Oil Painting – Marloes Gallery

Winter Surf Fiends

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Winter Surf Fiends July 31^st 2025

I sketched this idea back in late winter: on a lovely afternoon down at Marloes Sands, I hadn’t been the only person for whom the lure of the surf proved irresistible. By happy coincidence, I found that a piece of marine plywood beachcombed from the Sands suited the composition; at last, I’ve got round to realising the scene in oils. No point, this time, in taking the panel down to the beach: summer sea and sky colours are very different!

Oil on panel Original sketch February 22^nd 2025
16” x 32” Painted July 2025

Dive

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Dive July 25th 2025

You could say, another in my Blue Series – if that doesn’t seem too pretentious! Admittedly we don’t ever enjoy sea water clarity such as I have depicted around these shores; and, I think that such conditions would be bad news for some marine wildlife, So, this is where Artistic Licence has a part to play. I know that an expert watercolourist could create this visual effect, but I’d be afraid of overworking, and turning the colours muddy: oils let you gradually find your way.

Oil on panel July 2025
Picture size 18½” x 7½”

High Jump

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High Jump July 19^th 2025

The irregular shape gives it away: a piece of plywood from a wrecked yacht, found on Marloes Sands some time back. The blue paint spattered on it unevenly had suggested bubbles, streaming up; one recent hot afternoon I set this board up on my easel in a shady part of the garden, and got to work. Getting the compostion right took much standing well back, and checking with a mirror; I don’t think the figures want any more detailing, as this picture needs to be viewed from a reasonable distance.

Oil on panel Painted July 2025
27” x 15”

A painting overhauled

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A painting overhauled July 9^th 2025
Of course, I should have taken a “before” photo; but, c’est la vie. I painted this picture, Saint Brides Haven, in 1991; I think it was a spring evening, and my best guess is mid May. Anyway this week (actually last week now) I brought it into the Works for an overhaul: here you see it good for another 30 years or so, hopefully. I wasn’t happy with some details, but the important thing is, the colours have not altered – proving that it’s worth using professional quality materials. Now, I’m happy with the sea and the sky.
Oil on canvas May 1991/June 2025
Overall dimensions 12” x 18” (Now in a private collection)

The Dark Cliff 2

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Postscript: the distant sea in the original isn’t as vivid in the original; nevertheless, that blue still might need “killing” a bit.

Dark Cliff 2 June 29^th 2025
Unusually for me, not painted on location: while the weather remained very warm and clear-skied, the wind rose. Working on a sea-smoothed intertidal rock (my viewpoint) would have been impossible; and anyway the water was now rough, and nothing like as clear. So I set myself up in a sheltered garden corner and worked from memory, glad of all those colour notes mostly still discernible through the earlier underpainting stages, the previous day. Does the composition now nee figures? Swimmers? I’m mulling this over.
Oil on panel June 2025
Nominal 14” x 14”

Clear As Gin

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Clear As Gin June 22^nd 2025
The last few months have been unusually sunny and dry: I have enjoyed many swims in clear sparkling water. Recently, with the sea warming, I have been duck diving with a mask on: wonderful to study the surface from beneath and to see, looking sideways, how the colours deepen with greater distance – almost Caribbean. This picture, from the imagination of course, tries to convey that special feeling when the sea is clear is gin – of being suspended in nothing, not spacewalking in a cumbersome suit but freely floating above a seabed far below.

Oil on panel June 2025
12” x 7¾”

Evening Primroses

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Evening Primrose
June 14^th 2025
The bank opposite my house is well drained and sunny. Since I and my neighbour have been keeping the coarsest grasses and the Alexanders under control, and scattering the seed heads of foxgloves and other wild flowers, it has rewarded us with copious flowers, some seasons; whilst this painting dates from July 2022, there is already a good evening primrose showing this year. The two hills are some way off, beyond St Davids: Carn Llidi (to the left) and Carn-Ffald.
Is that purple flower tufted vetch? I think so.

Oil on panel

Musselwick

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Musselwick
How one often sees swimmers at this beach, in summer – silhouetted against the sun-sparkled sea. While you see a figure, I did not depict one. This is a panel of marine plywood cut from a piece of wrecked boat found on Marloes Sands; the “girl” is an area of varnished veneer, nothing more. But your eyes and brain have no doubt that she is there! Used as an illustration in my book of poetry and songs, “To Marloes With Love”.

Oil on panel Painted May 2015
7 1/2″ x 10 1/8″

Marloes Sands greetings card

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Marloes Sands greetings card
This card used to sell well in the Village Stores. It is now on sale again, at Runwayskiln Café; hopefully it will prove equally popular. The original picture is now in a private collection, i.e. someone bought it! I painted it on location in early autumn 2017; the back of the card features a photo of the finished picture on my easel, on the spot. I was lucky to have calm weather for each painting session; mind you, that’s a relative term at such a position.

Oil on panel
16” x 24”

Albion Morning

We have been having a long spell of sunny weather, with mostly light winds but the air keeping pretty cool. Back in June 2011 there was a similar pattern – except, the days were warm. So it was very comfortable painting this picture down on Albion Sands quite early in the morning; and quite early in the morning it had to be, to get the midsummer sun lighting the north side cliffs of Gateholm island.

Oil on panel 12″ x 24″