On The Beach Two

Two Paintings of Sidmouth

Well this blog is called paintings-art so some paintings should appear here once in a while, it is somehow inevitable.

I have painted three pictures over the course of the last few winter months of 2010. Two of them are landscapes, the first being a view on the beach of Sidmouth looking west towards Higher Peak and the second being a view from the Peak Hill side of Ladram Bay looking west towards Budleigh. Both are painted in oil and measure 40cm by 40cm.

At one time I thought that the first painting was finished and hung it on the wall indoors to have a look at it. In the low winter light it appeared to be almost completely black and it was fairly obvious that I was going to have to lighten it considerably. In the end it became a sort of very early morning in winter scene, as if it was only just starting to get light. It still looks a bit dark in the photo but is actually a little bit lighter than this.

The second painting came out a lot slower, and I watched with some dismay as the tide rolled out and back in again as I attempted to get the large cliff to work. The first big cliff would somehow overpower the rest of them, so the famous red cliffs of East Devon are now in part a murky Paynes Grey due to a shadow falling on them, but it did seem to work and you have to know to walk away if a painting seems done. Sometimes I have gone in to just alter a tiny detail and somehow ended up mucking the whole thing up, which is all part of the fun.

Seeing as winter (which seems to start October/November, looking at watch..March) is almost gone I am hoping to be able to paint for longer again, as the 'studio' will not be so much of an icebox. Hurrah for spring coming soon and more painterly stuff and also other things.

Sidmouth to Budleigh Salterton

A couple of good long walks up over the hills and cliffs to Budleigh Salterton in what turned out to be better weather in September than we had most of the summer.

It takes about three and a half hours to walk the roughly seven miles to Budleigh though at this time of the year you are walking into the sun all afternoon, so it is a fairly squinty walk.

Over the first series of hills, those being Peak Hill and Higher Peak, and then down into Ladrum Bay with its interesting stacks and lovely clear water, we encounter a couple of very young looking children apparently skinning up behind the hedge at the caravan park. They look round rather guiltily and scuttle back to the death slide to smoke their spliff.

Ignoring the ice-cream shop in the hope of getting one at Budleigh we move on and past the abundant sloes growing in the hedges along the cliff edge. The hedges have all been recently flailed, destroying many of the lower fruits and making the rest hard to gather, though this still appears a popular spot for families out picking.

We meet a man who has been walking round the entire coast of Britain along the coastal path. He left Brighton heading eastwards and we meet him when he is on the last couple of hundred miles or so. It had taken him about three months which is pretty good going by my reckoning.

Along past the world war two spotter station situated at the lonely location of Brandy Point which would be a nice place to sit out a war, I should think. In earlier times this was used to look out for smugglers, of which there has always been plenty along this coast what with its isolated bays and beaches.

On past freshly ploughed fields and crops of corn growing up to the cliff edges the walker gets right to the beach at Budleigh only to find a river in the way, so a detour inland and up the river is needed to find a bridge to cross. This is not really a problem as the river is so pretty that it is good to see a bit more of it and it does have a lot of interesting birdlife, such as Heron, an Egret and some that might have been Canada Geese.

Finally we arrive in Budleigh Salterton, home of the young Walter Raleigh who isn't around at the moment, and with slightly achy feet we manage to find some fantastic and much needed ice-creams and sorbets. Yum yum!

Beach, Wave, Venus and Stone

I'm getting a bit behind in posting, so here are some pictures of the coast taken through the winter.

Then in the last two weeks of September, when all the holiday makers have gone and all the children are back at school we have about two weeks of solid sunshine. Last Sunday I finally made it to Salcombe beach (where these photo's weren't taken) on the last day of the good

weather. The sun was lovely but the wind was beginning to have a chill to it, telling us that summer had passed.

Night Photography, Moon and Jupiter

Photographs taken on the 18th July 2008.