Studio wall

It's strange what I choose to hang on the wall of the studio, in theory I don't want anything distracting me from what i'm working on, but on the other hand there are those blank walls crying out for something on them, and I have a large stock of paintings sitting in stacks, so here they are, there are two versions of the one on the left, and the other one hangs in our dining room. the framed image is from the valley of the rocks, in Lynmouth, from the time when I lived in Exmoor, and below is a study of a lump of flint ( which inspired the painting on the left ) 

A couple of studies from earlier this year

Some tree studies from earlier in the year,

Looking West towards Grovely Woods

This is the view of Grovely Woods from below the A36 , with the willows in the foreground, which gave Wilton its name, where the Wylye river flows, and the hill rises like a formidable bulwark. The Roman road runs straight ahead from this point of view at the crest of the hill, the Roman Rd from Old Sarum West climbs up the hill to the East of this view, descends into Wilton, and then climbs this hill again from the left of this depiction. To me this corresponds to the description of Wilton by Asser , with all the identifying aspects apparent. The Nadder river runs in the valley to the left of this picture, south of the hill.   

Wessex and Wilton

The woods above Wilton have many stories attached to them, and part of the reason that I have walked and cycled so much around these hills and tracks, is to gain a sense of this historic landscape, and my paintings and drawings, are part of this exploration 
 Without Wessex there would have been no England, and without Wilton there would have been no Wessex.
 In 871 the Vikings were hammering at the gateways of Wessex, the last Kingdom to succumb to the assault of the Northmen. There was an intense amount of activity in this year with battles named in Basing , Meretun, and Wilton. According to Cassells Battlefields of Britain and Ireland; Asser recorded that Wilton was on a hill south of the River Guilou ( or Wylye) and speculates that this might mean "The high ground between the Nadder and Wylye, along the continuation of the Roman road westwards from Old Sarum through Grovely Wood." all of this area is five minutes from where I live,and as I explore the paths and ancient earthworks, i think "A nation was lost and then forged here ", and I am thinking of the sacking of Wilton and the bargain which Alfred made , paying off the Vikings for long enough to repair his fortifications and eventually resist their advance. So though I am trying to record what I see before me , perhaps I am also hoping some sense of this significance is captured.
     

Into The Woods

A couple of paintings from sketches, I have been going up into the woods at Grovely, particularly atmospheric at this time of the year. I stood lost in sketching in the middle of the woods for about twenty minutes, then heard the cracking of twigs , and a large animal moving nearby, I never saw the creature, I assume it was a deer, but it brought me back into the moment, and sudden awareness of the smells and sounds of the forest .

Paintings from the sketches of cliffs

.. back in the studio and working in the evenings now, some first ideas using the cliff sketches..

Charcoal sketches of St Ives cliffs

We were walking past Porthmeor beach when we saw a man on the beach with two large canvases working in the morning sunlight with the tide far out. I went down to talk to him, and he explained that the canvases he had already painted in his studio, and he brought them out to get "something" from the landscape,he said so many things which I agreed with, about how the first painting gave him something to struggle against, and how he was avoiding "picture making", his bold and expressive work was showing all that week at the Crypt in town. His name was Paul Wadsworth, and he inspired me to try and be  more free with these studies of the cliffs, and I really like their mood, and energy, so thanks Paul...