Ian Conway's Blog - Posts Tagged "sea"
Letter from an English Village: the Coast
We English are an island race and, although my village is some distance from the coast, like most Englishmen I feel quite an affinity for the sea - probably enhanced by having served for a short time on a tramp ship as a young man.
I regularly feel a need to get out to the coast and when I do I often come back with some sketches and ideas which can be worked up into a painting. The painting below is one of them. It is not so much an actual place but a combination of impressions from a wild peninsula that juts out into the sea on the western side of the UK, about 2 hours drive from the village.
The painting is set in Spring and I tried to capture something of the crisp chill of that season in an early morning, with a low sun setting up a brittle illusion of warmth above the restless pounding of breakers over scoured rocks on a flood tide.
( from my online gallery at http://ianconway.biz )
As I recall the scene, it was magnificent and bracing but very chill - and I certainly was ready for the mug of tea and bacon sandwich in the beach café after finishing sketching.
The gallery told me that the man who bought the painting took it back with him to his native South Africa. Strange to think of the painting probably spending the rest of its life out there. No doubt it will be thrown away one day, or put into a loft in storage and some day brought out again. Perhaps the person who takes it out of the loft will say something like, "Those seas are rather small for the African coast?" And he would probably never guess the painting's origin, would he? - because one bit of sea is very like another.
In any case, in all my sea paintings I try to create scenes that are timeless. I show no clues to say what era a painting depicts. There is no evidence of the presence or the influence of man. This painting could be a scene from a million years ago - or just yesterday. As we stress, strain and worry our way through life, get older and finally disappear, the sea just keeps on pounding the beach, day in day out - completely oblivious to our human struggles. I find that worth bearing in mind - puts life into a sort of perspective.
More soon.
Ian Conway
(Goodreads Author)
I regularly feel a need to get out to the coast and when I do I often come back with some sketches and ideas which can be worked up into a painting. The painting below is one of them. It is not so much an actual place but a combination of impressions from a wild peninsula that juts out into the sea on the western side of the UK, about 2 hours drive from the village.
The painting is set in Spring and I tried to capture something of the crisp chill of that season in an early morning, with a low sun setting up a brittle illusion of warmth above the restless pounding of breakers over scoured rocks on a flood tide.
( from my online gallery at http://ianconway.biz )
As I recall the scene, it was magnificent and bracing but very chill - and I certainly was ready for the mug of tea and bacon sandwich in the beach café after finishing sketching.
The gallery told me that the man who bought the painting took it back with him to his native South Africa. Strange to think of the painting probably spending the rest of its life out there. No doubt it will be thrown away one day, or put into a loft in storage and some day brought out again. Perhaps the person who takes it out of the loft will say something like, "Those seas are rather small for the African coast?" And he would probably never guess the painting's origin, would he? - because one bit of sea is very like another.
In any case, in all my sea paintings I try to create scenes that are timeless. I show no clues to say what era a painting depicts. There is no evidence of the presence or the influence of man. This painting could be a scene from a million years ago - or just yesterday. As we stress, strain and worry our way through life, get older and finally disappear, the sea just keeps on pounding the beach, day in day out - completely oblivious to our human struggles. I find that worth bearing in mind - puts life into a sort of perspective.
More soon.
Ian Conway
(Goodreads Author)
