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My everchanging canvas

My everchanging canvas

When we came to buy this house in Kent, we fell in love with it for many reasons. We were aware it was on top of a hill, but that was secondary to the main features of size, position, neighbourhood, practicality of house and garden, all the tiny details that are important about living in a house.

But what I hadn’t fully considered, although I was certainly aware of it on our second viewing, when we both fell in love with the place, was the view. The house stands, along with others, at the top of a hill, which means on days like today, it seems to be blowing a gale, that the people who live in the sweeping valley below are totally unaware of. Some days the clouds are so low over the hill that we don’t have a view at all, we are IN the clouds, and its like someone has stolen the world away. Our neighbours have told us … “Just wait till winter comes..” with knowing smiles, so I presume they are referring to snow, or sleet, or maybe more terrific winds than we’ve had so far this summer coming into autumn.. I await that with interest… 

But what I have found, is that the weather is a source of conversation far more than it was when I lived in Leicestershire (also on top of a windy hill) or in South Derbyshire before that, when it was so cold the first winter I lived there, the washing-up liquid on the kitchen window sill FROZE!

No, the reason the weather has become such a source of conversation is not because my life has come so mundane that all we have to talk about is the weather, its because we can see so far into the distance, that we know what weather is going to come with about a five minute warning…oh look, that looks like rain falling in the valley, five minutes later, we have the rain! 

But as well as that, and I’m not sure if its because we are closer to the sea, or because Kent is surrounded on about three quarters of its borders with two different seas, or if its just the placing of the hills in this area, we seem to have far more sky to look at, and it seems to be ever changing, and because we are facing south/south west its interesting sky, sun, sun and clouds, sunsets. I lose time with those sunset… dinner will be at 7.30….oh look at that sky, look at the golden sun setting, look at that rosy red cloud, look at that apricot and turquoise blend of pure colour, look at the light through the clouds, the dramatic beauty of the sun disappearing and appearing, and lighting up just one part of the valley below, a patch of golden field, the shine on one of the industrial buildings, the glint of water, the light everywhere, ever changing, ever delightful, ever interesting. 

I hope I never get bored looking at it, I can’t think I will. I am also reminded every time we have visitors who have that intake of breath when they see it too…including the roof tiler who came this week to realign a couple of missing tiles off the roof, who when he was up there he got his phone out of his pocket to take a picture over the valley..! 

And I have been told, and this I can’t wait to see…. “Just you wait til Firework Night…” OOOhhhh…fireworks, even

better!!

I've been an artist all of my life, and my paintings now hang on walls in Europe, USA and Canada. I'm working on getting them on the other continents! My wide range of artwork has been exhibited nearer to home in the East Midlands, with the Guild of Erotic Artists at Beaumont Hall Studios in Hertfordshire, and at "Erotica", Olympia, London. I have also been featured alongside my work in the Guild of Erotic Artists book (volume 2). I love to create dramatic interest in my pictures, whether it’s to paint an unusual landscape, or just to utilise dramatic lighting in my figure drawings or strong colour in my animal portraits. Delighting in the spontaneous tendencies of watercolour adds an interesting and distinctive look to my paintings, some of which are purposefully ambiguous, enabling the viewer to use their own interpretation of my artwork. I also love to hide images, and humour within my paintings, whether it’s a secret message, or an erotic couple hidden within a landscape, or even an erotic landscape where the couple are camouflaged as the features of the land itself. I am equally happy painting in oils, acrylics or watercolours and love to draw with pencil or ink. I have also developed the very effective method of drawing using white pencil on black card which creates dramatic pictures by just picking out where the light catches the body and leaving the rest of the image to the imagination, in darkness. I can also utilise many different styles, whether it is realistic, abstract, surrealistic, erotic, fantasy or camouflage art where something is hidden within the painting. I'm just passionate about my art, whatever I paint! But, it doesn't matter how many landscapes or pet portraits I paint, its always the erotic stuff that people are interested in! I started blogging to share some of the strange conversations I have with the people I meet. But its evolved into far more than that now.