Roy Connelly

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 Royal Society of Marine Artists annual exhibition opens to the public today.

The show runs until 25th October and features the work of the finest marine painters in the country.  You will find paintings by Geoff Hunt, David Curtis, Trevor Chamberlain, Paul Banning and many others.

My small oil of sea cliffs, shown above, was painted back in the spring on Newport Beach, Pembrokeshire.

I visited the Isle of Wight earlier this week to deliver a collection of recent paintings to Island Fine Arts in Bembridge.

After dropping off the pictures there was just time to paint the view from Culver Down, before having a fish and chip supper and catching the ferry home.  It would have been  nice to have stayed longer.

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find one of the paintings on the front page of the gallery website.  Rye Harbour, shown above, is in oil on board and measures 12 x 12 inches.  It was painted on location in the fading light just after sunset.

You can find Island Fine Arts at: 53 High Street, Bembridge, Isle of Wight, PO35 5SE. Tel: 01983 875 133  and at the Affordable Art Fair 22-25 October, in Battersea Park, London. Stand E6

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