The View to Winchelsea, and Kingsgate beach.

Another from back in January. This is the view from a field of harvested stubble, that looks back towards Winchelsea. Another 10x12, oil on oil primed board.

 On the 27th I returned to a view of one of the chalk cliffs here in SE Kent.

This is 10x12 oil on board, but I later enlarged this to see how it would appear in a slightly bigger scale.

Last few months, a round up. Wickhambreaux cottages.

Well, I have epically failed to keep up to date with the blog! I have made painting notes as I've gone along , so I can add my pictures from the missing months in :D

January 10th

I painted from a photo, some old thatched roof cottages in Wickhambreaux. These can't be painted from this angle since you'd be swiftly run over.  The first day I got as far as the initial drawing in on the burnt sienna oil primed board.

The painting was finished the next day, 10x12 inches. The sky seems to lose some of the colour in the photographs here.

Wickhambreaux back in the summer.

I haven't managed to paint much still through dark December, but I hadn't realised it had been quite so long since the last post !

  One area near to me has has all the elements of traditional English countryside, is around the River Stour in East Kent. A footpath on the out-skirts of Wickhambreaux has streams, weirs, cattle, towering trees and swans.

  Again there was a burnt sienna under painting, this being as far as I got day one.

This is the final work, with swan.

St Margaret's Bay (again), oil on board.

 Another view of St. Margaret's Bay near Dover. This one was painted pretty quick, I didn't remember to photograph as I went along and so I only have the final painting to show here.


   No coloured under-painting on this one, size 10 x 12 inches.
To be listed on ebay under CrightonFineArts.

Bridge over Kentish Fields

Well week six of dark, overcast days rolls on, leaving me to work in limited time on studies inside.

 I started working from the sky down on this, over a burnt sienna oil prepared board which had dried for a few weeks.

I finished this the next day, as shown below. This one I'll either keep, or frame to send to a gallery exhibition.

Bedgebury Forest oil on board.

Another small oil on board, half of which I'd wiped down when I realised I was not concentrating and things had started to go ...... off, rather.

  So I grabbed an hour and finished this as the light faded away. I'm itching to go plein air painting again as soon as possible, however tomorrow rain is forecast once more.

St Margaret's Bay, Kent.

Yesterday I started a quick oil of the bay at St Margaret's, near to Dover. The water was a gorgeous colour in August, but sketching on the beach was bad enough with the flies and wasps, so painting wasn't an option that day. 
When the tide was in, it seemed to concentrate the flying things on the small strip of beach left, and this is a very popular beach so wasps are in heaven here, what with the children and ice-cream mixture running about !

  The first session ended after 45 minutes, as the light faded too much to continue. 

 Today I have more or less finished. I like to stop when I am not sure where to go next, rather than over-working the paint and muddying with the wash underneath.

   I did not paint either the wasps, and I also omitted the railing and concrete ugly stuff which humans require to access the shoreline.  


   When this dries, I'll be adding it to sell on eBay. 
8x10 inches, oil on hand prepared gesso board.

Trying to embark on painting en plein air, when it never stops raining !

  Well, this post is about six months in the making. I only started trying oils out in the New Year, and I was too afraid to go outside to paint for the longest time.

 I finally made it several weeks ago, and it wasn't as bad as I'd built it up to be in my mind.

 The family went fossil hunting (shark's teeth) down at Reculver, and I managed a couple of small pictures on site.

  Now I'm typing this, I recall how small flies stuck into the paint.... and I never got around to removing them .....