 which are still made to this day.

I took a photograph of one (below my painting) in Boulogne but when I went on the Internet to research the car I found that it was made in a variety of colours so I chose the black and red colour scheme instead of plain black.

I've enjoyed painting cars for a change and may do some more.