Christmas is coming (I kid ye not)

Today saw the arrival of my first Christmas enquiry, which, although very welcome came a something of a shock since the lovely weather of the last few days has had me looking forward to a long hot summer...........oh well I'm impressed at the forward thinking of this potential client and really hope his timely enquiry gets the ball rolling!

As usual lots has been happening for me on the domestic front and my artwork has suffered some neglect, I have been trying to complete a graphite that I posted some time ago of a lovely Charolias cow that I called "Gertrude" ......I am frustratingly close to having finished it but am still just not quite there, so she remains on my drawing board waiting for a couple of free hours to present themselves, hopefully I will be able to post the final image here tomorrow ;-)

Meanwhile I just wanted to show off my wonderful new studio window which has been a godsend this week as it opens fully and allows a little cooling breeze through while giving an unninterupted view of the garden ..........am I spoilt or what!

Dungeness

I am on a mission to complete some work for a couple of exhibitions coming up later in the summer todays effort is a 30x 30 cm pastel of a cottage at Dungeness, it looks great in a driftwood frame that has been languishing in my studio for some time...............sorted!

Am I going soft?

Having completed my first landscape in quite a while I felt motivated to start work on another, this one again is based on local scenery at Pett Level and went through so many "ugly" stages that it was almost consigned to the bin, however I persevered and worked it to completion only to sit back and wonder if my work has gone too far down the chocolate box route lately?

Determined to beat this run of "flowery" pastels I tried a new approach today painting a beach scene from last years travels in Australia, however it seems I am firmly stuck in the grips of this mood

so this is how my sandy footpath leading to Cottesloe Beach Nr Perth turned out and confirmation that I have gone soft and need to work through this "romantic" phase in my painting........................I'm looking for a cure...........maybe I'll have to dispose of the pinks and blues lurking in my palette at the moment?

Change of tack

Been very busy with "other stuff" just lately and have not done any painting for a couple of weeks, the lovely weather has been beckoning me into the garden too and I have enjoyed the downtime tending to my plants, so now that the garden is looking lovely and the weather has taken a turn for the worse I decided to spend the afternoon back at the easel working on a piece for exhibition later in the summer this is "Evening light" and it's a 12"x 16" pastel which I really enjoyed painting, hope you like it ;-)