Chalkwell Park - Painting and drawing on location

Here's a little painting I compleated at Chalkwell Park yesterday in the wind and the rain. I started it a couple of years ago as a demo piece for one of my classes and its been sitting around in the studio along with a large pile of other half finished paintings ever since. So yesterday I thought I would get to the park early before the start of my outdoor class and crack on with it. 

A couple of my brave students then arrived and we found a more sheltered spot and managed about an hour drawing before retiring to the cafe and drawing through the window.  

Next Week - Hadleigh Castle  (Another great wind swept location!) 

Erica and Marian drawing from inside the cafe at Chalkwell Park.

My Entries for this years Essex Open Exhibiton at the Beacroft Gallery

These are my paintings I've decided to enter for this years Essex Open Exhibition at the Beacroft Gallery.  I dropped them off on Thursday.  They said they were expecting about 700 entries again this year. 

 

Last year I entered two paintings then at the last minute I added "Sunday Morning"  which I had just finished and I'd been hoping to put into last years Leigh Art Trail.  Well unfortunately my main venue for the trail last year fell through so as I was keen to try and exhibit it I put it in as a last minute entry at the Beacroft.  A few days later I got a letter back.  The origional two paintings had been rejected but Sunday morning had won me a £400 prize for best work in Exhibition!  So every cloud has a silver lining as they say. 

Sunday Morning - Oil on canvas 91cm x 107cm

Sketching and Painting today

I managed to get a bit of sketching done this morning before class.  I noticed that Endevour was back in Leigh this morning after being in the Thames Jubilee river pageant which is the first boat you see in this little grouping.

I then went on to draw the tressel  tables and Osbournes pick up.  

Later in the day I took my son to the beach and painted these two.

Work by artists painting the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant

Here's a link to all the other artists work who were painting on the Millenium Bridge during the River Pageant. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-18330492

There is also a really good write up of the day in Katherine Tyrrell's blog Making a Mark.

http://makingamark.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/paintings-for-diamond-jubilee.html#more

Here's my painting of the Thames Pageant painted from Millennium Bridge yesterday.   I had a great time on the Bridge in spite of the weather.   I was reasonably happy with what I produced on the day and painting in the pouring rain and cold was definitely a new challenge and experience for me.   My original plan was to  under paint with acrylics which I'd tried on Monday with my two practise pieces and then once that had dried work with my oils.   I did try a little bit of acrylics but they just weren't going to dry so I stuck to the oils through out after that.   I rather liked the wide view of the bridge with the boats coming through but unfortunately they were in the top half of the canvas leaving it a bit empty in the bottom.    I did think I might crop and re-stretching it but I'll probably just do a few remedial repairs where the paint hasn't stuck properly because of the rain and keep it as a souvenir piece.   I may do a wider shallower version from this one and the photos I took but at the moment I'm more interested in developing some sketches from photo's which I've started today of some of the people on the bridge.   The weather forecast had been for rain in the afternoon and  it was pretty much bang on!  I'd remembered the weather channel saying 1/2 inch of rain would fall and by the end of the day when I emptied my plastic pot with clean brushes in there was at least 1/2 inch in there!  

Here's a few photo's from the day.....