QUIET NIGHTS?

In the roof of our house here in Belgium is a lovely attic room which is the guest bedroom and the place where all the grandchildren camp out when they come to stay.

It has two small windows, high in the gable, facing the street, through which the street lights bathe the room in an orange glow and the children cant get to sleep.. Some times their mother drapes cloth over the opening but I decided yesterday to make some shutter panels and paint them with a dark sky and the moon. I used corrugated cardboard (see earlier postings!) and painted a view of the street in oil paint.

Here they are before I fix them. .

SAW OPEN STUDIOS

After a lot of humming and hawing I finally put in my entry forms for this year's Somerset Art Works Open Studios. I am so glad I did.  I wondered about it for a long time. It is a lot of work and it is hard to get people to Bridgwater, not quite Cream Tea territory! And being, as I so often am, the only venue in town makes it harder.

But I am doing it!!  I should say "I am the ONLY venue in town!"  So, come mid September, come and see my pictures.  If you are lucky you might get a cup of tea.

I hope you like this painting. It is small, 20 x 20 cm,   in oil and is one of a series called Flemish Fruit and Veg.  I spend a lot of time with Lutje, my missus,  in Belgium so they really are Flemish , like her.This one is "Pear on a terracotta dish"

I now have to do lots more painting and drawing.!

If you are interested Open Studios why not  follow this link
 http://somersetartworks.org.uk/what-we-do/art-weeks/openstudios/

WINTER IN THE PARK - work from earlier in 2015

These are part of a series of semi abstract works, still in progress, coming directly from my times drawing in Parc Parmentier, Brussels..  I am pleased so far.

Thoughts anyone?  

There are bigger ones on the way. All for sale eventually, prices yet to fixed.

 Ice , frost, fallen leaves etc, being very cold, sitting on a bench, drawing

detail of a bigger, A3, drawing. Charcoal on textured gesso on paper

no 1.  20 x 20 cm   watercolour on gesso on canvas board

no 2    20 x 20 cm   watercolour on gesso on canvas board

no 3  20 x 20 cm   watercolour on gesso on canvas board

A THING ABOUT PEPPERS

 I have been having a bit of a thing with two sweet red peppers today.  Not an intimate thing nor am I  going to cook them ,  well not yet!  I just love their shiny firm shape and their glowing colour

one page of an A6 sketch book. Noodler's Ahab pen and Noodler's ink

this time a double page spread in the same book , 

does the one on the right look a little like a naked woman sculpture?

same size book, double page spread. watercolour,a bit of gouache and a Pentel ink brush pen..  I think there might be the genesis of a painting or two here?

GIN AND T(omato?)

We have been very busy the last few days. Either hiding from the heat or gardening but I have found time for a few little pictures.

These very quick mini portraits of a lime, bound for my G & T are in very small pocket sketch books. One drawn with a Noodler's fountain  pen and ink the others in watercolour with a Pentel water brush, , the last with a few marks with a Pentel black brush pen.

First there were five (vine ripened!) tomatoes on my white plastic studio table top, Then we ate two and the remaining three took refuge in a terracotta plate on the same table.

A5 cartridge paper with a red acrylic ground, left over from some work i was doing last summer.  Gouache and watercolour

MORE CHANGES IN THE STREET, AS SEEN FROM THE BEDROOM

Last summer I wrote on renovations to the house opposite. It was eventually let, for a short while, to a young family, who were waiting for their own new house to be ready. In July they flew to pastures new and two huge pantechnicons arrived to take away their belongings.  I did this drawing to show what is a feature of removals here in Brussels and quite new to me - but then I am a provincial country boy! They have a sort of cross between a fireman's ladder and a lift which hoists boxes and furniture, some of it huge, up the outside of the building.

Shortly after we went back to England for a week to celebrate a big birthday for my inamorata and on returning we found the new occupants had moved in..  There are, as yet, no blinds or curtains so the whole edifice is visible. It is like a huge fishtank. So we have Christened the new resident Mr. Finn. We watch him making coffee, eating his breakfast, watching TV ( but not dressing or bathing) and, most often, sitting at the table. (are there any armchairs in the house?) all the while gazing it seems at a laptop. He is either Skyping his wife and children in Finland or, like me, is struggling to install his Windows 10 upgrade!  Mine works a treat now!

A few evenings ago the very hot weather brought on thunder storms and, for several hours, the sky darkened and, over the city, you could see the lightning flashing. Mr F leapt up, fearing rain and gusty winds and tore around the house closing all the windows but leaving all the lights on.  Here he is, a few minutes later, with the whole house lit up like a stage set, whilst he got back to calling Helsinki or where ever.

Some times he goes outside to listen to music in his white BMW

LOOK UP AT THE STARS

It has been a lean time for me lately for art and painting, Neither have I posted here for a long time.  But now, back in Brussels for a while, things are looking up, Although perhaps not for the unlucky Greeks who spent all last night in conference with their creditors just down the road!

I went for a walk two days or so ago, a slightly cooler day, down the hill to see my Shangri-La, Parc Parmentier, and was not disappointed. On the way there I walked, as usual, through a restful little garden connecting two streets and, to my delight, found this beautiful graffiti on the backrests of two benches and was spell bound. 

In fact, the benches are black and the text is white and the hedge is longer and the seats are further apart.  I had, in an empty state of mind, left my sketching things at home but I had my camera. So I took a quick snap, well two actually to fit in all  as a panorama and produced this edited vision when I returned

I was so happy when, eventually, I reached the park, which was as beautiful and tranquil as ever,  that I took lots of photos as visual notes. I prefer to draw in situ but this was different.  There are already four paintings coming together and one or two may be OK. I will show them here later maybe.

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But, on the moment, I am so grateful for the visionary who wrote those words and lifted my heart