Christopher Jessop's picture gallery – also, his Journal
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.
I normally sketch from life, but these two efforts are from my imagination. They relate to episodes in a story I am working on – don’t hold your breath, it will be a very long time before the work appears!
This website supercedes greenwestern.wales. The emphasis this time, as you might have guessed from its title, will be on my art.
I have a lot of works to display in the Picture Gallery; I propose to introduce each work with a journal entry.
Please don’t expect an avalanche of content to appear…