CORNWALL & THE COTSWOLDS

Posted on September 20, 2018 by splashingpaint

What a treat to have two weeks painting in Cornwall and The Cotswolds. Beautiful little villages, quaint stone buildings, historic old fishing ports and, amazingly, fantastic weather!

Rowing Boats – Stratford_Upon_Avon

Arden Hotel

Early morning – Cotswold country side

Painting in a meadow – Stow-on-the-Wold

Hobbit door – Stow on the Wold

Cotswolds – thatched roofs and stone walls

Horse trail through the woods

Castle Combe

Painting at Dartmouth Harbour

Dartmouth

Dartmouth as the tide goes out.

Ploughed fields and hedges

Painting on the jetty at Polperro

Polperro Harbour

Fishing boats – Polperro

Mevagissey Harbour

This beautiful old fishing boat was to be our painting subject, but the thought of being scrutinised by 20 painters was too much. She sailed off just as we were about to start!

Clouds over Mevegissey

Small boats ferrying visitors to St Michael’s Mount at high tide.

St Michael’s Mount

Painting from the Hoe, Plymouth – From here, Sir Francis Drake watched the Spanish Armada drift past the mouth of the harbour as he finished his game of bowls.

Dining in Plymouth

Plymouth moped

Plymouth Prawn

TANQUE VERDE RANCH

Posted on June 12, 2018 by splashingpaint

Just outside Tucson, Arizona, is the Sonoran Desert. Tanque Verde Ranch is situated in the desert and joins the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The ranch was our venue for an enjoyable 5 day painting workshop organised by MISA.

Tanque Verde Ranch was a large cattle property in the early days, but now runs around 200 horses for visitors to explore the many desert riding trails.

Old, now abandoned, homestead.

Original Homestead

One of the ranches horse wranglers

Desert riders – heading for the blueberry pancake breakfast overlooking the mountains

Desert Bunny

Wagon from the wild wild west

Cowboy singer at a dinner under the cottonwoods – only sang cowboy songs.

Javelinas.

Wrangler with his horse

Outside the wranglers Quarters.

Horse yards

I love these American cowboy saddles.

Used horseshoes

Black and White, Red and Brown

Big old French Percheron

Wranglers Ropes

Tired and dusty

Desert Bathtub

Across the desert to the mountains

Saguaro Cactus

Sticks from the dead Saguaro cactus used for building.

Cactus Flower

Humming Bird

Desert House Finch

Gambel’s Quail

Happy Horses

Tanque Verde Ranch accomodation

TRAVELING WITH WATERCOLOR

Posted on May 4, 2018 by splashingpaint

NEW ARTICLE

One of the great pleasures of traveling is documenting the things we encounter. Not only do we accumulate a collection of paintings and sketches that become lasting memories of where we have been and what we have seen, but we also tend to observe much more by stopping and painting.

Check out the Article – 10 Tips I have found useful when traveling and painting.

If you have any helpful travel tips for painting, add them below in the comments.

https://www.johnlovett.com/traveling-with-watercolor

VIETNAM 2017

Posted on October 17, 2017 by splashingpaint

There is nothing like the chaos of Hanoi to jolt a visitor into the strangely functional confusion of Vietnam. We had a couple of days in Hanoi to adjust to the pace of Vietnam before heading north to the mountain village of Sapa.

A low pressure system off the coast made the weather less than perfect, but we managed to find sheltered painting locations and were lucky to have a fine day to walk through the Hmong Valley and do some sketching.

From Sapa we travelled by coach back to Hanoi then flew on to Da Nang where we were taken by bus to Hoi An and the luxury of the Anantara Hotel. © John Lovett 2017
Rice Paddys near Hanoi

xVNAM3461

Hoi An

aVNAM3625
Red Bridge Cooking School – where we all became excellent Vietnamese chefs.

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA WORKSHOP

Posted on June 2, 2017 by splashingpaint

A couple of weeks before Winter is the perfect time to be in Central Australia. The days are warm and sunny, the nights are still mild and the chance of rain is close to zero.

We flew to Alice Springs via Sydney which took us across the top of the Simpson Desert. It is amazing how big and empty it looks from 11000 meters.

We also crossed the Birdsville and Strzelecki tracks that we drove down last year

Flying over the MacDonnall Ranges shows just how ancient and distorted the landscape is in that part of the country.

When we arrived in Alice Springs we met our Bus driver Natalie and her awesome big Mercedes Bush Bus. She was passionate and enthusiastic, showing us all there was to see around Alice Springs, the Western MacDonnalls and Uluru Katajuta.

Our first stop was Glen Helen Lodge. We based ourselves there and visited the gorges of the West MacDonnall Ranges. A great spot with fantastic food and a view from our cabin door to die for.

Late afternoon Glen Helen

Piano with boots

I took a helicopter ride over the Glen Helen Gorge/ Ormiston Pound. These ranges sure are impressive from the air.

Ringneck Parrot

Ellery Creek Big hole

Painting at Ormiston Gorge

Ochre Pits

Standley Chasm

We were lucky enough to be at Uluru for the annual camel races. The traditional Calcutta is held at the pub the night before race day. Lots of excitement and some hefty prices paid for these racing dromedaries.

The races were wild and crazy – Camels seem to have limbs all over the place when they run…

…handsome animals though!

The day following the races we spent the morning painting at the camel farm. Some of these animals looked to be suffering severe, post race, hangovers.

Enter a caption

Sturt’s Desert Pea

Mutitjulu Waterhole

Walking through Bruce Munro’s Field of Lights installation was disorienting and fantastic

Shallow water in Lake Amadeus.

Herons at Glen Helen

SAN GIMIGNANO

Posted on September 25, 2016 by splashingpaint

After a great week in Cinque Terre we wound our way up over the mountains and on to Lucca to do some painting, then it was off to San Gimignano for the rest of the workshop. We painted in the the old town and also in the hill town of Volterra. We also managed a day trip to Florence to see the city and the Uffizi Gallery. We had good weather most of the time in San Gimignano, which was great for painting. The couple of wet days made the town look amazing with reflections, umbrellas and spectacular skies.

The proprietor of the “Best Gelato shop in the world” describes, with passion, the greatness of his product to a barrage of cameras

Savage market guard dog.

Ai Weiwei’s Exhibition in Florence

Street Juggler – Florence

Piaggio’s resting – Florence

Man talks to dog – Florence

Countryside around Volterra

Clouds Gathering – Volterra

The last day of the workshop we were treated to a typical Tuscan feast – plenty of Beer, Wine and Food and lots of stories of the adventures from the past two weeks.

Certificates were presented…

…and, of course, selfies taken to remember what was a great workshop.

CINQUE TERRE

Posted on September 24, 2016 by splashingpaint

A week in Cinque Terre is a great introduction to an Italian workshop. Great food and wine, beautiful scenery and friendly people. We spent our days moving between the villages painting and sketching. Villa Adriana, where we stayed for the week, provided excellent meals – although Antipasto, Pasta, Main and Dessert were more than most of us could handle!

Wine Delevery – Manarola

Manarola – buildings by the sea

Amanda – Watching Chickens

Painting in Riomaggiore

What I thought was an ideal place to paint in Riomaggiore turned out to be the only place wide enough for delivery vans to turn around, so lots of juggling easels in between washes.

Old Town – Monterosso

Monterosso – Small truck pees on sidewalk.

Fishing Boats – Monterosso

Manarola – from the water

Very Italian – National Park sign advising against stilettos for the walk between Monterosso and Vernazza.

Cliffs near Monterosso

Early Morning Vernazza

Blue Umbrellas – Vernazza

Vernazza before sunrise.

Between Vernazza and Monterosso someone has set up a feeding bay and shelter for stray cats. This guy hung around behind a mesh fence for a pat and a handful of dry cat food.

Small bridge on path between Vernazza and Monterosso

Old Town – Monterosso

Splashing Paint

Paintings, photograph's and thoughts of a wandering artist

Category Archives: Painting Workshops

CORNWALL & THE COTSWOLDS

TANQUE VERDE RANCH

TRAVELING WITH WATERCOLOR

VIETNAM 2017

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA WORKSHOP

SAN GIMIGNANO

CINQUE TERRE

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: