Electric bike excitement and a cow shed

Because we are in our motorhome we have no ancillary transport with us, so up to now I have been on a borrowed push bike.
Well, as you can imagine it's a bit hilly in these mountains, so you can imagine how excited I was to be offered a trial of an electric bike.
Now this wasn't your average, measly engined pedallo.  Oh no, it was a super duper, top of the range high voltage (well not too sure about that bit) high speed mountain bike.
It weighed a ton, so I wouldn't have liked to hump it across streams or over fences, but by golly it went like s**t off a shovel, and what fun!  I want one.

Sadly it was rather too expensive for me just now, and was also so heavy we would have had to put a stronger bike carrier on the van.  It was with heavy heart that I handed it back at the end of the day.
But it made my trip up to the cowshed a much more fun experience.

I had spotted this little shed over the winter.  The valley is quite steep here so it got little sun, but now the sun is much higher for longer (in mid-summer) it was perfect fodder for my paint palette.
The sun was hot, but I found a generously shady tree, inevitably surrounded by nettles waiting for when I dropped brushes etc, but the shade was welcome.
I am trying to get more paint on my canvas, and end up with a brighter result.  For many a long month I have been a bit disappointed to arrive home and find a dull painting that needed post brightening treatment.

I prefer working on a tinted canvas.  Recently I have been tinting my board on site, rather that preparing it before I leave home, and I suspect this has added to my woes.  I have other strategies for future attempts that involve a quick rough block in of the basic shapes, on a white ground, then a layer of thicker paint on top.  This was my first attempt at this ploy, and I think it paid off. I didn't need to brighten this one up at all, in fact no alterations were made when I got home, other than to photograph it better.

I am quietly pleased.  The shed doesn't look too precise (always a bugbear of mine) and the roof colour has worked well.
The position of the sun also meant that as it moved round the light didn't vary too much.  I had established the shadow patterns early on so was able to stick with it, and my preparatory sketch helped me remember relative values.  I will get there eventually!

Cow Shed on the Plateau
12x10"
oils on canvas board

Nice weather in the Alps

When we arrived last week it was a bit English, in terms of grey, cool and damp, but the weather has taken a turn for the better and I have been able to get out with my paints,  As we came in our motorhome and didn't bring bikes I have been using one from my next door neighbour.  I think blokes have seat bones in different places to us girls, and my painting gear just puts extra weight on the old bones.

We live in a residential area, but the chalets are well spaced and most have delightful backdrops of mountains and lots of conifers.  Here is one just down the road from us.

I am standing next to the public bins, so it could be called 'view from the Poubelles', but I think I need to find a more apposite title.

The giant rock on the right will have fallen from the steep mountainside, out of shot.  Glad I wasn't there when it landed!  That is Pointe de Villeneuve in the background.  it has crept into quite a lot of my local views.  You will see that they have a parasol and garden chairs out.  Thats always a good portent.

10x12" Oils on canvas board
No proper title as yet.

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Janet


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Spring tree in the Autumn of its life

I couldn't resist this tree, having seen better days, but the sun caught shafts of light on the bare trunks, giving a sad poignancy, not to mention an interesting profile.  It will be interesting to see how it fares over the coming years, probably last longer than I will!
As the days are getting (slightly) warmer it's nice to get out again and not be frozen solid, although I seem to be susceptible to the cold and wear thick socks, a vest and wrist warmers unless it gets very warm.

'Seen better days'
oils on canvas board
8x10"

Milly

When the weather isn't fit to go out to paint I like to go back to my pastels, and I am steadily building up my portfolio of dog portraits.  I did lots of commissions  (of dogs, and babies mainly) following on from my two periods as Artist in Residence at Burton Constable Hall a few years ago, but sadly it was before I kept a reliable photographic reference of my work.

You will find a brochure for my Painted Pets at http://janetpoole.weebly.com

This lively wire haired fox terrier belongs to a friend, and was caught mid-air jumping around the house (which explains why her ears are in flight).

Milly
Soft and hard pastels on Pastelmat paper
20x30cms

Pastels with Grunt

I enjoys using pastels for portraits, particularly of the doggy variety, but more of that in another post.  In the hope of injecting my work with a little extra umph, Mum and I did a course in Scotland, organised by the ebullient and talented Margaret Evans of Shinafoot Studios, led by Tony Allain.

Tony is a professional artist from New Zealand who paints spectacular pastel paintings with bold colours and energetic strokes.  I love his work, you can find his website here.

Being a naturally slow and careful worker this was a revelation to me, we produced 4 pieces each day (albeit that some of them could stand a little refinement) but the process was very informative.

Here are a few of the pastel paintings I did, I hope you will agree that they do have a little extra 'grunt'

This is one of my favourite locations on the River Rye, near Malton.  I have painted it in all seasons, and varying states of flood.  It is really hard to get to, I have to stand on a very busy road bridge to take photos, and haven't yet found a spot where I can actually paint plain air, so most of the series has been done in the studio.

This is a newly found location, near Nunnington.  I will definitely be going back there.

This was outside the studio at Unison Pastels in Northumberland (we did an extra day there with Tony later in the week).  It is unusual for me in that I did an on site sketch, then did the little painting from the sketch and memory, without using a photo reference.

These next two were done from reference photos from paintmyphoto.com which is a very useful reference photo resource to work from when I just want a practise subject.  I normal prefer to work from my own photos, but I didn't have anything suitable with me.

 I very much hope that the additional energy obvious in these small works will translate into other media that I use.  I have already done two new dog portraits that I am happy with with much livelier application.  More in my next post…



All these small works approx 10x8" Unison Pastels on Art Spectrum paper.