Roy Connelly

Just a couple of photos of me working at some fabulous locations on my recent trip to Dorset.

Top: At Old Harry Rocks (spot the Artist!)Above: Painting on the beach at Lyme Regis.

I will post some of the paintings as soon as I get round to photographing them.

I painted this view of Golden Cap from several miles away on the beach at Lyme Regis in Dorset.  It is a very small picture at only 4 inches high.

Island Fine Arts. Bembridge, Isle of Wight.
27 March – 24 April 2010

For more information or to purchase any of these pictures please contact Island Fine Arts, tel: 01983 875133.

Click on any thumbnail to view full size. Then click on the image to see the next one or press ’start’ for slideshow.

Above: Newgale Beach, Pembrokeshire. 8 x 20 inches, oil on board

I was back in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, last week.  And, being a plein air painter, there was a lot of weather to contend with.  Frequently the best painting weather – ie. when it wasn’t actually raining – came in the last hour or so before dusk. But working fast against the fading light in wild locations is one of the great things about being a landscape painter.

Above: Me painting after sunset on a calm evening at Newgale.

We visited artist Naomi Tydeman and walked our dogs on the beach and out to Monkstone Point at sunset before an unforgetable dinner.   Later in the week we met up for a meal with thriller writer Scott Mariani at his country house in a secret location in the wilds of West Wales.

I snapped this shot of the figure above walking across the sand or was it the sky at Newgale Beach. Below is another view of the same wonderful beach. 

Earlier this week I was painting the River Thames at Strand on the Green.   The top picture shows the painting a couple of minutes after I started.  I have used very thin paint to draw in the basic composition. 

The middle photograph was taken twenty minutes later.  With a dramatic and fast moving sky I needed to work quickly to capture it.  The trees are a little more solid but the river is still almost untouched.

The last photo shows the painting an hour later.  The trees and river have been worked on together, with a little more work on the sky. By this point the day was starting to brighten up and touches of blue were appearing in the sky.  It was time stop as I did not want to end up with one scene painted on top of another.

I was working in oils on an 8 x 16 inch board.   Click on each image for a larger view.

The Hampshire Art Fair opens today.  I will have a collection of recent landscape oil paintings, including the one shown above which is a view of the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire.  It is 16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas, and was painted on location in July 2009.

Other artists taking part include: Lousie Balaam, Chris Daynes, Mary Jackson NEAC, Richard Price, Richard Sorrell NEAC RWS, Karl Terry and many others.

The art fair will be taking place at a new venue this year, visit the website for full details.

Norman Court Farm
Upper Clatford
Andover
Hampshire SP11 7HB

The two oil paintings above were painted yesterday at Chawton in Hampshire, the home of Jane Austen.  The top one is Jane Austen’s house where she lived for the last 8 years of her life.  Below it, is Chawton Great House now known as Chawton House Library.  It was owned by Jane’s brother, Edward.

If you are interested in buying or learning more about either of these paintings you can contact me here.

Below is the artist’s faithful dog guarding a work in progress.

Yesterday I visited the Corot to Monet exhibition at the National Gallery.   The show follows the development of outdoor landscape painting up to the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.

One of the many painters featured is Eugène  Boudin, who taught Monet to paint outside.  Above is one of the sketches I made at the exhibition,  one of Boudin’s beach scenes from Trouville.

I have been very busy recently and thought I should post a few photos from my recent painting trips:

Working by the Thames at the Henley Regatta…

Waterloo Bridge at sunset…

Painting a stately home in Oxfordshire last week I had to retreat into the temple to avoid the rain…

Painting Waterloo Bridge and the city from Hungerford footbridge…

A closer shot of the painting in situ…

Chelsea Art Society Award for a Painting - St Michaels Mount

This evening was the private view for Chelsea Art Society’s 62nd Annual Exhibition. I am very pleased to say that I won the Chelsea Art Society Award for a Painting for my picture of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.  The society, which was formed in 1910, holds its annual exhibition in a beautifully panelled hall in Chelsea Old Town Hall on the Kings Road in London.

Chelsea Old Town Hall