Another visit to Lee Bay in North Devon in search of seaglass, known locally as Mermaid’s Tears. First a very enjoyable lunch at The Grampus pub consisting of ploughman’s lunches washed down with their own brewed ale then on to Sandy Cove. Once there we discovered that we had the beach to ourselves and we made the most of the situation by searching amongst the rocks and crevices. The climb back up the steep cliff steps was rewarded with a fabulous panorama of the North Devon Coast and on the walk back sloe berries were already on the trees lining the pathway waiting for the gin makers harvest.
I spent a rather enjoyable few days at this year’s Cropredy Festival in Oxford. It was the first time this has been held for a few years and an air of excitement hung over the area. This festival is run traditionally by the fantastic Fairport Convention and always shows an eclectic mix of the best music around. I loved visiting the village in the morning, having coffee by the working canal and listening to the fringe music at the Brasenose and Red Lion Pubs. Highlights for the weekend for me were, Trevor Horne with Lol Creme of 10cc, Robert Fripp & Toya, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Turing Brakes and of course the emotional end of the festival featuring Fairport Convention with Richard Thompson and Dave Mattacks playing the entire 1970 Full House album. Matty Groves was a favourite of mine too. Harvest Moon pictured at the top features Steve Hacket playing Afterglow!
An hour of getting rid of the blank white canvas and laying out the basic tones and colours for this painting. It’s been quite a while, for various reasons, since I daubed paint on canvas so this initial start should commit me to action. We loved our stay here a few weeks ago and the coastline along this particular part of the Cornish coast is stunning. I sat sketching the sea from ontop a cliff here and watched a sailing ship weight anchor and it’s small boat venture into Mullion Harbour over the crystal clear turquoise water. The final acrylic painting is 24 x 30″ on canvas please note that the colours are not as the original painting! Al
A visit to Bristol for the Harbour Festival and to pick up some large canvases in view of trying to break my creative lull. I think Mullion Cove will be next!
Well I had a good time at the festival meeting up with old friends who I haven’t seen in about three years due to the Covid Pandemic. I work every Glastonbury as a member of the Recycling Team and receive free vegetarian food, a rather nice camping field and our own massive marquee serving local beers, ciders and evening entertainment, we also get the festival ticket for free too! All in all we spend just over a week here and when we first arrive there is no public on site so it’s great to see open fields and no crowds. It became alive when the festival opened and I managed to make the most of the late nights and also discovered new places I haven’t seen before. Strummerville, named after Jo Strummer of The Clash who used to make camp here, with it’s sofas, camp fire and reggae music. The Bimble Inn in the early hours was fantastic with it’s weird eclectic bands, real ale and Lord of the Rings vibe. Arcadia with it’s laser display and Spider were impressive along with Shangri-La and it’s twilight alternativeness!
On returning home from the festival a few of us quickly came down with the dreaded Covid and am now suffering from the usual fever, headaches, lack of taste and smell. This lack of taste and smell has now changed, so everything now tasting like rancid coconut and burnt electrical cable. I haven’t placed brush to canvas for a long time due to family matters and now Covid but I hope to regain the fire soon! Al
I came across this painting of mine from a few years ago on another website and got to look at it through fresh eyes. The sentiment of it’s original concept still moves me today! Acrylic on 36 x 36″ canvas. Adela Legarreta Rivas 1979. Original image by Enrique Metinides.
The tragic scene in my painting was originally captured by photographer Metinides and is of Adela Legarreta Rivas, a Mexican journalist. Rivas had visited a beauty parlour where she had her hair and nails done in preparation for a press conference later that day. On her way to meet her sister she was hit and killed by a white Datsun on Avenida Chapultepec in Mexico City. In the scene her perfectly manicured nails, expensive jewellery, makeup and hair look almost flawless was it not for a single line of blood running across her nose and face. In painting this scene I explored my own ideas of death and often use circles seen in the background to represent reincarnation. We hang onto material things and ego to boost our self esteem then suddenly a scan or an x ray can change all of our preconceptions of life in a second. A quote I heard sums this up quite eloquently, ‘Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live!‘
Another Biddie Black this time of Greencliff near Abbotsham in North Devon, painted on thick cartridge paper 700 x 260mm. and above is a video of removing the tape along with some of my guitar music to keep it company. It is at Greencliff where I obtain my black pigment after walking down the winding coast path, past the old lime kiln and scrambling over the pebble ridge. On this particular day it was quite warm so I spent a lot of time here sketching and taking photos. I was asked by someone on the beach, was I digging for Bideford Black as they had read about it? I confirmed their suspicion and showed them where it was collected along with my black hands as evidence. I love this part of the coastline as it’s very secluded and quite a suntrap, ideal for evening BBQs. Someone before me had dug out some pigment and left the cliff in quite a state with a gaping hole this I made good with more mud and pebbles. You know what they say, ‘Love the beach leave no trace!’ and that includes litter.
A spur of the moment decision to drive up the coast to Lee Bay and hunt for more sea glass with my wife. She’s making jewellery at the moment so we’re making the most of the great weather. Not too much of a haul today as the tide was in but still there was glass to be found. This was followed by a visit to the Grampus Inn for wine, beer and sandwiches. This pub makes it’s own gin and beer and I must say the ale was superb! Al
Sadly my mother Ruth recently died so after a lot of organising of funeral arrangements we decided to keep a previously booked short break to Mullion in Cornwall and take a breath. Luckily for us the weather was wonderful and there were very few tourists around; this was apparently because of our weekend fell between Whitsun and Half Term Holidays, a sort of vacational sweet spot. Mullion is a beautiful little harbour with stunning views up and down the Cornish coastline a perfect place with which to explore from. During our weekend we visited Kynance Cove with it’s spectacular rock formations, Cadgwith Cove with it’s idyllic thatched roofs and cottages, Gunwalloe Beach with it’s beautiful church in the dunes and the town of Porthleven with it’s interesting harbour and market stalls.
Mullion Harbour.Up the coast to the Lizard.Mullion Cove.Gunwalloe Beach & Church.Cadgwith Cove.Kynance Cove.
We stayed at the brilliant Mullion Cove Coastal Retreat in a lodge with a jacuzzi! What a great time we had late in the evenings drinking wine and relaxing in the warm bubbly water. I’m sure some of these images will eventually inspire me into creating more paintings. For my wife and I the highlights of the weekend were Cadgwith Cove, where we had a marvellous meal at the Mullion Cove Inn, and of coursethe stunning Kynance Cove. Al
My wife Donna had a jewellery making course in Colyton in Dorset so I decided to tag along and then travel on to visit Lyme Regis and hunt for some ammonite fossils. The weather was rather cloudy but soon the sun came out and I edged my way along the pebbly beach, dodging the outgoing tide’s waves. It was wonderful looking at the ammonite fossils in the large rocks and there is an area where they carpet the whole area. With my geological hammer I managed to find some fossils along with a special ammonite preserved in quartz crystals. To add to the day a Chinook Helicopter flew up and down the coast a few times, I’m sure the pilots had a great view over the Dorset Coast.
Al Brown Artist. 