Spoilt for Choice
60cms x 40cms Acrylic on canvas
I posted about this market on the 12th. When I was there I made some sketches and took some photos from which I have painted this contemporary view in the studio. I had a lot of fun creating the people going about their Sunday morning business.
Before the Storm
12″ x 9″ Acrylic on mount board
Some parts of Fethiye experienced temperatures of 6C last night and the wind is still blowing hard from the North. There are many visitors still here and I don’t suppose that they are very impressed although the sun is shining as usual. Snow is falling in the Black Sea regions so it could be worse. I’ve completed my self-imposed target of a daily still life and have enjoyed it, but I’m enjoying work on a large canvas of Fethiye Bay even more. So I’ve confirmed my conclusion of the 18th …. It’s the daily painting, not the painting a day that counts.
Fethiye Bay
24″ x 18″ Acrylic on canvas
This is the larger canvas promised in my post of the 18th April. It came together just as I wanted although I experienced all my usual issues over how much detail to include, still I am very pleased with the end result. I’ve just taken it to the framers and on the way back I decided that I like this view so much I will paint a even larger one!
Gelidonya 3
10″ x 8″ acrylic on card
A Lighthouse on a sunny day is a bit useless other than as as a navigation mark or a tourist attraction, so my final interpretation of Gelidonya creates the storm that defines it’s existence. I’ll possibly come back to Gelidonya again but I must get on with the larger canvas of Fethiye bay. The temperatures have soared to 35C + in the last couple of days, not a great time to sit in full sun so I need to rig up some shade on the hillside before I can get on. It’s very steep and rocky there so I need to get my thinking cap on.
Fethiye Palm Island
24″ x 18″, Acrylic on canvas
This little corner of Fethiye is in an area subject to major redevelopment at present, and often overlooked by residents and visitors alike, mostly due to being focused on the traffic hazard, I suspect. Since I took this photo it has been enhanced with the addition of a huge TV advertising screen on the island and a massive pediment fronting the jeweller’s shop on the left. There is also now, to the right, the major works of the Fethiye Amphitheatre Restoration Project and there seem to be more buildings on the hillside too.
As I said last week, I’ve been getting the boat ready and not had much free time for painting but I’m really pleased to finish this scene as I think it highlights one of the easily missed views of this amazing place.
Kayakoy Landscape 101
20″ x 14″ Acrylic on canvas
Mostly the light is harsh and unforgiving, it comes from directly above so doorways and windows become black holes. Then again, the sun shines on the white plaster of an internal wall and the window opposite beams like a searchlight. Other days the light is hazy and diffuse, and there isn’t much contrast, shadows get bleached out, then there are no really dark areas and the light bounces off the stone into the shadows. The walls have eroded into dark and light areas that are independant of the light. So a vertical dark band on a facing wall gives the impression of a shadowed side wall which would naturally be light (if it was there!). And all the walls are like that. Its very confusing to the eye and I struggle to resolve it without losing realism. For example, the apse(in shadow) is lighter than the side wall of the church (in the light) and the pink plastered walls actually seem to glow It’s very tricky. On the other hand it’s one of the things that make Kayakoy so visually fascinating to me.
Armagnac Autumn with Lavender and Hay
15″ x 8″ Acrylic on card
A chat with Gina about the 2013 Spring/Summer fashion colours got me thinking about just how many neon colours there are in nature. Acid greens and yellows in Spring, vivid pink and orange sunsets, ocean blues and the violets and purples of distant hills. I suppose that’s why I am so dazzled by the Colourists and Impressionists who gave full expression to what lay right in front of them and how brave they were!
All that talk of food in my last post kept me in the mood for another French autumn picture. I can smell the lavender and hay and feel that luscious late heat coming off the well baked hills.
Arthog Falls,
24″ x 18″ Acrylic on canvas
I fancied a change of scene and this painting evolved from a photograph that Gina took near our house in Barmouth, North Wales where we have lived and run a business for 23 years. Snowdonia is a landscape artist’s paradise with big skies, spectacular mountains, rivers and forests and the amazing ever changing light. But it also possesses countless beautiful nooks and crannies, rocky paths, ancient woodlands, tiny coves, ruined cottages and mossy glades. As a trout fisherman I spent countless hours absorbing the smell of wet moss, the feel of slippery rocks and the sights and sounds of falling water, intently focussed on scenes just like this, searching for signs of fish. So, in many ways, this work represents those embedded visual memories as well as the strong feelings I have about the time and place.
Bamboo SOLD
31″ x 24″, Acrylic on canvas
We were on our way to the Yoruk Museum and Restaurant, near Ciftlik run by the always hospitable Enver and Aysun Yalcin and their family. The museum is off the beaten track and I took the wrong turning. We found ourselves on a narrow lane that soon dwindled into a track running beside a small stream completely overgrown with bamboo. We pressed on, eagerly anticipating our “eat and drink as much as you like” breakfast, the tabletop overflowing with a huge selection of locally grown and home made dishes. But as we motored on, like the Africa Queen on wheels, the lane became narrower, the bamboo denser and our guests increasingly nervous. I kept thinking it would clear eventually but finally we were forced to a halt, surrounded on three sides by an inpenetrable wall of the stuff, and I had to reverse two or three kilometers back to the turn-off. Perhaps I could add a machete to the car emergency kit for next time and send Gina out in front to hack a path. Mmmm….
The Glade
24″ x 16″ Acrylic on Canvas
I’ve just finished the larger work based on the sketch I posted on the 3rd February. Prosaically, I’ve called it The Glade. It has ended up with more detail than I originally planned to paint and, as usual, I keep telling myself to loosen up!