In St ives for our holidays, and while the weather has closed in with storms whipping up the sea I sit at the breakfast table and make a quick watercolour sketch

A still life

some objects on a table top, the time honoured subject of artists, feels a bit like homework, but becomes interesting when the positive and negative forms are seen and worked, it has also been a while since I worked in pencil, apart from sketching 

View from the studio in watercolour

I keep thinking of a conversation I heard on the radio , discussing creative pursuits ( music, art, writing ) and that the good work is made when there is uncertainty. Making something new takes courage, and the conversation discussed the idea that "writers block", or the inability to work is a failure of this courage; the fear taking over. In order to keep working I have to manage that lack of courage, the fear, and know when to stop and when to keep working regardless of a clear sense of direction. ( Lauren Laverne talking to Ben Folds on 6 Music )

The dead tree and an imagined landscape

At the top is the attempt I made to paint the dead tree outside the house in Guildford,home to a fox which sat in the branches in the morning sun , and below is one of the remembered landscapes, which recall the view from Grovely to Fovant both are in watercolour.  

We are here in Guildford for another few days, and while I am here, I only have watercolours to work in. Using a block of landscape paper I have started to try some generic ideas, I find that I am painting the view from Grovely to Fovant that I know from home, there are some basic components that I am trying to convey, mastering the palette is an important part of this, in order to convey the sense of distance. Also how to make those blobs and dashes into convincing trees and shrubs.
 The block of apartments across the meadows, built in the sixties I am guessing, stand out against the green trees around them. But the rain has set in and I cannot see that I will get a chance to draw the view.   

I have tried to paint the dead tree which lies opposite the front of the house. The weather bleached branches reach out like an open hand against the deep green of the trees. It lies in a patch of ground left to go wild; a wilderness of grasses, nettles, shrubs and bracken which provides a home to a fox which daily suns itself within the contours of the trunk. Land here is at a premium, houses round the corner in the same road are being offered for £2 million. Property developers must be having palpitations at the thought of its potential, and yet it resists the tide of development, and avoids being partitioned, traded, "ameliorated".  
The watercolour fails to convey the atmosphere I was hoping for, I am working from some sketches I have made, but it seems that i do not have enough information, or skill, to capture what I had hoped for.  

Suddenly I have no idea where I am in the year; i think it could be January or February. I am staying at my sister's house near Guildford, and the rain is sheeting down, making the patio indistinguishable from the surface of the pond. There is a feeling of gloom and being stuck inside. 
 The hard floorboards and tiling are taking a toll on our 17 month old child's knees. My wife attempts to work on her laptop with an internet connection which seems recalcitrant to say the least, given that this is Guildford and not a rain forest. We are both tired and stressed trying to judge the correct tog grow bag for our daughter to sleep through the night.
 I have found an art supply shop within five minutes drive , and replaced some important colours;( green and yellow) and before I know it I have spent £100 and carry out my purchases in an A5 plastic bag.