Painting Demonstration

I spent yesterday down at The Gallery, Williams Yard in Melbourne doing a painting demonstration in the gallery. The main aim of this was to be available to people thinking of enrolling in the painting course I'm teaching there in October.
I always find it interesting painting with an audience - perhaps it brings out the show-off in me. People said nice things and were surprisingly interested in the spectacle of rapidly drying acrylic paint! I went with one blank canvas and a second painting, of Mount Kenya, that was well underway. In the morning I worked on the Mount Kenya painting which was inspired by visiting and climbing the mountain in 2001. I'd taken many photographs on that trip and subsequently made a number of drawings and paintings. This, the latest in the series was a morning view of the upper part of the mountain from Shipton's Camp from where we started our climb up the North Face Standard Route. It's still in progress but nearly finished.

I also began a painting of Froggatt Pinnacle a rock feature on the Eastern Edges of the peak District, well known to climbers.

Camping in Langdale

I've found that it's always worth the effort to get away when the weather's good and last weekend we found time for 36 hours in the Lake District. Catia and I met up with two nephews, Jake and Aaron (They'd brought along John, their dad) who had reserved us a place on the Old Dungeon Ghyll campsite. It was an opportunity to remind ourselves of how to put up the big tent before next week's holiday in France.
After getting settled in on Saturday we headed out for a walk around Crinkle Crags. Anything's better than the 'ordinary' drag up to the saddle between Pike O'Blisco and Crinkle Crags so we took to Browney Gill, scrambling up over slippery rock and through a narrow ravine. The Bells took to the water in a small pool on the way, but not for long.

From there, up and over the Crinkles with great views all around, taking in the short, sharp step up to the highest point on the ridge. It is one of my favourite walks in the Lakes. From there we took the descent down The Band and straight into the pub to re-hydrate. The rest of the pictures from this web album can be found here.