Roy Connelly

Here are some of the paintings from my trip to Bath last week.  I was there for 2 and a half days and painted 19 small panels.  The smallest was 6×8 and the largest 12×16inches.  There are several I am quite happy with and a couple that were not finished due to changing light and heavy rain, but overall it was a good trip.

The heavy downpour on Friday afternoon resulted in one of my favourite pictures from the whole trip.

Above: Downpour in Queen Square, 6×8 inches, oil on board.
Below: Busker outside the Pump Rooms, 6×8 inches, oil on board.

While I was painting I met up with the winner of last year’s Bath Prize Plein Air award, Adebanji Alade. He has posted photos of several  painters he found at work on the streets of Bath on his blog.  You can see me, Karl Terry and Michael Richardson as well as plenty of Adebanji at work on his own marathon painting project.

My painting Wittering Light has been short-listed in a competition to choose a cover image for the next Ken Bromley Art Supplies catalogue.

To see all the shortlisted images  click here and don’t forget to vote for your favourite!

Another of my paintings, Watching the Thames,  has also been long listed for the London Lives painting competition.

Update: This picture has now made the shortlist and will feature in the exhibition at Bankside gallery in September.

London has warmed up and the sun has been shining for a week now so it has been good to be able to paint without a jacket on.

On Friday I spent a very enjoyable day painting in London with Peter Brown NEAC. Along with Susan Wolff and Ann Hopkins the four of us set up our easels by Cleopatra’s Needle next to the River Thames.  You can see one of my pictures above.

In the last week I have painted at Marble Arch,  Hyde Park,  The Mall and St James Park (above).

Above is a view Duke of York Square, by the King’s Road in Chelsea.  All the paintings shown here are 8×10 inches (25×30cm) and are in oil on board.

This afternoon I painted in the company of the Wapping Group of Artists.  The “Wappers” as they are affectionately known are a group of painters who get together once a week in the summer months to record life along the River Thames and its estuary.

Above is my painting of the Golden Hinde.  This 12×10 inch study is in oil on board.  The two small figures hidden in the middle distance are Bert Wright and Geoff Hunt both of whom are Past Presidents of the Royal Society of Marine Artists.

This is a very quick sketch of the Lasers setting sail at Lyme Regis.  They had sailed past me as I was painting at the end of the Cobb and I quickly sketched a couple of them before rushing round to the beach to paint the picture shown here. The intense colour of the backlit sails was an irresistible subject but one which lasted only a few minutes before they set off again. It is 6 x 10 inches, oil on board.

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.

The annual open exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists is on now at the Mall Galleries in London until 21 March.  I have two pictures in the show, both of the King’s Road in Chelsea.

The Private View was good fun and my friend Karl Terry won the Red Rag Gallery award.  Karl was in London for a couple of days with another friend, Paul Rafferty.  The weather was very cold but we painted all day only stopping after it got dark.

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. 

Big Ben is one hundred and fifty years old. On this day in 1859 the Great Bell was struck for the first time.  Originally it was only the bell that was known as Big Ben but most people now use the name to refer to the clock tower as well.

Painting outside in London, I have painted the clock tower many times and it can can be seen in the back ground of the pictures above.

French Impressionist Claude Monet painted Big Ben when he visited London the 1870’s. You can see his picture The Thames Below Westminster at the National Gallery in London.