Well it has been 2 months now since the Tresco artist in residence and on the 1st May Aaron and I will be continuing the artist in residence cycle tour. Since February I have been working on  new series of paintings from the cycle tour and from Tresco in a way the seascapes re  combination of both experiences….

The weather was fab, clear skies at night and wonderful sunrise ech morning….just as well with all the work I had to do it was terrific to have the sunrise to watch……being up at round 5 m to start work, going out to watch the sunrise with coffee was  nice break…..

So once back from Tresco I started working on  series of sunrise paintings.  I was up before dawn each day  popping outside to star gaze……I did not have a telescope but that did not stop me from picking out constellations, testing myself on finding favorite objects, remembering the names of stars, finding open star clusters visible to the naked eye and spotting what planets could also be seen with the naked eye……and I wanted to put those experiences into the paintings. Interestingly  before and after dawn on my birthday….all 8 planets were in the sky……though Mercury and Venus were to close to the sun to view they were there. Mars, Saturn and Jupiter could be seen with the naked eye well before dawn stretching away and to the right of the sun. Neptune was to the left of the sun…..but you would need a telescope or powerful Binoculars to see it, and the same for Uranus which rose away to the left of Sol, just as Jupiter set. So I did the following sunrise paintings with this experience in mind….

Dawn looking towards the Eastern Isles – Sol, Mercury & Venus. oil on canvas 38×44 inches

Dawn looking towards the Eastern Isles – Sol, Mercury & Venus No.2

Sol

Solar System

This painting has all eight planets of the solar system along with the moon painted, but hidden in the glare of the sun and placed s accurately as I could, and information about the positions of the planets and distance from Earth is included on the back of the canvas.

Where I stayed on Tresco – Lobster Cottage Sea Gardens

I was here for two weeks, flew out from Lands End airport on  tiny plane, great stuff. It was going to be  hectic two weeks. Back in 2010 I was given  commission by Tresco Estate through Gallery Tresco to create 5 large paintings for the indoor swimming pool in the Sea Garden complex of chalet’s. Two of which were 38×90  inches, one 40×96 inch nd two t 70×82 inch paintings…..so a big thing to take on board and very exciting it was too…..

That was back then since then, oh and I should mention that as a Gallery Tresco artist I have the opportunity to do this artist in residence on Tresco every year, one of my duties is to maintain the paintings in the indoor swimming pool. Because it is a warm and humid environment I had to make sure the paintings were suitably protected from the atmosphere and all of them have been treated with a varnish that does just that. Even so various salts and chemicals that evaporate from the pool tend to condense onto the surface of the paintings and so I periodically take them down and carefully clean them.

This time though it was complicated as some people using the pool nd decided to ply so ball games and the two largest paintings had all received multiple impacts from the ball. These impacts had enough force to cause circular impact cracks. In total one painting had 19 impacts and the other had 29 impacts !!!!!!…..

Here are some images….. first stage cleaning

You can see the difference between the clean area at the top of the image and the rest of the painting. Each painting required a full day of repeated gently washing to remove the salts without damaging the surface

In this image you can see the cleaned area but also notice the three separate impact area’s which have left concentric ring cracks from the impact of some large object ….probably a large ball….. The largest impact here has made the canvas try to wrap round the lower stretcher bar cracking the paint in a line tht conforms to the edge of the lower stretcher bar……

These were not gently impacts at all

More examples……

Fortunately  the large landscape format paintings had no impacts at all. Here they are nice and clean….

I won’t go into the amount of work needed to repair all this……it just does not bare thinking about….but finally two weeks later after very little sleep here they are back in the swimming pool…….

nice place to sit……on occasion while I wonder if I will ever get everything done in time….. great view too

Occasionally I managed to have the odd moment to relax and while away an hour or two in the sun stone balancing…..

or watching waves….

…or a  sunrise…. and this led on to several paintings about the sunrise, which I will talk about in my next blog post…..

……or just enjoy the view…..

We were now coming to the end of this part of the tour. With one tent destroyed by storms, a failing gas stove and relentless stormy weather……but more than that, I was beginning to think about some large paintings I wanted to create about this tour, work and gallery/exhibition commitments for next year were beginning to surface in my mind. I had to think about getting back to Cornwall. We had in fact no where to go back too having given up the tenancy on the flat in St Just. So we were to all intents and purposes homeless……I knew that we would need some time to find somewhere to spend the winter…..produce new paintings for galleries and prepare for next year’s continuation of this world cycle tour artist in residence.

Ballybunion

I also had in mind that I would be doing the artist in residence on Tresco. Isles of Scilly, through Gallery Tresco at some point between December 2017 and March 2018. This would also be  part of the world cycle tour…….residencies within residencies….. bringing the tour to an end was not a sudden decision….It sort of grew over the next few day’s, as we cycled from Sandy Bay to Ballybunion and our last but one camp in Ireland in County Clare, where we met a wonderful cat……

But before that encounter we made a scale model of the solar system on the beach at Ballybunion…… for the scale we used the length of my foot to equal 10 million miles. So starting at the sun we had Mercury at 3.7 foot lengths (37 million miles from Sol……and so on), but sadly we misjudged the tide and could not complete it…..but here are  couple of images……

Here we have what’s left of the inner solar system being slowly washed away by the sea – Sol, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the circular ring is the asteroid belt……

Jovian system

Our last but one campsite was wonderful and happened on the autumn Equinox – 22 September 2017, and that is where we met the cat….other cats, several very friendly dogs…. a couple of donkeys. many chickens and got to use a telescope……

Such  friendly cat…..

primitive technology

To celebrate the autumn equinox the owners had  small event in their celtic maze which was made by a local artist and we were  invited to take part….it was quite special and was a fitting end to the tour, an acceptance of the time of year, the change from Summer to Autumn….but we did stay up late to do some star gazing

……and then the final two days saw us cycle to Ennis, where we then took the coach back to Dublin to say farewell to friends, take the Ferry to Holyhead, train to Bristol, where we had fish and chips….. did  stealthy camp, cycled to Priddy for the last camp this year and on to the  nearest train station and back to Cornwall…….

To be continued……

This ride started Ok, grey and overcast, sure, but not malevolent…..not yet…. a slight wind with the odd light shower. We headed back to Dingle to pick up some snacks for the journey over Connor Pass……..and that is where the weather turned nasty….very very nasty. Spectacularly nasty. We were by this stage getting  really tired of the storms – one tent destroyed…..with only the odd day here and there of sunny weather…… We had cycled through  storm after storm after storm – the tail end of three hurricanes with fog and rain and squally  wind and showers in between. Connor Pass was tough, and to make things just the other side of hateful, the bike got a slow puncture but with gale force winds and driving rain I could not face repairing the puncture in that weather. So at times we stopped while I pumped up the tire……

spectacular place……

……Then the horror……it was really a spectacular place….. the decent sublime and views too, we were just  a little frayed round the edges with having to cycle through yet another bloody fucking storm……

Following the decent we had a horrendous cross wind that repeatedly tried to blow us of the road……it was wearing very thin. The sempiternal autumn continued apace……

Towards the end though we were rewarded with a fab rainbow that stayed with us for the last hour or so of the days ride…….

Finally fixing the slow puncture

Camping once again by the sea…….and then it was time for some much needed hot food…

Once camp was set up we did finally see the clouds break and a little sunshine came to warm us….the rain had been bitterly cold, but it wasn’t to last……it became very interesting as, once again the wind continued to rise. We started to hear loud flapping sounds outside our tent and looking cross from us saw that the large tent thing attached to a mobile caravan was being  destroyed by the gale. It quickly became a total mess and quite dangerous as tables chairs wet-suits, flapping tent and poles were all being blown about, knocked over, and generally wrecked by the wind.

Well the owners were finally contacted but it was after dark before they arrived and we pitched in to help retrieve all their stuff and dismantle what was left of their side tent. I had tried to secure their tent as best I could but it had been badly ripped apart by the gale.

We decided to stay here for  couple of days to explore, and to let this bloody storm pass by and at the head of the strand found lot’s of fossils and some great views…..and finally some proper sunny warm weather

One of many fossil ammonoidea

Strange looking fossil…..

We split this journey into 2 stages spending  couple of nights wild camping just outside  pub right by the beach at  place called Inch. The pub was fab, with live local music, singing and poetry. Various people would join in with their own recitals and poetry readings….it was amazing…….

ancient track

Beehive huts

Looking West

Enjoying the view

Ogham Stone Dingle

Oghm Stone Dingle

Looking West to  Inishtooskert

Dinner

Wild camp

This was another extraordinary ride. We visited Valentia Island in search of some 385 million year old fossil tracks and found them. What struck me most was that 385 million years ago this creature left it’s footprints leaving water and walking in soft mud, and 385 million years later this creatures footprints are still by the water…..though now in a different part of the world. It was amazing sitting there contemplating that amount of time…..

On our way to see the Tetrapod tracks on Valentia Island

Just above the 385 million year old Tetrapod track on Valentia Island. Not only can you see the footprints but it’s tail drag can also be seen.

This is the oldest in situ fossil record of a Tetrpod, this is an ancestor of all land animals……before this all vertebrates were fish. What an incredible place, and what a wonderful humbling experience to visit this extraordinary place…..

On the way to Cahersiveen we passed through a place called waterville. where Charlie Chaplin used to go on holiday and there is a film festival at Waterville every year……due to continual storms and fierce head winds we missed out on this…..but that is Ok we want to go back. and just before we came into Waterville we passed this ancient site…..we tried to get closer but no matter which way we went there seems to be no public access which was quite disappointing….ah well can’t have everything…..

And at the end of the day a sunset and our camp, by the sea

We spent several days at Caherdaniel enjoying the first really summer like days since crossing the Somerset levels….it made a nice change……then another storm came by and destroyed Aaron’s tent…..

Pausing for a break

Building  Ziggurat

Another day of astonishing cycling. Here are just a few images….

We camped at a really wonderful farm campsite half way up a hill with very friendly people and dogs and were treated to some spectacular sunsets every night…..We stayed three nights here, as we wanted to explore the area without carrying all our stuff in order to find some local ancient stone circles…..cycling through a fab forest to find them……..Here are just a few images of what we found……

The next few days were filled with mist and rain…..and fairly flat rides. Cycling long winding estuaries that were fascinating. The changing light, rolling mist….the green-ness of the estuaries with there wildlife. It was very atmospheric, visually stunning….

These roads like mid Wales were so quiet….hardly any traffic.

Towards the end of the day we started to look for  place to camp finding  a terrific strand of dunes called Long Strand Dunes, and in a sheltered dip between the dunes we made camp, had some food and spent the evening watching the mist roll cross the sea. This was for me unexpected. The sea was fairly active and with sketchbooks I made some attempt to capture the atmosphere of this place…….This huge long beach was really quite something and I expect to create some interesting seascapes from this experience……

The next day dawned misty and damp and it took us a couple of hours to get rid of the condensation from the tents. We had pitched our tents in a dip surrounded by sand dunes to stay out of the wind and of course during the night the wind completely dropped…but by mid morning we had some blue sky and eventually broke camp and  continued our journey to Skibbereen.

On the way we headed for ….. Drombeg Stone Circle…. and what  place it was

Tent life

Breakfast

Some time later…another day another ride…..Camping at Eagle point…….

Eaglepoint Sunset

This was such  spectacular place that we stayed here for  few days…….the days passed in alternating rain and wind and mist….it was challenging cycling but really enjoyable. The time spent here…3 nights in all was a much needed pause. I had come down with some low level bug courtesy of a very ill person in the local supermarket…..It did not affect me in any serious way, and we still did  fair mount of exploring, and well sometimes it is nice to unload the bikes and cycle without panniers….though not without sketchbooks

Kilkeel stone circle

Kilkeel stone circle