Blog Archives
Bluebells in Kent – Spring is here!
The sun is shining ,the warmth of the Spring has suddenly brought on the Bluebells in the woods in Kent.
Some years the cow parsley masks the Bluebells but not this year, this is a great year for them.
Recently we visited a friend’s beautiful garden near Hawkhurst in Kent and by the pond in their garden was a lovely wood full of bluebells
i couldn’t resist having a go a painting them and here is the result. Bluebells have unique colours ranging from Blue to Violet which is quite a challenge, but no matter the accuracy the memory will remain of that beautiful scene.
Bluebells in Kent
As many of you know we also live to play golf and we are lucky that our golf course has woods with bluebells too.
So here is another painting from a year or two back with a scene on the course with bluebells in the woods.
Bluebells by the 12th green
If you do have a chance to get out into the countryside to see the bluebells then do try to go at this time, if not I hope you will enjoy my attempts to capture their beauty.
Happy travelling
Brian
brian@brianswatercolours.com
NB Some other watercolours can be seen on my shop sites at
http://www.artfinder.com/brianswatercolours
and at
https://www.artgallery.co.uk/artist/brian_tucker_2
A visit to Rye
We ar going to Rye this week to visit some good friends so I thought a quick post of two recent Rye watercolours would be a good idea.
Rye in East Sussex is a great little town, once a smugglers haunt and one of the most picturesque places of the south coast of England
Here are the watercolours
The Landgate in Rye A Pena and wash watercolour 14 inches by 10
Rye Harbour A watercolour called “THe Catch is In” 10 inches by 14
Hastings, Past and Present
Hastings in Sussex is a town steeped in history and a delightful place to visit.
The Fishing Industry was once a major activity in the Town and fishing boats still operate from there, and are still launched from the beach.
One historical feature of Hastings are the “Net Shops”, tall wooden buildings, now enjoying “Listed Status” on the Stade at Hastings.
To learn more about them try this web site ( hastingschronicles.net )which has lots of very interesting details about them, and photos too.
This first quick, 15 minute, sketch shows the Net Stores today with a typical Hastings fishing boat located next to them.
The Net Shops “Black Sheds” on the Stade at Hastings. Watercolour 9 inches by 8.
In the 1960’s and before the number of Fishing boats at Hastings was large and although there are a lot of boats there today they are fewer than once there were.
I particularly like the older style of boat which is ideal for my sort of watercolour. They had a particular hull design adapted to being launched from the beach. This painting is taken from a 1960’s photo and shows two fishing boats pulled up on the shingle beach from which they are launched.
RX73 was constructed in 1958 in Newhaven, named the ‘Young Flying Fish’ and is now retired as is RX77 named ‘Andina’ was constructed in Newhaven in 1957. Thanks to GH Clarke for this information, and also to Richard.O.Singleton for the original photograph upon which my watercolour is based.
Fishing boast on the Stade at Hastings in the 1960’s. Watercolour 14 inches by 10. From a photograph taken by Richard.O. Singleton.
Do visit Hastings, there is so much to see and do there.
Happy Travelling
September – Variations
During the past few weeks we have been back to the South of France, enjoying there some fabulous September weather and on returning to the UK finding that fine weather here too.
It has given me some time for a variety of subjects, some familiar, some new and some of scenes that I like to paint and hope one day to get it a bit more as I would like it to be.
So I thought I would share these with you , at least you know I have not been idle, even if the finished results aren’t quite as I had hoped!
In France, I found that I had what I thought was a nice pad of watercolour paper, but after finishing this painting I realised that it was not up to the quality I normally use, and so the paper effect isn’t too nice although the subject worked quite well in this format. The painting ,of the Iles de learn off the coast of Cannes, is about 20 inches by 8 so a bit larger than normal.
Yachts racing by the Iles de Lerin. Watercolour 20 by 8 inches.
Whilst in France we were lucky enough to be in Cannes and St Tropez when some of the largest yachts were in harbour for their regattas.
“J” Class yachts prepare for the race at St Tropez
I love the shape and lines of the huge “J” Class yachts and so this next painting of them preparing for races in St Tropez is the result. Not often are the St Tropez quay side buildings visible from across the harbour as large motor cruisers usually block the view, but not this time! Whilst in St Tropez we had lunch at Port de Peche and so here is that little harbour at the back of St Tropez, one of my favourite places in the South of France, and one that I have tried to paint on quite a few occasions!
Port de peach at St Tropez. Watercolour 14 inches by 10.
Back in the UK I spent a day painting “en plain air” at the Seven Sisters cliffs in East Sussex.
I find it tricky painting outside in the sun but I did manage these two paintings of these spectacular cliffs.
More recently I have painted this smaller watercolour of Mermaid Street in Rye , also in East Sussex.
The Mermaid Inn, an old Smugglers Tavern, is on the right and whose sign you can see. It has the wonderful inscription outside which reads “Rebuilt in 1407”. Now there is history for you!
The Mermaid Inn in Rye
I hope you will enjoy these September variations.
Happy travelling
Brian
The English Country Garden
The Garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex. Watercolour 12 inches by 9.
Hi Everyone
It is well know fact that we English people do love our gardens. Maybe its our generally pleasant, moderate climate, or just our love of things in an ordered way, but gardening is a big thing in the UK.
The Cottage border is just one of the things gardeners love to plant and we are lucky in the South East of England to have some very fine gardens to visit and enjoy. They provide the stimulus to improve our own gardens too, although their beauty is a bit beyond most home gardens.
Two amongst the very best in the South East of England are Great Dixter in E.ast Sussex and Sissinghurst in Kent.
Both can be visited throughout the year but in Summer they are really magnificent with wonderful planting and colours.
In each case there is also fine house to look around too but it is the Cottage Borders that are the really great thing about these gardens.
This post has only 2 paintings, one of Sissinghurst painted a couple of years ago and a new painting of Great Dixter.
I do hope you will like them and if you have the chance to visit either then do so!
The Garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. Watercolour 10 by 7 inches.
Happy travelling
Brian
Have a look at my site on http://www.artfinder.com/brianswatercolours too!
Scotney Castle, a beautiful spot in Kent
Hi Everybody
Last week we had the pleasure of a visit from some very good friends from the USA. It was an opportunity to explore some places in the South East of England that they hadn’t visited before.
One of these was Scotney Castle, today a National Trust property quite near to us in the heart of Kent.
It has a fine Victorian house which itself it well worth visiting as it was lived in by the former owner until 2006 and has all the furnishings and items as it was at that time, a time capsule of two hundred years worth of the family’s history.
However the other jewel of Scotney Castle is the ruined castle situated on a small island in the middle of the lake at the heart of the estate. In spring the walk to the Castle and the surrounding area is bursting with Azaleas and Rhododendron bushes of all colours and fine perennial plants and trees.
It is painter’s paradise and has been the subject of my watercolours before.
This visit revealed some new aspects to me and so this watercolour shows both the Castle by the lake and the Victorian House on the hill above.
The second painting from last year shows another aspect of the Castle in spring time.
If you are in Kent do visit Scotney, it is a truly beautiful place.
I hope you enjoy this short post.
Happy Travelling!
Brian
Scotney castle and the Victorian House in the Spring
Scotney Castle
Enhance your Family History Project with Paintings!!
The Black Arch on the Causeway Coastal Route.
By way of a diversion I thought I might introduce you to an idea I had some years ago which can add some extra interest to the documenting of your Family History project.
Researching the historical background of your family is fascinating but can produce a lot of data and alas that data, whilst interesting to the researcher, does not make interesting reading for the younger members of your family who may (??) one day, show some interest in all that research. I guess it is not till we all advance in years that the history of our families becomes a bit more interesting anyway!
Just leaving the succeeding generations all the data is unlikely to be a successful strategy so producing some form of booklet or document is most likely to be a more useful hand me down for the future. Paper is not much in fashion these days but a paper book or document, maybe also produced as an eBook as well, is still very likely to stand the test of time.
Even for bloggers like us paper is a good solution for long term storage of all that hard work documenting the past few hundred years.
The heart of your project will probably be the Family Tree but adding narrative to each of the families covered by your research will add some insight of the people in the Tree and their way of life.
I decided that to bring the project even more to life I would include as many photos of the people as I could find but that won’t take you back before the mid or late 1800’s. So to illustrate the histories of the families I decided to add some watercolours of the places they came from, sometimes as they might have been at the time, or just places that they liked to visit. Paintings of the Churches they were married in seemed an obvious choice and where possible the houses they once lived in. Even if these have long been demolished you can sometimes find data to reconstruct the scene, at least to give some context to the narrative. If your narrative can give some insight as to how they lived in years gone by this can be very interesting too.
You will be pleased to know I am not going to bore you with my research data, but here are a few paintings that I have used to illustrate the Family History Book of the 6 major families that it covers.
First of all a couple of Churches painted as near as possible to the way they looked at the time. An earlier generation of my family were married in Minster Abbey on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent during the exceptionally cold winter of 1911. This was the year I believe that Niagara Falls froze over too!
Kent, Minster Abbey as it would have looked in 1911
In the early 19th Cenury other family members were married in The Churches of Detling (then spelt
Debtling) in Kent and at Boxley Church, also in Kent
Debtling Church in Kent as it looked in 1809
Boxley Church, Kent
In the late 19th century some of my ancestors lived in the middle house below West Malling in Kent. Here I have tried to reconstruct the scene in 1891. He was the local Weights and Measures Inspector, an inserting job, which invloved testing the beer in the local breweries almost every day!
West Malling in Kent in 1891
The earliest record that I have so far managed to find is of a wedding in Lenham Church in 1628. I don’t think they had Linseed growing in the fields then but my painting tries to show it anyway!
Lenham Church
Lastly some branches of my family and my wife’s family hail from Northern Ireland.
So here is the Church of St Anne in Belfast where a marriage took place in 1869. The Church was demolished in the 1890’s and the fine (and still standing) St Anne’s Cathedral was built on the site.
St Anne’s Church in Belfast in 1869
Carrickfergus
And lastly we had, and have, close associations with the whole beautiful Antrim Coast in Northern Ireland. This spectacular coastal route has featured in a number of my previous posts. So here is a watercolour of Carrickfergus, the beginning of the Causeway Coastal route and a town with many associations with our families.
I hope you have enjoyed this diversion. Back to more recent travels soon!
Brian
Kent, the “Garden of England”
Have look at my new page on Oast Houses in Kent.
Oast Houses at Horsmonden in Kent
Hi everybody
Regular readers of this blog will know how much we love the south of France, and I seem to post about that area quite a bit.
But this week driving around our native Kent I was reminded how beautiful the countryside is right here , just on our doorstep.
We are lucky to live in this lovely part of the UK with it’s green fields, Oast houses, Castles and Gardens.
With the weather being cold I have been painting some local scenes from photos and looking back at some paintings from the past year or two and so I thought it was about time I shared a little bit of Kent with you all.
Quite nearby we have several fine National Trust properties. Two in particular, Sissinghurst Castle and gardens, and Scotney Castle have exceptional gardens. Each has unique features but they fit in so well to the lovely countryside around them.
Kent has been known as the Garden of England since Tudor times I believe, and it remains a County that produces a lot of soft fruit, apples, pears, cherries and vegetables. The Spring blossom is spectacular but that is for another day.
These watercolours try to capture a little of the beauty of the area. Scotney with its collections of Azaleas, and Sissinghust famous for it’s gardens and colour.
I hope you like these watercolours and enjoy this quick “visit” to Kent.
Happy travelling and painting!
Brian
http://www.brianswatercolours.com
Part of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle
The ruined castle and gardens at Scotney Castle in Kent
Fields of rape seed near West Malling in Kent
Brrr! It’s Cold outside!
Well folks, here we are in December and it is getting decidedly chilly!
Soon they tell us the snow will arrive. It always makes for interesting watercolour scenes!
So here is post of some Snow Scenes, some new and some from my archives, with just hint of the warm sun that will one day return!
Christmas will soon be here, so my best Wishes to you all and a Happy New Year painting!
We have a few trips planned for 2014 and they will provide watercolours for next years blogs.
Thanks for all your support this year and enjoy these paintings and the coming festivities!
“Yule”ly yours
Brian
First snow in Provence
Gourdon in provence in the snow
The Frozen Fountain at Mons in Provence
Rye in Kent at Christmas
Horsmonden in Kent
Snow at Leeds Castle in Kent
Kent, Minster Abbey on the Isle of Sheppey
St Margaret’s Church at Barming in Kent
A village in Kent
Mount Cook in New Zealand- Lucky for them it’s Summer there now!
And so for a bit of sunshine! This December we were lucky enough to be able to sit on the Quay at Villefranche sur Mere on the Cote d’Azur and enjoy sunshine while we ate lunch. This is the view from there across to Cap Ferrat.
Cap Ferrat from Villefranche
A Weekend in Cornwall
Recently we were able to spend a long weekend in Cornwall, firstly with some good friends in Rock, and then at a lovely hotel at Carbis Bay near St Ives.
Cornwall has the loveliest coast and wonderful little harbours and towns dotted along the spectacular cliffs and bays.
There wasn’t much time to paint but here are the few that I managed to get done both during and since the visit.
You could spend a lifetime exploring the coast of Cornwall, so these few days were great reminder of holidays of many years ago, and an opportunity to enjoy our friends’ company and eat some great food.
If you are going to St Ives do look up the Boskerris Hotel, really very nice indeed.
From a genuine Rick Stein Cornish pasty in Padstow to exceptional food at Nathan Outlaw’s restaurant in Rock this was very enjoyable weekend, and we were fairly lucky with the weather too!
I hope you too like these paintings of the area. I don’t think I can quite get to the standard of the galleries in St Ives but painting these watercolours was great fun.
Enjoy your travels too!
Brian
Port Quin on the North Coast. 11inches by 7
The surfers bay at Polzeath. 11 inches by 7
St Ives Harbour. 11 inches by 7
Priest’s Cove near Lands End. 11 inches by 7
A very quick watercolour of St Ives. 8 inches by 5
