Red Dan

Red Dan, oil on canvas, 10" x 9".

So, with my usual acuity, while dogs lie panting in the shadows, ice cream falls on sandals and seals come into the harbours on the mooch for mackerel titbits, I'm busy painting bleak wintry beachscapes sandblasted by cold gales.

On the one with the marketing, that's me.

Rust Never Sleeps 3

Registration of a fishing boat in Eyemouth harbour. LH
Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"

... It Is Now.

Horizon, slightly less wonky. People, a bit smaller an to the right. Line of sea-coal, moved down.

Finished...Probably.

...but possibly... not finished.

Hm.

Bamburgh Beach, Winter

Oil on canvas, 16" x 12"

Wonky horizon, for one thing.

Code Blue

I was reading earlier today about American hyrdogen bomb tests in the 1950s. They weren't always sure that the bomb wouldn't consume all the oxygen in the atmosphere, but went ahead anyway in that happy-go-lucky fashion that the military have. So you would think that the stuff inside the hydrogen bomb was the most powerful substance available to mankind.

I am here to tell you that it is not.

The most powerful, tenacious and insidious substance in the physical world is phthalo blue. It can turn an entire painting a shade of strong greenish blue simply by being present in the same room. It cannot be diluted with any other known pigment. Not only that but it transmits itself via your face and forehead to the soles of your shoes, your elbows (it can flow uphill), your laptop keyboard, objects outside that never come into the house, neighbours' pets and migrating animals.

Be careful, is all I'm saying.

Rust Never Sleeps 2

Dredger, oil on canvas, 16"x20"

I feel like I've had something of a breakthrough with this, and it's a style and subject I want to do more of. It's simultaneously tight but loose (heard that somewhere before) and satisfies both of my apparently contradictory feelings in painting. I like very much this idea of pursuing the 'natural abstract,' and the exploration of layers that time and decay reveals. Anyway, here it is, and there's more to follow. I'm quite excited. I think this may be my best painting yet.

Resurgam

Dawes Warwick, completely cleaned and restored and repainted, minus only the rear carrier, which I'm about to put on. This afternoon I fitted new brake levers, assembled the brakes, attached the computer, and pootled off up to the road end and back, and came back grinning like a goon. It's marvellous!

Sunrise/set

In progress.

I posted this as a work in progress a while back, and I think I'm finished now. An evening view of the sea at Tywyn, Wales. Oil on board. In real life it's not quite as luridly green as I've managed to make it look in the photograph.

Tywyn, Evening.