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 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

The hottest day of the year so far and I have just spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the studio of Bob Brown NEAC. Set in beautiful rolling English countryside beside a very paintable river, Bob has the perfect studio.  It was completely filled with an exhibition of his richly coloured landscapes.

 Ken Howard and Richard Pikesley, another two of my favourite painters, were also there, along with many other friends. Many thanks to Bob and Sue for their wonderful hospitality.

Afterwards I spent an hour painting painting the nearby river, one of Englands most beautiful chalk streams.  While I was painting a mayfly settled on my hand among the brushes. 

A quick sketch - 8 x 10 inches, oil on board

On the way home from the Leaden Hall Summer Exhibition in Salisbury I stopped on the border of Wiltshire and Hampshire for a quick sketch. A local organic farmer kindly pointed out some more natural views than the brightly coloured fields of rape seed. I will heed his advice and look forward to heading back there in early June.

Painting in Hampshire

Salisbury Cathedral

The view of the cathedral across the Harnham Watermeadows was painted on the 19th of March 2009 especially for the show. It is painted in oil on stretched Belgian linen canvas and measures 51 x 60 cm (20 x 24 inches).