Recent Paintings

 

Mike's oil portrait of the guide at the Laphroig Distillery

Watercolour version of the above

Steve Cleary by Mike

Con's Cover Design for Moon in Leo based on a photograph taken in Furness

Northern Fells Dyptich

Northern Fells

I am continuing with my semi abstract landscapes, and Mike is getting rather good at portraits.

Getting down to it (or rather up)

The garden has been neglected recently, due to Avril's shoulder injury, and our preoccupation with getting Moon in Leo published. However, we have started trying to do a minimum of an hour a day when the weather permits: unglamourous things like digging out the gutters and cutting back the climbers. Yesterday was sunny and dry, warm even, so I spent some soggy hours removing dead leaves and slime from the unseen places while Mike cut back the ivy.

Early morning on a beautiful day

Mike gets up to it!

The last few grapes

Tall grass seed heads catch the low sun

Cut back, the ivy no longer threatens the gutters and fascia boards

...and the fun continues!

 Avril made a "bug hotel" for the boys when she was here. Today they started to fill the compartments with different materials they found around the garden.

In the afternoon, we went to see the Snow Queen at Up Front Gallery Puppet Theatre. The boys loved it, but so did Gran, Grandad and Auntie Kate.

The Boys Are Here!

Ted and Daisy play football; Shay plays badminton

  

Ted and Seamus are enjoying a short stay at the Red House with Granny, Grandad and Auntie Kate. They had a great day playing football and badminton with Avril's dog, and another day admiring the horses at the lakeland Heavy Horse Centre.

Auntie Kate and Ted at the back of the carriage

Men and Women at Work

Our gardening angel, Avril, has been sawing down branches and trimming hedges; work that has been desperately needed now for several years. In the photos above, you can see her cutting off two huge branches that stuck out a long way into the garden and overshadowed one of the beds. She left the fork with two stumps sticking out as a comfortable perch for small boys! I might try to carve the ends into faces! Look out for more on the story of the tree seat.





While Avril worked on the hedge bordering the lonning, Mike cut some huge overhanging sections from the multi-stemmed cherry by the roadside. He kept having nightmares that it would fall across the road one day and cause an accident. While he chopped up the resulting logs, I stacked them on the veranda of the cabin- an ideal place for a proper woodpile. Hopefully by next winter, it will be stacked full, and should make us self- sufficient in wood.





Yesterday was a perfect winter's day, blue and warm with a slight haze, lulling you into a false sense that spring was almost here, but as the shadows lengthened, the cold found ingenious ways to bypass our defenses and remind us that winter is far from over, and there will be cold and wet days a plenty to come.

Nanny says don't go onto the ice

We have now had a total thaw after a month of ice and snow. We have been virtually hibernating, going out only when necessary. However, we did go out to Keswick last Saturday, to see the unusual phenomenon of Derwentwater frozen over completely. It was like a scene painted by Breughel. The ice was solid and clearly many inches thick, and was able to support dozens of people, walking, sliding and even cycling. It was such a joy to see so much innocent fun, and so many adults recalling their childhood. As for the kids- it was as if all their birthdays and Christmases had come at once.

Where there was a rift and a thin place in the ice, between the shore and Belle Isle, everybody stopped, assessed and went a different way round or turned back. We had intended to walk all the way to Friar's Crag on the ice, but this stopped us.

We have got unused to using our initiative and judgment these days: rarely are we faced with situations of personal danger in our absurdly risk-averse and litigious society. It was heart-warming to have proved what I have always believed: that most people are mature and sensible enough to conduct their own lives reasonably, and we do not need the infantilizing rules, notices and warnings that plague our society.

What did next day's newspapers bleat on about? You've gussed it- how irresponsible it was for people to endanger their lives by walking on the frozen lake!

Swallows and Amazonite

Not long back from a mind blowing trip through the Rockies, and expecting the swallows gone, I was thrilled to see over thirty gathered on the wires above the garage this morning. They are obviously thinking of going, and who can blame them as the grey clouds gather over Skidder, and mist forms on the inside of the glass!



Visually, the trip was mind-blowing and gave me lots of ideas for painting and jewellery, so I can see a busy winter coming up. The amazing subtle colours of glacial ice and the astonishing blues and greens and greys of glacier fed rivers and lakes, to say nothing of the patterns, inspired jewellery ideas, so I looked for gemstones that could echo and reflect these colours. What I found was a stone I hadn't come across before: amazonite- it looks like chunks of ice.


And labradorite, with its elusive iridescence, watery moonstones, and ancient looking turquoise can also add their subtle notes. One pair of earrings made so far- watch this space!

Paintings of Maryport?

Might work on these two as a pair with similar shapes