Roughting Linn

Decided to use the sunshine yesterday and go to Roughting Linn, to have a look at the neolithic markings and the waterfall. My mother shudders at the mention of Roughting Linn, in an I-won't-set-foot-in-there kind of way. I could see why; I imagine that the gully and waterfall is a dank and gloomy sort of place in the right (wrong) sort of weather, but yesterday it was all bosky and pleasant.

There was a man photographing the spiral markings, who was of the opinion that some of them were representations of LADY PARTS.

He said to Laura "you'd know better than me, what do you think?" I should have struck the bounder.

Yellow

I think you either love or hate the oilseed rape and its acres of spectacular lemon yellow. I think it's beautiful. I got my backside out of bed this morning very early (bastard birds) and was parked waiting for the sun to come up before Farming Today was even on the radio. It felt good; I haven't been out on a trip (even if this was just up the road) after proper photographs for a such a long time.

Tried out some new photo-stitch panorama software on this (on account of not owning a Hasselblad panoramic camera) and think I've finally found something that works.

There's a couple of these on my website here, but I think I like this one best. Sometimes it's the other one.


This is a small image file for the website; you can see them both in original expansiveness on Flickr.

Red Square

Red Fields

Green Coast

Green Sunstreak; all oil on canvas, 8" x 8".

I bought a bagload of cheap square canvases (and, boy, do I mean cheap) in order to try out a new sort of style that had been tickling away at the back of my mind for a while. I think I've had a step forward. Trying to get a sense of light, wind, rain, space, air and place.

Seasonally Adjusted

Cheviot Foothills, Autumn. Oil on board, 18" x 12".

New painting of the country around the Cheviot foothills, North Northumberland. It has a companion piece (below). I like the idea of returning to a place to observe seasonal changes, so there might be a third, snowy one sometime.*

(You'll also spot that between summer and autumn it's not just light and colour that change but hills, trees, field layouts, horizons ...)

*Might not be, though. Part of me thinks that for all the work I put in on these, especially the autumn one, they're just a bit boring.** Working on a sea/sky painting now. I like these. Sea -wallop. Horizon -wallop. Sky - wallop. Clag it on and scuffle it around.

**You see, it's comments like this that make me think I'm maybe not the best person to be in charge of my own publicity...

... 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.