Boxing Day

Had to get out for a run in order to fit in more food later! Running across Ranmore the sun came through the dark clouds above Dorking and lit up one field and part of the vinyard at Denbies. The sun really beamned down through the cloud. I took a reference photo but of course this sport of thing is impossible to photograph!

Holly

I picked this on Bookham Commons. Its a very good year for berries, apparently because it has been so very wet. Yes, a surprise for those not from the UK, we do degrees of wetness and this Autumn has been extreme!

Just back from Ghana where I sketched the sun setting over the Fort at Elimina. It was a challenge because it was such a striking sight, but I caught something of it. I wish I had got my horizon a little straighter though!

A page from my journal about anniversaries. How things never stay the same, for example these tendrils of new growth over a log pile on Bookham Commons. I first drew these logs when they were freshly felled a year ago.

This is a picture I have made to use on a PowerPoint slide. It shows a mutant cocoa bush with three stems, and a common root and leaf system. It all has a meaning! I will use it in Ghana in a couple of weeks time.

The walk at Polesden Lacey is an elegant promenade with yew hedges that allowed the upper classes to walk 'in' the country side and enjoy the view whilst not leaving the formal gardens. Now its ususally busy with pensioners, families with young chilren in varying states of frsutration and me, cutting through on a run. I have done several versions of this view, and so far this is is my favourite.

Drawn from memory, this helmet with crown and goat in Leatherhead Parish Church is placed to one side of the aisle, but its high position and forbidding look seems to be sending some kind of grim warning to those gathered below. The Church is hundreds of years old, perhaps nearly a millenium, and I assume it has some historical meaning. It would fit well in a Dan Brown novel, but I prefer to think of it as a reminder from the local feudal Lord that he owns our bodies if not our souls....even if we may think we live in a town in the 21st century busy with office workers looking for a quick sandwich!

Ferns as bones

The bracken on Bookham Commons is losing its colour and shone out like white bones in the late afternoon light.

I was really struck by a picture by Jennifer Lawson at http://jenniferlawson.blogspot.com/2009/10/leaves-are-turning.html

This is my effort trying the same tecniques. I wish I had one quarter of Jennifer's ability but let's be positive, I had fun thinking about how I would do it, finding a suitable scene (Polesden Lacey house), making a sketch and then...it was a bit down hill from there! Perhaps if I had actually used my reference photo and taken care over the drawing...no, life's too short(at the moment anyway).

I couldn't resist posting the charcoal drawing of my parakeets - I prefer it in some ways to the finished picture. I won't repeat the blurb though!

Parakeets on Blog Action Day

Parrots, and in particular ring-necked parakeets, are now a common bird where I live in South-East England. So common, in fact, that even while I was thinking about painting some for the Blog Action Day I heard, and then saw, one on Bookham Commons. Though parrots have been seen in the UK for over 150 years (as a result of pets being set free - by Jimi Hendrix among others it is said), their populatiom has exploded in recent years because of a succession of mild winters. The North Indian birds are unmistakeable, being an order of magnitude louder, brasher and gaudier than even the showiest of native species.

The recent huge increase in numbers in parakeets here seems to be just one example of rapid, climate related, changes in animal populations across the globe. Most of them are sadder and more worrying than our parakeets, such as the fate of the polar bear. What we have yet to see, but which is potentially even more devastating, is the impact of climate change on people. This will hit the already disadvantaged hardest, and we need to act now to avert this catastrophe.

We know autumn is really here when these funghi spring up in the woods and on the lawn.

Leaves turning

...back home I did a colour study of leaves on the turn. There was a full range of colours from fresh green to quite dark russety browns. I photographed my study behind the leaves and the colours blend well. It was liberating to think only about tone and colour and not worry about line and form.

Bougainvillea

In Ghana last week, and not mutch art got done. I did sketch some bouganvillea petals, trying to capture the colours and the fragility as they lay on the desk.

Late summer reeds

The late summer sun coming through these reeds on Bookham Commons caught the patches of senescent leaf and made them glow.

View from Gomershall

I sketched the hills where I normally cycle from below. A lovely view but hard work getting home again! Back home, I made an version for my journal using acyrilic over a photograph.

A gloomy turning

I have been thinking about painting this lane for ages. Even on a bright sunny day the trees form a dark tunnel, and then the sun on the meadow is framed dramatically by the trees and fence. I'm disappointed by the painting though...one of those days when nothing goes right and I feel like I have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Futurism

I painted a rather dull scene - a new culvert by a ploughed field, where the soil have been scraped clean. My plan is to paint the same scene 4 times over the year and see how it changes, and whether the changes are as I predict them to be.

Leith Hill Heather

I went to the London Graphic Centre and picked up some new materials. I'm very excited about this water-based acrylic and I'm pleased with this as a first attempt. It was certainly fun making it. I sketched ideas and elements for the picture in the middle of a marathon run through the woods around Leith Hill.

Surrey Hills chalk

I have tried to move away from my Harold Hitchcock tendencies on this one - I don't do delicate but this is as close as I can get. These are some lumps of chalk and flint I picked up on a recent run. I thought they were white but when you realy look at them most of the surfaces aren't white at all.

I should point out that the painting in my previous blog is Harold's work, not mine!

Harold Hitchcock

Phyllis pointed out similarities between the colouring in Bridge 1 and the work of the British artist Harold Hitchcock. I Googled him and its true - very astute, Phyllis, and thanks for sharing that. He also uses a layering tecnique that I like (of course I cheat!!)

Bridge 1

This is a bridge across a track where I often cycle. It is deep in the woods, and overgrown. There are quite a few of these bridges in the area, built in differenet architectural styles by an eccentric Victorian landowner. It seems he just liked to build bridges, although he pretended that they made logging easier. I like to think of him making bridges as a creative process, with his land forming a kind of journal.

http://tomssurreyhills.blogspot.com/

Leith Hill

A distant view of Leith Hill from 'my' bit of the Surrey Hills. There is a 'folly' tower overlooking the plain on the other side. I tried to do a careful study of this scene and it turned into pastel stew, then I dashed this off in a couple of minutes and I quite like it - more my style!

Summer trees v2

This is another version of my summer trees. To me this is a more interesting and evocative image but is it better art (if we think of art as an expression of a personal experience)? Discuss!!

Summer trees

I was trying to cpature the evening sun coming through the trees and the strong light and shade. Not sure if I succeeded at all but it was fun trying!

Pillbox

A WW2 pillbox on the North Downs. There are a row of these along the hillside, designed to hold any German advance had the invasion succeeded in 1940. Its hard to image they would have done much good!

Harlech Castle

Just back from a holiday in North Wales. This is a picture of Harlech Castle from the dunes. The catsle was one of a ring of castles built by the English to keep control over captured territory. It fell to the Welsh at least once, but many centuries later it seems a benign presence. The castle used to be next to the sea but now there is an area of sandy dunes, a good golf course (I'm told) and a large and beautiful beach.

Summer in England

Some images from an English summer. I have been trying to capture the heady mix of colours of the fresh new growth, dry straw, wild flowers and butterflies using my 'sketch, photograph and run (or cycle) away' technique. These are two more successful efforts.

Of course an English summer is not complete without cricket. Yesterday was a big day...we beat the Aussies at Lords (the 'home of cricket') for the first time since 1934. This was 5 days of elation, hope, dread, fear and then finally.... a fantastic feeling of well-being for us die-hard England supporters. I couldn't resist putting a page in my journal. Our hero, Fantastic Freddie (named after the Flintstone) and his nemesis, Ricky 'squishy-green-cap-head' Ponting (yes, I know...)

It always surprises me that from the Surrey Hills you can look North towards London and it appears as though the towers of central rise out of an uninterrupted forest - like a vision of the future where nature has taken over again.

Effingham Common/ In defence

Two new pictures from the weekend, both of them experimenting with photoshop collages. I think the Effingham Common scene with a blend of foreground and distance sektching works best on the blog. The other one is more powerful in my journal. In cae you are wondering it combines some chalk graffit on a WWII pillbox with nearby twisting tree roots. I finished it with my own chalk graffiti in my logbook, using Surrey Hills chalk 'borrowed' from the site.

Sun Light Shade & Counterfeit Polesden

Two pictures from the weekend. Polesden as it is nor nromally seen - hosting the Counterfeit Stones for a group of Bookham Oldies. Inks from a mbile phone photo. Then Sun Light Shade - a semi-abstract trying to capture the woods in the summer - intense patches of light and deep, green shade under a wide blue sky.

The stile

This is a line and watercolour sketch done from a photograph. At the bottom is a list of things that my daughter asked me to pack in a bag for a trip to the beach with her friend. She happened to call while I was making the picture! It is very warm and muggy right now. A trip to the beack would be nice but I couldn't bear sitting in the car in a taffic jam for half the day! I'll say in my Surrey Hills but I won't be going far as I have sprained my ankle rather badly playing football.

Tracks on the Ponds

This is the picture I made in my jounal from the photos and sketch I posted yesterday. I was trying to capture the slightly abstract pattern-like quality to the tracks through the duckweed. It is successful to some extent but not my most interesting picture either to make or look at!

Tracks on the pond

Here is something I'm working on. I was running across Bookham Commons and I saw that the pond has become a srew of pondweed in the summer sun. Moorhens and ducks have crossed this and left striking paths. I sketched this and took pictures, which I have now lashed together in photoshop. Next I will print this, and put a composition in my journal. Watch this space.

Josephine K

I had a couple of meetings with Josephine K in Ghana and she had a very strikingly structured face. I did the drawing from memory and then, nervously added colour, recalling how her face had been lit from both sides. I am quite pleased that the images capture something of how Josephine came across to me as a proud and thoughtful person.

Pod

More from Ghana

Ghana

Well I don't seem to be at home much recently and the art has suffered accordingly. However here in Ghana I have had a few oppotunities today to try some drawings. Not much went well until I managed this detail of a palm in the garden of the hotel.

Far from home...

I am far from my habitat, the rolling hills of Surrey. However even in the cities of North America I can spot wildlife, such as this fantastic creature perching high above the streets of Manhattan, surveying the scene with a lofty disdain.

Light and shadow

Here is a new drawing from my journal. This was done from the sketch I posted last week. I was keen to capture the contrast between the heavy shade of the yew tree and woods and the sunlight bursting through beyond.

We took out a 10 year old ash stump from the garden and I've been digging foundations for a cabin. I must have 'rescued' about 20 stag beetles - all fierce, feisty fellows. These are impressivle large beasts for a British garden and quite rare now - but locally common it seems. I had to draw one but he was crawling away rather fast. The drawing went next to a picture of bark falling from a rotting tree - rather appopriate.