Symphony - original acrylic painting on canvas

June has been a damp, mostly dismal and somewhat cool month, interspersed with hopeful rays of feeble warm sunshine.  

A couple of weeks ago I took this painting to the framers, quite a few people told me that it reminded them of music and I had to agree, hence it's name.  I like the movement and energy in this piece very much, I like how you can follow the almost ribbon like streams of colour and lose yourself in it.  I'm finding abstract painting to be very meditative, and very healing.

At the beginning of June, we found ourselves in Suffolk having a few days at my sisters.  We had a wonderful time, it felt like a mini holiday as the weather was just perfect - warm, dry and sunny with giant blue skies.  This was taken on the beach at Lowestoft, what a gorgeous place that is - I especially like the old world charm it seems to retain, and the mile upon mile of soft creamy sand.

Abstract in the making...

Warm up exercises on watercolour paper.

The finished painting: Confluence, a meeting of streams, flowing together, the middle.

The studio:  I have been entranced with these gorgeous peonies that I found quite cheaply at a local supermarket.  I don't often have flowers in the studio as I'm quite good at knocking them over, but I couldn't resist.  They are the epitome of summer days, unapologetically beautiful - and fleeting.

On Father's Day we went over to the east coast, to Scarborough.  It's one of my favourite places and doesn't take that long to get to.  It has everything I love: beautiful beaches, clear seawater, cliffs and seabirds, a harbour, boats and lovely cafes and shops.

It was sunny so we managed a picnic on the beach, but the wind got up so we didn't linger as getting sandblasted isn't all that much fun.  We walked around to South Bay and my daughter made me go on a very fast ride in the tiny funfair by the harbour which was hilarious and exhilarating!  Later on as we walked back to the car we got caught in a deluge, but all I really recall is the sound of the kittiwakes calling from their nesting sites on the cliffs, and the scent of the sea in the rain.

Explorations of colour, with watercolour on Cass Art Smooth watercolour paper.  I went to their gorgeous shop over in Manchester on Monday 17th, it was a damp, misty sort of day and we traversed the Pennines submerged in a watery gloom wondering where the hell summer had gone.  However, our spirits were lifted as we entered this artists paradise, at 55 Oldham Street - suddenly immersed in rows and rows of paint, sketch books, and other utterly tempting supplies.  I may have bought new things including their fabulous smooth watercolour pad, some Liquitex soft body acrylics and an art board.

When the solitude of working for myself turns insidiously to isolation, I take myself out to where there are people, coffee shops and WALLED GARDENS, because I absolutely adore being in a walled garden!  I will not forget in a very long time the jaw dropping beauty of this stunning wild flower meadow, it was just the most stunning tangled creation of daisies, poppies and sweet peas you ever did see and I wish there were some way of conveying how intoxicating the scent of it was.  Had the gardener not been so close, I may have laid down on the brick path amongst them all, with my face to the sun breathing it all in for a while.

And lastly, I have a lovely new product in my online store!  I am very excited to share this professionally printed canvas art print to 'Shallows'.  It is printed onto 100% bright white cotton canvas and stretched onto a handmade pine frame.  The finish and quality is perfection, and upon opening the sample I received, I was astonished as to how like the original it was.

You can find these in my shop priced at £35 GBP.

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Chat soon.

Julia x