Christopher Jessop's picture gallery – also, his Journal
From August last year (2024). Conte pencils can set ideas down quickly, perhaps with more “personality” than graphite pencil. And with judicious rubbing, you can produce a good area of mid tone. The tricksy wind was making the bowling erratic, and the fielding hard work too!
…Well, let’s say this is much more like a formal architectural sketch than most of my drawings. Another composition from the imagination, envisaging an important location in the story I am working on (very slowly).
I managed very little painting in 2024: I had so many things on my to-do list. But I was longing to paint; and when in August along came a settled spell of warm weather with clear skies, I seized the opportunity to go and work on the spot without needing umpteen layers and a deal of weight to hold the easel down! As for what subject to choose – I walk this path most days, so I already knew how this view should be tackled.
The painting I donated to the 2024 St Brides fete. Painted on location (to get the colours right), based on a Musselwick Mouth sketch from May 2023. As you can see, the sketch was a mother & daughter composition, but I decided that the girl on her own would work very well as a subject for the oil painting.
Today (April 26th) started wet and miserable; by mid afternoon the sky had cleared and the sun was steadily strengthening. Having done two hours of pressure washing, I thought I deserved a break and headed for Marloes Sands. With the tide well in, I climbed over the brow and took the zigzag path down to the beach at Matthew Slade.
I expected the sea to be too rough for going in, but two intrepid young ladies went and played at the surf’s edge, happily letting the stronger waves crash onto them.
I started my sketch of Milly and Ella using sepia Conte and then added pencil and coloured pencil – not a usual technique for me, but I thought I’d have a go.
To help judge the effectiveness of this approach, I have included a monochrome rendering of the colour scan, to give an idea of how the sketch might have turned out had I kept to just pencil.
Following my subjects’ example, I then had a quick session in the sea – like swimming in a washing machine, most exhilarating!
I painted this picture on location just before the Summer solstice in 2022; this is later afternoon, with Musselwick Sands already cut off. I was looking south-east so the sun was on my right, usually a difficult arrangement; but in mid June it was still very high so firstly, I wasn’t bothered by brush shadows and secondly, I could see those underwater colours clearly through the sea surface.
Yes, I am still sorting the Picture Gallery out; nevertheless today I thought I’d feature one of the oil paintings already on show there.
I painted Calm Sea, Renny Slip in July 2022. As is my preference, I was working on location – in this case, part way down the cliff (after very careful planning and preparations!). That is Skokholm Island across the sound.
Facing straight out into the Atlantic, Renny Slip is seldom this calm. The photo shows it late on in the afternoon of Storm Ophelia, 16th October 2017. Believe it or not, that dark dot close in is an adult seal – which was coping, to say the least; but, no surprises, that day the outcome for any seal pups still beach-bound wasn’t so good.
From my imagination, inspired by the way the light was pouring down through gaps in the clouds at breakfast time yesterday (April 21st). I pictured these youngsters racing down the beach on realising that, at last, the hitherto reluctant sun is about to put in an appearance – but maybe only on the surf line!
I’m not sure about this composition: perhaps placing the sunburst centrally is too obvious. Anyway, who knows if it will get taken further and become a painting?
Yesterday (Easter Sunday) I went down to Musselwick Mouth for a swim at the end of the afternoon. There were very few people there: this lady and her daughter were happy to just sit on the dark rocks, enjoy the view, and watch out for gannets diving. And chat, of course!
Having dried and dressed after my dip, there and then I could only dash down in sanguine Conte the briefest indication of how strongly their close-sitting to converse looked from my viewpoint, thanks to foreshortening. So I did a lot more work, mostly in pencil, much later in the evening.
Two of my sketches from the Welsh band Calan’s farewell performance in St David’s cathedral on Saint David’s Day, 1st March 2025. The only band member I had a good view of was Shelley Musker-Turner, who was playing her harp in front of the carved stone choir screen. With strongly paced music, you can’t stop your drawing strokes synchronising with the beat! Biro, 6B & 12B pencil, and Conte pencil.
