Sydney gardens' bridge in the spring

A few weeks ago, we had here in the UK our first properly beautiful spring weather week-end so I made the most of it and went painting at Sydney gardens looking for an inspiring bridge. I found it and here is what I painted:

Sydney gardens' bridge in the spring   12"x10"   oil on board

What a lovely atmosphere there was with couples and family having a walk and boats boarding and offloading happy crews. 

The painting towards the end

Only little problem: as I was setting up, I realised I forgot the hooks to hold my pochade box open. In a moment of intense ingenuity I decided to use one of my shoe lace to hold it together and it worked pretty well:

Here below is me painting, stuck against the wall trying to take as little space as possible. If you look closely, you'll see:

- my stylish high vis yellow bike jacket that I placed behind me, just in case, to avoid being ran over by some crazy bikers

- my left trainer without its lace

As I was half way through the painting, a little girl silently watched me paint for a good 5 minutes, and then suddenly told to her mum with a lot of excitement "Oh mum, I know, I know!! She is painting the bridge isn't she??" A bit worrying it took her 5 minutes to realise! :-)

I loved the variety of greens in this scenery

detail

detail

Ready to go back home - I discovered my bike basket is pretty handy to transport wet paintings...

Latest update: I've just come back from a painting trip in Dorset so I'll be posting all my paintings very soon.... Watch this space!

My garden in the spring

Here is a quick post while watching the Royal Wedding...
I have just finished a couple of paintings of my garden which I'm madly in love with. For those who remembered I did a painting of my garden in the snow a few months ago and decided now to cover all seasons...

My garden in spring after the rain     oil on board 12"x10"

This one was done in the late afternoon from my living room window. There had been some heavy rain all day and suddenly the sun came out and warmed up all this luxurious greens.

view from the window

I didn't tell my boyfriend I dropped some paint on the carpet
but since I managed to clean it up and I'm pretty sure he doesn't read
my blog he will never know!

My garden in the snow - The painting I did last winter

Here is an other one I did last week end as I just came back from a week end away. It was sunny but a bit misty and I couldn't resist the shades of purple in the distant hills.

My garden in spring in the afternoon   oil on board  7"x5"

This time I set up on the garden table

I take the opportunity of this post to inform you of two upcoming events if you happen to be in Bath:

There is a show starting today at The Octagon in Bath called "inspired" which I will have some work at and which also features talented artists such as Adebanji Alade, David Pilgrim and Shane Feeney to name a few. It will be on until May 11. More info here.

I was pleased to see my work on the invite and the Bath Magazine insert:

I will also be a part of the Newbridge Arts Trail which will be on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th of May. Come and say hello if you're around. More info here.

Last but not least, I urge anyone who hasn't seen it yet to go and admire Peter Brown's work at the Victoria Art Gallery. Absolutely beautiful. More info here.

This afternoon I'm off to Paris to paint for a few days. I will hopefully come back with plenty of paintings to post on my blog...

Now back to the Royal wedding...