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.
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.
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.
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.
