Blue of the Scillies

I’ve been working on a series of paintings called Blue of the Scillies, based on a couple of trips to the Isles of Scillies one in spring 2010 and again this year at the end of the summer. What a truly lovely place. Peaceful, quiet, unspoilt all the tourist information is right. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, walking the islands, St Mary’s, Tresco, St Martins and St Agnes.

Isles of Scillies

I took my sketch book with me, completed a few sketches and took lots of photographs to work from in my studio when I got home. Sketching in situe I begin to get more of a feel for a place, a sense of how the landscape works which makes it easier when working from photographs later. And I like it, finding a quiet spot, sitting down and making a sketch, sometimes just in pencil, sometimes pen and watercolour.

I like to paint scenes where I have made a connection, where there is something about the the light or the energy which touches me in some way. I’m someone who is deeply interested in our relationship and connection to nature. I know I feel most peaceful when I am looking at a beautiful view, whether its calm quiet scene or something wilder and more dramatic and I paint those places where I have made such a connection.

Church at Old Town

A late evening sketch at Old Town, it was a chilly evening and I was thinking of dinner and a glass of wine! Its a lovely spot with the tide out, the bay is often full of boats and on a warm day people shrimping. Not this evening though.

I was trying out some new water soluable pencils with pen and ink – quite liked the effect and easy to use.

Another sketch in pen and water soluable pencils. This time at Innisgden, which feels slightly mysterious to me. The Iron Age burial mounds looking out over the sea. I sat and felt a sense of history.

Innisigden to Bar Point – oil on box canvass.

And here is the painting – oil on box canvass.

Some of the other pencil sketches from my walks around the islands. The hottest day at Bar Point I had the beach to myself and when I reached Porthloo, I sat on a bench, with a quiet mind, tired feet and enjoyed the view.