Looks Like Rain

Last Sunday (1st September 2013) I sold a painting at a Silent Auction for the charity Give 4 Beth. I can't find the website for the charity but the organisation of the event was excellent with high attendance.

The painting was A1 size, framed, begun in emulsion and finished in oils.

A1 seemed a very sensible size for the painting. I'd thought I could just pop down a local charity shop and pick up a suitable frame for only a few coins. None of my local charity shops had any. In the end I had to make the frame too, with a wood router, from lengths of 2 by 2 timber.

The title was "Looks Like Rain" (consider your own interpretations of art/title).

It sold for £160, which was a good price considering the level of finish, expenditure on materials and time to complete. I'm very pleased. Not only did I commit to start and finish the piece but someone thought enough of it to buy it on the night.

As an artist, one is rarely completely happy with one's work. Someone once said we never finish work it's simply wrenched away from us. I wasn't very happy with the painting but the older I get the more I appreciate the need to let go the individual piece and focus on the development of skill over time. I did my level best in the time available, and did something for charity that let me keep working too.

Here's the photos:

The Lion's Mane

Just got back from my annual holiday in Helford, Cornwall. Had an amazing time. Snorkelling, rowing, walking, exploring the coast in a kayak, just lying on a beach- really made the most of the time off.

Stayed in a thatched hut- a converted Apple store (the fruit, not the computer retailer). 

Saw plenty of squirrels and birds in the garden (even a falcon) and a massive fireworks display over the river.

Swimming across the river at it's widest point proved too much of a challenge, this time, but on the attempt I approached a beautiful old wooden sail boat with a pale blue hull and tried swimming down the anchor rope. It just disappeared down in to the green depths. There were some great underwater sun beams.

At this point it began to seem sort of like a recurring dream I had as a child. In this nightmare I'd swim out to sea at night and dive a little way down. Suddenly, in the darkness far below me, one vast squid-like eye would open and I'd race, lungs bursting, for the surface.

I came back up the anchor rope feeling something akin to vertigo. The water was so clear it was almost like flying over an undefined depth of sunlit green fog.

Eventually, I got about halfway across the Helford then tested how hard it might be to turn back. It was much harder to make progress the other way. About three times as hard. Figuring the current against me I headed back in, exhausted and feeling quite unadventurous.

Getting stung by a Lion's Mane jelly fish further in to shore soon changed that. I've often thought about jelly fish when swimming at sea but never seen a live one. Many years ago, there was a host of them on the beach in my home town, all dead. I was stung by a tiny one, only 5 inches across, though they can grow up to 7 feet.

It's no worse than a bee sting and, oddly, it really made my day! :)

The lions Mane jelly fish features in a great Sherlock Holmes tale- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Lion%27s_Mane

There's also a lovely model of one in the Smithsonian- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Jellyfish_and_shark_-_Sant_Hall_-_Smithsonian.JPG