New Life

   No matter how busy I am in the studio having the dogs is a great excuse to get out into the fresh air for an hour or so. Today was time for a walk in the quiet lanes near the house, so quiet in fact that they are good locations to give Bailey some more training as the high walls of the lane restrict his wandering. I took some short video clips which im will upload onto you tube soon.
 As we walked on the lane Lapwings circled overhead with constant alarm calls, a sign that there were young chicks about. Sure enough, a quick peek over an adjacent wall and I spotted two very young chicks.

I'm guessing that these guys were less than a couple of hours old but like most wader hatchlings they are up and running almost immediately. They are extremely well camouflaged and I was lucky to spot them. A quick photo and I was on my way leaving the adults to get back to their young.

The Tees from "Barney"

Just a short walk this morning through the delightful Flatts Woods which are next to the town centre.It was a really pleasant wander through this mixed woodland, penty of birds singing in the tree tops and I managed to spot the first of the Bluebells on the woodland floor.

Down at the waters edge it is surprising how low the water levels are now, it enabled me to get one or two interesting shots of local scenes such as this view of the castle. Normally I would be knee-deep in water at this point.

I will hopefully get a couple more of the photos on the website by the weekend.

Direct to the top.

Today was a fell day. The weather forecast was for low cloud but as I had arranged to walk with a companion today I was really obliged to head west. As it was, our late start proved fortunate as by the time we set off the low cloud had actually dispersed. The idea was to re-visit the summit of Blencathra but this time via a new route to me, Hall's Fell. This proved to be an interesting and sometimes exciting ridge route with the added bonus that it is relatively quiet.

Once at the top of the fell we had a look down onto the classic ridge of Sharp Edge before descending back to Threlkeld via Doddick Fell, another of Blencathra's fine ridges. Many walkers "claim" Blencathra by a one off ascent up Sharp Edge but in my opinion they are missing out on some of the best features of one of the Lake District's finest fells.

Limestone Country

A visit to a couple of artists in North Yorkshire meant that we were able to take a walk over some the landscape which we seldom visit. I chose a route from a small guide book which we sell here at the gallery- Walks in Yorkshire Dales from the Pocket Mountain range. Despite having to adapt the route slightly it made for an superb walk in Limestone Country near Malham. 

The photos from our day out are now on the website. http://www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk/

Nine Standards

Too nice an evening not to get out for a walk so we headed west and took a wander up to Nine Standards Rigg. Unfortunately the sun didnt continue to shine on us but it was still an enjoyable "there and back" walk.

These distinctive cairns dominate the Eden Valley skyline and should be familiar to walkers on the Coast to Coast. A great place to watch the sun sink in the west, just not this evening!

Morning in Upper Teesdale

Such a good morning today so I headed up to the top end of Teesdale for a short walk with the dogs. Spring is definitely upon us and there is an abundance of wildlife in this remote part of the dale. Even as I crossed Cotherstone Moor there was a chance to snap a handsome Cock Grouse on his patch.

Further up the dale I took the chance to wander down to High Force. it gets busy later in the day but at this time we had it all to ourselves. Not much water tumbling over the Force, in fact I cant recall seeing it as low as this for ages.

As ever, its still an impressive sight.

Wandering round Walla

  Low cloud? where did that come from? It was meant to be a dry bright day! plans were changed on site to make the most of this new weather pattern. I opted for a couple of the lesser Wainwrights in the central region so that I could tick off some elusive references for the project. It turned out to be a very productive morning even though my route was un-orthadox-nothing new there then!
 Walla Crag and Bleaberry Fell have both been ticked off by Zeta and myself in the past but it was new ground to Bailey as he steadily works his way round the 214.

Walla Crag and Skiddaw. The rest of the photos are now online http://www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk/.

More piles of stones

   Almost daily I complete some elements of the Wainwright sketches. In suppose one of the biggest challenges involved with this work is making each and every painting interesting. By including apsects of the weather and light I am able to enhance some of these scenes. What has proved to be a real test though is the depiction of hundreds of piles of stones either in the form of cairns, old sheepfolds, walls and tumuli. Trying to give the impression of detail without actually drawing every single stone is a problem which I am hopefully meeting.

Seatallan summit cairn. possibly an old tumulus made up of hundreds of similar rocks. Depicting AW's views means that I have no flexibility in composition or angle of view. All part of the project which has kept me so busy.

Evening on the Howgills

Too nice an evening to miss the chance to get a short walk in so I headed off west to visit the Howgills, the range of fells between the Pennines and the Lake District Fells. Wainwright even wrote a book on walks in these quiet hills so I took the chance to follow one of his shorter routes from that book. Very enjoyable it was too, easy walking but with some interesting geology, wildlife and views. The walks in the Howgills and in AW's other books such as Limestone Country and the Outlying Fells of the Lake District will all be covered by members of the Wainwright Society as part of this years "challenge". Why not check it out, a good chance to explore different areas and raise money for a good cause at the same time?

Yes, I mean "Ewe"!

The photos from this evenings outing can be found by clicking here and following the Fell End link.

In the picture

 As a result of my postings on my "On Location" pages on The Teesdale Gallery website I have been asked about aspects of my photography. This Blog seemed a good place to answer some of those questions.

 I am fortunate enough to be able to venture out onto the fells and dales on a regular basis all as part of my work (someone's got to do it (lol)). This is with the intention to obtain references for my paintings, especially at this time for the "Wainwrights in Colour" project but also for future work. In such great surroundings it is not too hard to come away with some pretty good photographs.

In answer to some of the questions, it is not my intention to branch off into the photographic print market, this field is already well catered for by some brilliant exponents of the genre. Besides, I'm a "fell-walking artist" not a "fell-walking photographer", I'll just stick to paintings. With regard to my cameras: The camera used for all the digital shots up until October 2009 was a Fuji S5500,

It is a fairly simple and light camera to use and has given some great results considering it only is 4MP. Normally it has been set on auto and with the occassional use of a polarization or graduated Neutral Density filter. It has just about clocked up 20,000 shots.

 Last October I added another camera to my kit. I wanted a smaller compact camera so I opted for the Samsung WB500.

This is a super little camera and now is with me constantly. Its 10MP quaility and 10x optical zoom makes it ideal to have to hand and its already racked up several thousand shots. It also takes HD video with impressive results. Check out my You Tube page to see a few short vids shot with this camera.

  As for post production: I use photoshop to crop and "tweak" some of the photos but only about as much as I would have done in the old Darkroom days. I am not a big fan of some of the photo-enhancing techniques such as HDR or exposure fusion. Used well these tools can adjust and improve colours and exposure in images but many cases that I see the end result that has a "fake" and un-natural look to the photographs. Maybe its just my "artists" eye and of course it is my own personal opinion.

 Having already stated that I will not be going down the photographic print route we do of course sell a small range of cards here at the gallery taken from some of these photgraphs. They are proving popular and were originally intended to fill a space until cards are produced of some of my paintngs. We may expand the range of these cards in the future. In the meantime you can see the full current range by clicking here, this takes you to the page on the gallery website.

I am just about to re-design my "links" page on the gallery website but if you like good photographs of the Lake District you may want to check out these two other websites:

Striding Edge- Sean McMahon's excellent site of photgraphs and walks in the Lakes.

My Wainwrights- Gary Richardson's website, covers not only the Lakes but also walks in the Dales etc.

more links will be on the website soon.

A day out on the Eastern Fells

 The forecast looked good so an early start saw me and the dogs heading up Deepdale just as the sun rose. This was a route I had planned to do last month but I aborted the idea due to poor weather. This time it was different, a glorious Spring day so I made the most of the conditions and managed to obtain quite a number of references for the Wainwrights in Colour project.

As usual, my route was rather unconventional, taking time to visit the places from where AW took his photographs. An excellent day out for me though. The photos are now online at : http://www.theteesdalegallery.co.uk/ and check out the "on Location" page.

On the lookout

Today was a day for seeking out new inspiration for the gallery. Even though the gallery only displays my paintings and prints we do have a good range of work from other artists in the form of jewellery, pottery, sculpture and the like. Every so often we get the chance to see current artists and meet new ones at trade shows throughout the country. At the minute one of the best shows is on in North Yorkshire so we spend most of the day checking out about 500 quality British Craftspeople and their work to see if the gallery would be a suitable outlet for their stock. We find it really exciting to see whats "hot" so we came away with plenty of ideas to keep the gallery full of interesting gifts and art.

Also a good time to see what our current suppliers are producing, like Stephanie Bowen whos glasswork is always popular the The Teesdale Gallery. Watch this space for the new items as they arrive.

Wainwright visitors

The result of the Wainwrights in Colour project has meant that not only am I now exceptionally busy with work but also we are getting some new visitiors to the gallery who came to the Exhibition at Rheged last year. It' amazing how many folk are now making a detour to visit the gallery and Barnard Castle as they pass along the A66 either as they head over to or coming from the lakes. Today was also a day where customers called to the gallery to collect completed fells. One of which had only been on display in the gallery for less than 2 hours before the happy client took it home to enjoy "their fell", what you might call a quick turn-round as I only finished the final sketch at 10pm on Friday.

A change of plans

 Earlier in the week I thought that today was the day for a good route up over a few Lakeland Fells but as the time drew near (and looking at some mountain forecasts) it seemed as if there was a threat of cloud cover on some of the tops. This in itself is not really a problem but as I was looking to obtain certain references I needed to have good visability. Consequently I opted for another studio day. Even here there was some cloud and the sun was only out for a short time. However it was still a pleasant Spring day and on our walk Zeta took a dip in one of the becks up on the moor.

Bailey was a bit more hesitant to " make a splash" but he did though he is still a bit unsure, unlike Zeta. With April here it is now lambing time in Teesdale, much later than other parts of the country and some new arrivals were taking in the sun in the field in front of the house. Say Ahhh!

Resisting Temptation

 It was a real temptation today to head over to the Lakes. I have one route in particular which I need to complete before all the snow in the gullies disappears, if I dont get over soon I may have missed my chance. The day here began overcast so I resigned myself to another busy day in the studio. The easel and work surfaces are covered with sketches from various fells in different stages of completion, sort of organised chaos! I work in a order which possibly only I understand but it seems to be getting the work completed.

Hallin Fell from Mellguards.

This is one of todays sketches, interesting in the fact that it is more like the actual view of the fell compared to AW's slightly exaggerated drawing,  hence the extra sky "space" in my sketch.

Training update

 It is now about 10 weeks since we added Bailey to the team and he has proven to be a great addition. In the gallery he settles down with Zeta quietly in the basket in front of the fire (after a good morning walk of course). Some customers don't even notice them which is a good sign. Other training is progressing well but as yet he still operates on a lead. Now is not the time to have a wild hound heading off over the skyline especially with new lambs and ground nesting birds in the vicinity. We have moved up to a longer "training lead" which I use to give Bailey practise in Recall. I'm pretty sure his former life meant that he had restricted socialising with other dogs and humans so he does get extremely excited at times but he is calming down-slightly- as the weeks pass.

His sit and stay is excellent, here he and Zeta are about 20m from me where they will wait until called. More updates will follow.

All for a good cause.

  I had a pleasant visit today at the gallery from one of the Dog Handlers from the Search and Rescue Dogs Association (England).

Des was here to collect a nice fat envelope of cash which was raised through sales of my limited edition print "To the Rescue". A majority of the £2180 rasied so far came from the raffle for the special copy of the print which was also signed by Julia Bradbury, Stuart Maconie and Eric Robson who are all involved with the Wainwright Society. It was the society who inspired me to produce this print as part as their fund-raising efforts for SARDA in 2009. Des himself was involved in a call-out just this week (click here)

We continue to raise money for SARDA through sales of this print. If you would like more information about obtaining a copy please email: info@theteesdalegallery.co.uk

Window to the world

Heading to the Easter weekend is an opportunity to give the window diplays at the gallery a fresh look. Even though we use this Blog, the gallery website and Facebook to keep our customers informed of what is going on here at The Teesdale Gallery the windows are still an important "front" top the shop itself. the idea is to give passers-by a clue as to what we do- not just paintings in a gallery you know!

A Walkers Window.

What better than a "Wainwright" window? Teesdale draws a lot of outdoor types but I dont suppose I will be able to sell the old pair of boots in the display but you never can tell!