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Abandoned as in ‘exuberant’, I wish I could say this was painted from life and if I were Dave, I would! The sky went very wrong, my masking fluid seems to pull off the surface of the paper when I try to remove it. Also the figures are rubbish, don’t magnify it!
I can hear you all going “Amusement, how is she going to explain this one away?”. Okay, here goes. This is Southwold Pier, which we visited in March. We had to visit it, after reading the following in the things to do section of the hotel leaflets – “Southwold Pier – 624 feet of wacky amusements”. This gave us a lot of amusement, unlike the pier itself where after managing 124 feet we thought a nice walk in the rain was a much better option.
Just an exercise from my painting class. 
3 paintings, 3 colours (french ultramarine, burnt umber, cadmium yellow) and 3 types of pen (felt tip, indian ink, Quink). I was going to put this under Amusement till I saw Dave’s strict ruling, so until I get something in that category this shows that I haven’t been completely idle with the paint brush.
Being a seagull in Brighton
To get a real feel for being a seagull I painted this from real life at considerable risk to life and limb. Climbing a tall lamp post in Brighton with a loaf of bread l tied to my head I painted at great speed to capture the seagulls swooping about me. It would have been better but the council pest control officer stopped me in mid flight.
All the fun of the fair on the dodgems.
On a cliff top in Cornwall is a plaque set in the rock with a verse from the first world war poem ‘The Fallen’ by L Binyon, it goes:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
All of the poor men and boys who had to endure this hell on earth, due to a form of endemic stupidity, were heroes.
I think the sepia tone, like the old photographs, somehow conveys the awfulness of the scene. I have made the sky and the poppies different tones in an attempt to create a surreal effect
A tree’s rings to show its age. I wish that we had the same biology, then no one would be able to see how old we are!
Another picture I hate, with one of Mum’s I like
Who's that old lady looking back at me?
in the background.
Not everyone’s idea of heroes, but driving down the M6 through the Lune Gorge on a foul rainy day, these motorway workers struck me as very heroic. I had such a vivid image of how my picture would look, all murky rain with the fluorescent clad men shining out, but how to do it? I hated the picture so much I’ve been sitting on it for 2 weeks hoping Micawberish that something would turn up, but nothing has, so here is my sorry effort.
A very impressionistic view of Nelson’s Column and Trafalgar Square. The scan has made the raw sienna in the sky too orange but there you go. I tell you, doing wet into wet is quite terrifying.
