Montacute House

Montacute House is an Elizabethan Manor in Somerset; you can learn more about it here. It has an impressive long gallery, which affords lovely views over the grounds. I understand that there are changing exhibitions of paintings in the rooms leading off the gallery.

The weather during my visit was overcast, which meant that I wanted to push the colours more in this painting.

Water always provides an opportunity to paint loosely and wet-in-wet to give an effect of movement. In fact, I think watercolour is one of the best mediums to portray water.

At the Cafe

I have painted this old lime tree before. You can find it in the old town of Zofingen, Switzerland and the Restaurant Linde is named after it.

Wouldn't we all love to sit in the shade of this beautiful tree and enjoy a relaxed afternoon in the sunshine?

View of Corfe Castle

An early summer painting in England, which is always particularly green at that time of year. This has caused a problem of recession, and maybe I should have used a bluer colour to make the castle sit more in the background.

I am sure I am not the only one to think that beautiful subjects don't automatically make for beautiful paintings...

Whitby Harbour

This was quite a complicated subject and needed a lot of simplification to get to grips with it. It always helps to make a tonal plan. I usually break it down into just three values (light, middle, dark) and do a little thumbnail sketch in pencil.

Roseberry Topping

This mountain is also called the Matterhorn of North Yorkshire but to me, it looks more like the Sphynx. It only acquired this shape after part of the mountain collapsed in the early 20th century. I visited on a clear day in February, when a super moon showed itself in daylight to add to the beauty of this scene (in my painting, I moved it a bit closer to the mountain to make a better composition).

Led by my much more energetic son, I climbed up the short, strenuous route and had to stop several times to catch my breath. It was well worth the climb, though, as the view across the North Yorkshire landscape was fantastic. On the way back down, we took a more leisurely path and encountered this strange building:

The plaque on one of the wall explained that it was a shooting lodge used by hunting parties for shelter in bad weather. By the time we reached it, the sun was already setting.

Roseberry Topping is a popular destination for walkers and I'm sure I will want to go back and enjoy it at a different time of year.