http://www.robcollinsart.com/home daily 1.0 2025-11-27 http://www.robcollinsart.com/st-lucia daily 0.75 2017-01-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483350419001-O15YXAGODKJTI3U3L44P/Ginger+lilies+and+lianas+copy.jpg St Lucia https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483350447901-VZW7FNMNTH1JDA3LJ55U/Bananas+copy.jpg St Lucia https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483352512846-LAROCNAHE2V2EVY62KDF/Jungle+garden+St+Lucia%3A1.jpg St Lucia https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483352710113-I4BU2FMB5KRTQUAL40D9/BalenSCF0005_63.jpg St Lucia http://www.robcollinsart.com/gallery daily 0.75 2018-11-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116415310-UGK7OQOQBVUW3QZOE8Z3/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116713555-UXIQBJ3C95V2G5NEJQTB/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116374805-EL893M5RKLVZUJYKF9WW/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116560761-45FX79CJD00WGUUEIH6X/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116781607-SONY43X0NSYK6DN71M9V/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116541101-G3PFNK6LE9WBJZ62F7KU/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1507022959782-GXP7ICAUE6CLYBPGIIQD/Wild+Autumn+Crocus.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116760960-AKRDCTUQHWDKZBAO9QY1/image-asset.jpeg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483116588621-87RK91N333NXNZS3RD0C/Roses+and+clematis+copy.jpg Gallery https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483277257742-F66T99GW8BKSLHUIKZ4D/00034+copy.jpg Gallery http://www.robcollinsart.com/tips daily 0.75 2020-09-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483569454868-9YYGWIDASJKTJMYN8FO5/image-asset.jpeg Tips Rigger brush https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483368161726-ZUPAM3ZIG05MHNLNZD5Y/image-asset.jpeg Tips https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483563708364-KLLVEWC8UG1P94SOL44Z/image-asset.jpeg Tips https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483368028122-7TLKFDD2W7TOKX34JBR1/image-asset.jpeg Tips https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476984337518-MASYPBA7H85ZCPBIXXM2/Agrigento1.jpg Tips https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476984380264-AKEC31C2W8PW01YB63YQ/Agrigento2.jpg Tips https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483195253215-RUDY954VTVA9A0BXBUCV/palette+copy.jpg Tips http://www.robcollinsart.com/for-sale daily 0.75 2021-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857864208-LXWRA4VO5K1I3EWY47DQ/Bananas+copy.jpg For Sale - Banana Palms and Ginger Lilies 40” x 48”   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856627752-50RIHM7CYCMC846H6EE3/Bread%2C+cheese+and+olives.jpg For Sale - Olives, Cheese and Bread 45 x 60cm £900 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856718619-EWFAJTQDGUT15F6EK01F/Cheesrolling+copy.jpg For Sale - Cheese Rolling 115 X 200cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856752181-PSEM19NH39PEERQZSUDG/Chillies+and+shalots+copy.jpg For Sale - Chillies and Shallots 12 x 14”   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856781211-MQ428WN372ME9CK7N3IT/Geraniums.jpg For Sale - Geraniums 24” x 28” £400 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856827335-N8KW53NGDGYIZOUCXSC2/Ginger+lilies+and+lianas+copy.jpg For Sale - Lianas and Ginger Lilies 40” x 48”   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482856995770-SN4M98838IA7OBVJDZLU/Gurnards+Head.jpg For Sale - Evening Light at Gurnards Head, Cornwall 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857042911-LZFKHMN4SY4CGU1K5SNX/light+on+the+river.jpg For Sale - Light on the River 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857995545-A4P56TBT5LKZWZF4WUQI/Morris+Dancers+copy.jpg For Sale - Morris Dancers 140 x 180cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857100414-Q3MJUZ3W3Y4K0I37RRR1/Low+sun+on+the+river.jpg For Sale - Low Sun on the River 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857154159-VNW6YF2E9T6QUGMS4GAR/Mummers+copy.jpg For Sale - Mummers 120 x 200cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857218928-J48MQ69YWCVEV64EWVQ6/Nanjizal+Bay%2C+Cornwall.jpg For Sale - Gwennap Head, Cornwall 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857238676-VPF1FK6Y3Y9M256GXW04/Oak+tree+copy.jpg For Sale - Oak Tree 140 x 180cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857385713-QY3XYWQHT2QU8YDATPV4/Smallpox+Hill+from+Uley+Bury.jpg For Sale - Smallpox Hill from Uley Bury 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857427026-L471E27M29N6KHDYVX8L/Snowdrops+at+Newark+Park+copy.jpg For Sale - Snowdrops at Newark Park 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857498911-MYVPVE0CI2V5KFII7CMV/South+from+Frocester+Hill.jpg For Sale - South from Frocester Hill 50 x 60cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857568595-4KP5BPAAYR4V90NF68LZ/Vineyard+at+Lachassagne.jpg For Sale - Vineyard at Lachassagne 50 x 60cm       https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857597326-ZW5O8BCTV2H035BVAN4T/Wild+Autumn+Crocus+copy.jpg For Sale - Wild Autumn Crocus 120 x 150cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482857648076-21SY970Q3NJLTVM9NFOZ/Wild+Daffodils+at+Betty+Dawes+Wood.jpg For Sale - Wild Daffodils at Betty Dawes Wood 130 x 95cm   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1488283332288-TCM2VD5N5A65H9S6YVU5/Martagon+Lilies.jpg For Sale - Wild Martagon Lilies on Offa's Dyke above Tintern 151cm x 180cm   It took me three years to put together this image of wild martagon lilies growing in a secluded wood on Offa’s Dyke above the Wye Valley and Tintern Abbey. Martagon lilies grow wild across Europe and used to be more common here but the beautiful plants were sought out by collectors and the bulbs dug up to be planted in gardens. They are still grown commonly as garden plants and you can buy commercially grown bulbs but they grow wild now in only a few places in England and this site proved very difficult to find. The first year I discovered it the lilies had already flowered and all that remained were dry seedheads. I found them in bud a year later and returned for a third time on mid-summer's day to find them in flower at last. Wild Martagons are pink or sometimes white, about a metre tall and look wonderfully exotic in an English woodland. The glade where I found them growing is dark with light filtering through the trees from above, there was a sense of discovering something magical, precious and wonderful. I hope the painting communicates something of this experience.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1489488070066-7FMO7F15BUO7BYFMYDTM/Winter+trees+on+the+Cotswold+Way.jpg For Sale - Winter Trees on the Cotswold Way 95cm x 120cm When out walking I became aware that we see the landscape at different scales, sometimes aware of the distant view, sometimes looking up close at the texture of bark or moss. This is the first of a series of paintings I made where I tried to include both the beauty and detail of individual trees and their context within the woodland landscape. The scene is on the Cotswold Way just above my home in Wotton-under-Edge.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483125173606-Q6I5CXQBLU8QCRVQH4KL/Martagon+Lilies2.jpg For Sale http://www.robcollinsart.com/landscape daily 0.75 2019-04-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859436317-27ZIQ6LVPWSAS2ENX79W/Bananas.jpg Landscape - Banana Palms and Ginger Lilies In 2001 I was invited to join archaeologist and TV presenter Mark Horton on a dig he was leading on the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. He spent 3 weeks with the group digging at Balenbouche, an old sugar plantation with the remains of the sugar works overgrown with trees and lush vegetation in what is now a beautiful jungle garden open to visitors who can stay in holiday accommodation in the grounds and the estate house. The group were made welcome by the estate owner Uta Lawaetz who cooked wonderful feasts which the group enjoyed each evening on the veranda as they discussed the day’s finds from the dig. While the archaeologists worked I spent each day painting in the grounds. The two paintings here give some idea of the richness of the vegetation with banana palms, ginger lilies in bloom and lianas dangling from coconut palms often a hundred feet high. There were humming birds everywhere as I painted, huge land crabs at my feet and at night the place came alive with fireflies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859874662-58ZRMZOD9EHD28L921BA/Ginger+lilies+and+lianas.jpg Landscape - Lianas and Ginger Lilies In 2001 I was invited to join archaeologist and TV presenter Mark Horton on a dig he was leading on the island of St Lucia in the Caribbean. He spent 3 weeks with the group digging at Balenbouche, an old sugar plantation with the remains of the sugar works overgrown with trees and lush vegetation in what is now a beautiful jungle garden open to visitors who can stay in holiday accommodation in the grounds and the estate house. The group were made welcome by the estate owner Uta Lawaetz who cooked wonderful feasts which the group enjoyed each evening on the veranda as they discussed the day’s finds from the dig. While the archaeologists worked I spent each day painting in the grounds. The two paintings here give some idea of the richness of the vegetation with banana palms, ginger lilies in bloom and lianas dangling from coconut palms often a hundred feet high. There were humming birds everywhere as I painted, huge land crabs at my feet and at night the place came alive with fireflies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482860006378-VNB5843KJ8SZ5N1FTMJD/Wild+Autumn+Crocus.jpg Landscape - Wild Autumn Crocus Wild autumn crocus shows a coppiced wood at Wetmoor woods, another Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust woodland near my home. In spring there is a patch of the native wild daffodil and in the autumn ‘Naked ladies’ grow, otherwise known as autumn crocus, the flowers appear in autumn but the leaves don’t emerge till the spring. Many years ago I painted a picture of the stream that runs through this wood, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon and although still broad daylight a nightingale sang all afternoon as I worked. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859504416-UN7HKADZIDI40JJNJ0BN/barges+at+Rotherhithe1.jpg Landscape - Barges at Rotherithe The Francis Kyle Gallery had several group shows each year where a group of artists were given a theme to explore. Often the projects involved travelling abroad, for example, Goethe’s Italian journey when I went to Agrigento in southern Sicily. But on one occasion the theme was the Thames from London Bridge to the Sea. I spent a memorable week walking both banks of the Thames from London Bridge to the Thames Barrier looking for subjects. It was a great way to see parts of London I wouldn’t have imagined still existed. This was back when Docklands was only starting to be developed. I made paintings at several spots along the south bank but spent most of my time at Rotherhithe staying with a friend who lived in one of the first warehouses to be converted to apartments. The barges were moored in the mud at the edge of the river and I climbed aboard one of them to paint this view. I was so caught up in my work that I didn’t notice the tide coming in and had to wait till it went out again to get back on dry land. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859914728-PQCVY5MJDBCV49MYEQW7/Rotherhythe.jpg Landscape - Rotherithe The Francis Kyle Gallery had several group shows each year where a group of artists were given a theme to explore. Often the projects involved travelling abroad, for example, Goethe’s Italian journey when I went to Agrigento in southern Sicily. But on one occasion the theme was the Thames from London Bridge to the Sea. I spent a memorable week walking both banks of the Thames from London Bridge to the Thames Barrier looking for subjects. It was a great way to see parts of London I wouldn’t have imagined still existed. This was back when Docklands was only starting to be developed. I made paintings at several spots along the south bank but spent most of my time at Rotherhithe staying with a friend who lived in one of the first warehouses to be converted to apartments. There was a roof garden from which I painted this view of the Thames with a couple silhouetted in the sun light as they walk along the alleyway. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539612930089-FDJ1HLYTTW2NRY99QKIX/Tower+Bridge.jpg Landscape - Tower Bridge and the Thames Grey old London! But a stunning view all the same. It was a challenge to make a dramatic image out of the grey looking river and overcast sky. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859549817-SAYZ1MJHC0UPH2Q9W77V/Bluebell+coppice.jpg Landscape - Ferns Unfurling Ferns Unfurling shows bluebells in a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust woodland called Midger Wood, a magical place, a ‘Bambi’ wood with a stream running through and nest boxes for dormice. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859986147-PY58OEFS5W8VHGHBIGWH/Tree+Canopy.jpg Landscape - Tree Canopy Several times in my life I have looked out above the tree canopy to the view beyond. It is a magical sight, partly I suppose because it is a view we don’t usually get to see, a secret landscape above the trees. Tree canopy is based on the view from the treetop walk at Kew looking out towards London. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1489488666388-H5TNSYTGMEQFJTNXB6S5/Winter+trees+on+the+Cotswold+Way.jpg Landscape - WINTER TREES ON THE COTSWOLD WAY 95cm x 120cm £5000 When out walking I became aware that we see the landscape at different scales, sometimes aware of the distant view, sometimes looking up close at the texture of bark or moss. This is the first of a series of paintings I made where I tried to include both the beauty and detail of individual trees and their context within the woodland landscape. The scene is on the Cotswold Way just above my home in Wotton-under-Edge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1489489270745-UZ3WCA18MEK4WWXYI8II/Martagon+Lilies.jpg Landscape - Wild Martagon Lilies above Tintern 151cm x 180cm   It took me three years to put together this image of wild martagon lilies growing in a secluded wood on Offa’s Dyke above the Wye Valley and Tintern Abbey. Martagon lilies grow wild across Europe and used to be more common here but the beautiful plants were sought out by collectors and the bulbs dug up to be planted in gardens. They are still grown commonly as garden plants and you can buy commercially grown bulbs but they grow wild now in only a few places in England and this site proved very difficult to find. The first year I discovered it the lilies had already flowered and all that remained were dry seedheads. I found them in bud a year later and returned for a third time on mid-summer's day to find them in flower at last. Wild Martagons are pink or sometimes white, about a metre tall and look wonderfully exotic in an English woodland. The glade where I found them growing is dark with light filtering through the trees from above, there was a sense of discovering something magical, precious and wonderful. I hope the painting communicates something of this experience. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859970588-V8GHYDZZHKRSCQMSOJA5/Snowdrops+at+Newark+Park.jpg Landscape - Snowdrops at Newark Park Newark Park is a National Trust house near my home in Gloucestershire and there is a lovely spring display of snowdrops there. With many layers of clothes and a calm day it is possible to paint outdoors in the coldest weather. Wind is the killer! Even on a warm day it is impossible to paint if your concentration is constantly disturbed by the possibility of things blowing away. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1526411211215-1PKKBRST4XVJ1L3FDRRY/Bluebells.jpg Landscape - Bluebells This small painting of bluebells in a hazel coppice was painted here in Gloucestershire. Dappled light filtering through the new leaf canopy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482859893636-N44ZW0AK7UALKOXUK8NW/Oak+tree.jpg Landscape - Oak Tree This magnificent oak stands in the deer park at Ham near Berkeley in Gloucestershire. The ancient park, built to provide hunting for the nearby castle, stands on a ridge of high ground overlooking the river Severn. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539611370904-RZ24IYS9DMZ2UTZKX44D/View+from+wotton+hill.jpg Landscape - View from Wotton Hill I have painted this view many times, looking west from the hill above my home town in Gloucestershire towards the river Severn and the hills beyond. In mid-summer the evening sun creates beautiful effects of light and here the view is framed between a dramatic cloudscape and the rich textures of the foreground grasses. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539612368721-VQ2OOYYETFROR7XSG5OY/21.jpg Landscape - Limestone ridge and temple at Agrigento I spent three weeks painting at the fabulous site of Agrigento in Sicily with its fossil rich limestone and unparalleled array of Greek temples. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539612591738-TR2L8CNOF3VRSBIBDO4H/23.jpg Landscape - Valley of the Temples, Agrigento I don’t know which was more beautiful, the ancient Greek temples or the stunning rock escarpment on which they are built. Honey coloured limestone that was rich in fossils and scattered with ancient roman tombs and the remains of the old city wall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539611685294-SMZ41TDE3MG6GHQUFR6N/8.jpg Landscape - Crescent moon over the Alhambra Who could resist such a romantic subject? I painted this from a little square in the town opposite the Alhambra. I bought a little gas lamp to light my painting equipment and painted quickly to capture this magical view. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1554807166856-WX7H0M526RHMR5M3YNM2/9.jpg Landscape - Snow on the Grand Canal A bitterly cold January with snow falling but a subject I could not resist. Wrapped in many layers to keep warm I sat and painted this wonderful winter view. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539612109327-T97R8TM0WRS1LFEAW6VS/Castrogeriz2.jpg Landscape - Sunflowers at Castrojeriz Another view of the beautiful hill town of Castrogeriz in northern Spain. it was harvest time and farm workers came to see look at my painting as I worked. They offered me some of their drink, it was so hot, local red wine at 10.00 in the morning! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539611863259-GQIUL2F1M7B2S20YVYSB/Castrogeriz.jpg Landscape - Castrojeriz on the Pilgrim Route to Santiago di Compostella I spent five weeks travelling along the pilgrim route in my camper van painting the changing landscapes along the way. Castrojeriz was all summer heat and harvest, vast fields of golden wheat and sunflowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482938623922-MQ6OXQ04I5C2KW9SZQ71/Landscape+header.jpg Landscape http://www.robcollinsart.com/classes daily 0.75 2021-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482854783640-TUJ7DZOE2XAN9YSBBR42/painting+class.jpg Classes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483119494134-2N0XPWN8MLIJBEK7FUPC/20150730_110830.jpg Classes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476983929469-2X501KK68U5WV4ISL04M/Rob+teaching+at+Westley+Farm2015.jpg Classes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476983944518-QZ1CYT6R9MOE05AEZ4Y2/students+painting.jpg Classes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482941567724-LBMIAG2WR8WK4Z098X8I/image-asset.jpeg Classes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483119659186-6CK7EA3UM8FZ6249J9ZK/painting+class.jpg Classes http://www.robcollinsart.com/plinth daily 0.75 2017-02-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476980904373-ZVE5JJ26LRZIANX9RWZC/Plinth+iamge+1.jpg Plinth https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476980933611-PHI5REK4R6QKFWRFWFYF/plinth+image+3.jpg Plinth https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476439407253-ZJWDDW6CBJO63B4ECEZT/image-asset.jpeg Plinth https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476438863039-K82VIPJ8K6NIPPG15AIL/Plinth+iamge+1.jpg Plinth http://www.robcollinsart.com/still-life daily 0.75 2016-12-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939732238-3ZZOEM2CNPJMTFBJRJWH/Apples+with+orange+damask.jpg Still Life An orange damask fabric I have used in still lives for over 30 years. I've found nothing that provides a better foil to the colour and clear simple forms of apples. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939816468-2JNFAR9W407ENVMO63CQ/Gourd+and+pumpkins.jpg Still Life - Gourds A deceptively simple composition of bold clear forms, a combination of warm greys and yellows, linear interest in the straw and soft raking light across the texture of the fabric. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939861280-MW4ZPMY6A8BVGKJ3XAUX/Lachassagne+still+life.jpg Still Life I was invited to the chateau of Lachassagne in the Beaujolais wine growing region of France to paint the wine harvest in the autumn. But there was frequent rain and dull light so I retreated indoors and using everyday things I found in the kitchen put together two still lives, this is one of them, a simple rustic lunch but a feast of colour, texture and light. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939883026-T2MDAEIVJB2J0PW58294/Lemon+copy.jpg Still Life - Lemon This composition couldn't be simpler but it took me a couple of days to get it just right. I tried different fabrics, lighting, one lemon, two, one and a half. It may all seem trivial but the result was one of my favourite paintings, colour and light seem to radiate from it.. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939918628-83I65XNSASI7GAF5WBOR/Lemons.jpg Still Life Fruit is such a common component of still lives, the first is said to have been a painting by Carravagio of a basket of fruit and fruit of all kinds has featured in still life ever since but why? It ticks all the boxes for me, clear forms, intense colour and rich surfaces and textures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939952698-RLZBPXLIR389YFLITJ1F/Limes%2C+lychees%2C+honey+and+almonds.jpg Still Life Light shining through the flesh of limes, reflected from the surface of brass, glistening in liquid honey, on almonds and lychees and Central Asian Ikat fabric. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939965263-V0WTBZ6RF5I4EGGM7Z3W/Limes.jpg Still Life A deceptively simple composition of limes on a spotted paper bag. I had to work quickly as the hot lights were pulled in very close to create glistening textures on the surface of the fruit which soon distorted under the heat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482940013307-RO1KN9X7GEV4LBS24OQ9/Orange+still-life.jpg Still Life This finely pleated orange fabric is a burqa, its colour and complex pleating adds further intensity to the visual mix of orange fruits and straw https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482940033706-G9OU0Y975GPGGSHHK5XA/Oranges.jpg Still Life The embroidered fabric here is the bodice of a wedding gown from Afghanistan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482940062097-FFBT2I0KLPW8CESORMQM/Two+cyclamen+two+lights+copy.jpg Still Life This fabric has been in my collection for 25 years now and the colours have faded since I painted the picture but are still beautiful. The cutout shapes of the patchwork complement the leaves and flowers of the cyclamen which are distinctive shapes themselves. The composition is divided in two, almost symmetrical vertically and divided horizontally, even the light comes from two sources, natural daylight on the left and artificial light on the right. Yet despite all these contrasts the composition holds together beautifully. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482940077769-5ERTHDPETPTNDSN5QD56/Zigzag+with+polyanthus.jpg Still Life I was loaned this wonderful fabric to make a painting and couldn't believe my luck when I found the primula. The bands of colour in the flowers exactly mirror the pattern in the fabric in the way they follow the outline of the edges of the petals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1489490311597-20IOJNJ0O9ZZ4NPHUHZ1/Anemonies.jpg Still Life - Anemonies This painting was used on the cover of the catalogue for my 1998 one man show. Reviewer John Russell Taylor commented on its deceptive simplicity, saying that if you believed the casual folds in the fabric got there by chance you'd believe anything, and of course he was right, everything you see has been arranged to give the impression of simplicity and casualness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482940047981-N7MF96MPQZEU003KKC6A/Samovar.jpg Still Life I painted this silver samovar on a trip to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia when in just two weeks I painted fourteen still lives of indigenous artefacts. I was surprised but considered it a compliment, when I got back to England, to be asked what kind of metallic paint I had used for the silver. It is all a finely balanced range of different greys and whites. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539620126192-UCONFQROZOA1C0IS27CV/pomegranates.jpg Still Life - Pomegranates Another of the paintings from the Saudi Arabia trip. My hosts, two young Saudi men who had set up a new gallery of western European painting in Jeddah, covered the floor of one of the rooms in the house where I was staying with the family treasure. Objects and antiques of all kinds, jewellery, ceramics, artefacts, small furniture, from which I selected items to paint. Here I made a visual feast of three pomegranates with an antique studded wooden chest. Pomegranates are a wonderful element in a still life with their jewel like seeds and richly textured skin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539620060542-VLRKW9371QSHUQHC9E9Q/14.jpg Still Life - Silver bracelet on a richly embroidered cushion This cushion was one of about a dozen similarly embroidered ones in the apartment of one of my hosts in Saudi Arabia. Part of his apartment was decorated to resemble a bedouin tent with these cushions scattered around the upholstered benches. To my astonishment, the focal point of this extraordinary exotic interior overlooking the Red Sea was a painting I had made a few years earlier of a bowl of english apples I had bought in my local high street in Gloucestershire. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539620029484-WZ6O4OJW82MERQZY37L7/7.jpg Still Life - Flowers and postcards There are three subjects here, the flowers, the postcards and the light slanting across the fabric. The postcards are all ‘quattrocento’ Italian profile portraits. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539620114777-0HALNMY1JCA7SMG1HZDE/Blue.jpg Still Life - Blue and white I painted a number of still lives for an exhibition of blue and white. This is a rich composition of varying textures and colours. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539620143995-1DYGAG4E1UQS4BQY5J1H/Two+Teas.jpg Still Life - Tea for two Two cups of tea, what could be simpler? But this simple composition hints at a relationship and invites us to speculate on its nature. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482939535993-QIAS4HLJR55GBJGBTSM7/still+life+header+2.jpg Still Life http://www.robcollinsart.com/about daily 0.75 2020-03-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483206575696-LM81IF0GIF2AY4BA7QF6/Hill16.jpg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1486671804957-A3PXP6JSHX7JIDCBVSQL/Orange+still-life.jpg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1486671874334-RL45O46KZ3QIDZZIG1TC/IMG_20170207_0006.jpg About https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483197966935-1F1XDALLN8ECGFPXQRAU/IMG_9110-5+copy.jpg About http://www.robcollinsart.com/rights-rituals daily 0.75 2017-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476437315892-SFY9GS3KU8QLKZ87WQRD/image-asset.jpeg Rites and Rituals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476459171935-E5QWTQKGZ2NFF3CBRAWW/image-asset.jpeg Rites and Rituals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476437543053-06OLFAIXAPA2S8MEBFHL/image-asset.jpeg Rites and Rituals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476436243515-5K2OEQPG50OJWY18E1RQ/Cheeserolling+reduced.jpg Rites and Rituals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476440317451-14S3WIOP4399QGNAUQ4Y/Cheesrolling.jpg Rites and Rituals http://www.robcollinsart.com/tips-tales daily 0.75 2017-01-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483559924071-D10V5PMKG3SYLP9MU7GN/image-asset.jpeg Tales Painting high up on top of the ancient roman city wall at Agrigento https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483135406221-GYHSBM2NUJNLNRYX7L2R/image-asset.jpeg Tales Snowdrops at Newark Park https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483562443550-RSLOVNWWPRYBCHY9LFT9/Wildflower+meadow%3A1.jpg Tales Wildflower meadow in Gloucestershire https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483350996762-Z9BKQW1F59XRC2VME6U0/image-asset.jpeg Tales Snowdrops on the Ridgeway https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483562247566-7PTKAZRSAWY1U4GYQU4M/image-asset.jpeg Tales Vineyard at Lachassagne https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483206273117-BLNM9PYB2GP371IWFQCP/_MG_8664-2.jpg Tales http://www.robcollinsart.com/coombe-hill-series daily 0.75 2019-02-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791053425-BB9RH79J2FPP9UJDFSO0/Hill1.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 1. Tuesday 1st November 2011, 2.30pm. A bright and beautiful afternoon and a view with all the ingredients I want, sky, woodland, pasture, some farm and domestic buildings and a flower rich meadow in the foreground, strong sunlight across the painting and palette when the sun moved beyond a certain angle. This will cause problems with colour judgement so I will have to rig up an umbrella to shade the painting and palette when painting in the afternoon if there is direct sunlight. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791113299-EW3X69L4GNOZ7KWC357H/Hill2.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 2. Tuesday 8th November 2011, 2.00pm. Still not cold, we have had a very mild autumn so far. The light is gone out of the sky today. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791152068-NFJVP57J5IS8BJY4N897/Hill3.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 3. Tuesday 15th November 2011, 1.15pm. Cold and windy when I got here. Mist in the valley drifting out with the sun beginning to shine through. By the time I finished it was a glorious sunny day. First cold day, we have had very mild weather for the time of year, many herbaceous plants in the garden still unaffected by frost. Had to wrap up with many layers to paint and wear gloves and hat. Bitter wind to start with but died down as the sun came out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791206195-X3YHFW6TFUTUAEU0141A/Hill4.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 4. Thursday 25th November 2011, 2.30pm. A bright sky but very windy up here. It was quite calm down in the town but it is bitterly cold painting with this wind. Everything strapped down and I am well wrapped up. More people walking by today than usual. When I finished I was cleaning up and a man walked by with his dog. He stopped for a chat but can have had no idea just how cold I was, the tips of my fingers burning with the cold, and how desperate to get home and in the warm. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791404757-MZ5LEP4VUS19H21JLRP7/Hill5.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 5. Thursday 1st December 2011, 8.00am. Sun just up but a large grey cloud across the valley drifting this way. Rain? As I got near my painting site a pair of green woodpeckers flew by. A good omen? Probably the coldest day yet but no wind so quite manageable. A beautiful sunrise so painted very quickly to capture it. Finished by 10.am and on the way back to the car one of the woodpeckers flew past again. The rain cloud passed behind me and didn’t affect me here. Home now for a late breakfast and a shower to warm up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791445849-P1R6VUGVKQ7TN7BI92Z7/Hill6.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 6. Saturday 10th December 2011, 3.30pm. A beautiful clear and cold night last night with the brightest full moon, got up at 4am and went outside, strong shadows from the moon, so much light you could see colours. I have not been able to paint this week as I have cut off the top of my left thumb with a scalpel, a stupid accident cutting cardboard. Have had to wait for it to heal a bit, not so sore now so I am painting today but still with an embarrassingly large bandage. Really cold at last with snow and gale force winds in Scotland but no wind here so able to work relatively comfortably. When I got on the hill the big black welsh cows and bull were standing where I work. They wouldn’t move and stayed close for half hour watching me set up the equipment and start painting. I forgot the tube of blue paint and managed to make a convincing blue sky using just winsor violet, winsor green and white. Something of a technical challenge but surprisingly successful I think. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791483210-3RCWKR0V8456Z2AZSFYP/Hill7.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 7. Sunday 18th December 2011, 3.30pm. It has been a wild week with high winds and snow. It settled very briefly and there are still traces in the dark hollows. It is very cold now and I had to wrap up with many, many layers in order to paint. Again a green woodpecker flew from some bushes across my path as I approached the painting spot. It really feels like the middle of winter with Christmas approaching. The sun is low and slanting but it eventually came round enough to break into the dark north-west facing side of the valley. Someone lit a fire down in Coombe and a drift of blue grey smoke rose slowly into the air. Pete Pritchard walked by and said the field just to the left of my composition used to be known as the swan field as the road snakes up above it like a swan’s neck. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791515866-AELQ3XYYRWKAFS1COGEF/Hill8.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 8. Saturday 24th December 2011, 4.15pm. Christmas Eve - It is dark now. I have just come in from the hill. It is Christmas Eve, bells ringing as I painted, the lights just starting to come on. I began working at twilight at around 3.45pm and despite having a gas lamp I couldn’t really see to finish the last marks. Just enough light to pack up and make my way back home. There is a real sense of it being the deepest darkest time of the year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791550556-UIPUQHAHGHDAYF5RZDDK/Hill9.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 9. Monday 26th December 2011, 3.00pm. Boxing Day - I met Anthony the farmer on my way out across the hill to paint. He saw my painting gear and we chatted about my project and his cows and I said they had watched me painting a couple of weeks ago. He said that today, just beyond where I will be working, there are primroses in flower, on Boxing Day! Sure enough, I went to look and there they were, just three of them in the little hollow with hawthorn bushes next to the footpath about 10 meters beyond my viewpoint. In spring there will be many of them flowering there. He also said it wouldn’t rain this afternoon. It did, well misling damp and misty rain. It didn’t stop me working but by the time I finished there were large droplets of water trickling down the canvas, not a good idea when you are working in oils. The paint started to behave differently with the colours not mixing properly so I stopped, but it made for a boldly painted piece of work. A buzzard circled and called out below me as I worked. The paint has been lifted off the canvas by the water droplets so there are spots of canvas showing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791595006-HLWI3VDAFKRY9I3XZ4HD/Hill10.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 10. Monday 2nd January 2012, 11.00am. Colder but bright when I got here this morning with dramatic dark clouds and showers moving across the landscape. Apart from a light shower I missed most of it until packing up to come home when the sky turned black and it started to hail. But it was soon over and I walked back across the hill with Mark Boast swapping routes for good local walks. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791635746-QVJUPG7630FPBPMXFBB7/Hill11.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 11. Tuesday 10th January 2012, 9.00am. The first snowdrops are out, we saw some on a walk in Waterly Bottom on Sunday and they are there in the churchyard in Wotton. It is very mild for the time of year but I am still wearing six layers to keep warm to paint. The big black bull was standing in the bushes blocking my path out onto the hill, he stood his ground, I had to walk round him. A still morning with low cloud rolling out across the hill opposite obscuring the horizon. The black welsh cows were grazing on hay down in the mud at the bottom of the slope below me in the bottom right corner of the painting. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791674474-JJNUBTF0IT0TK3XJC6I0/Hill12.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 12. Monday 16th January 2012, 3.30pm. Extreme ironing, extreme makeover, this must be extreme painting. I’ve just caught sight of myself in the mirror on the way into my studio after finishing painting outdoors. All my layers of clothes with a hood and a hat on top I look like a tent with a face and all covered in paint. It is bitterly cold outside and I need all these layers to keep warm. We have had a series of bright cold days and clear frosty nights, beautiful sunsets. When I came up here today it was not only cold but windy, a daunting combination. I saw the farmer again on the way out. He said the sun never gets to the north side of the valley. There is still ice on the roads and frost under the hedges and across the fields, it shows white on the shaded side of the valley in my painting. He told me if you go up there even in April and scrape the ground in the shadow of a hedge it will still be frozen solid. But even in this cold there are still primroses in flower in the sheltered hollow just along the path from my painting spot. When I was about to set up my equipment Victoria Rees walked by. She and her husband Peter are both artists and live in the house tucked right up under the hill in the woods on the very left of my image. She was amused by my cold weather clothing but invited me to go and sit for a portrait dressed in my painting clobber one afternoon when I have finished working up here. There is a bright sunset and the sky is casting an orange glow where the light skids across the valley. Long late afternoon shadows in the field at the bottom of the hill. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791718684-QWAXFMBX9K9QIGJQPQ7S/Hill13.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 13. Monday 23rd January 2012, 2.30pm. My thirteenth painting – I am a quarter of the way through my year. The second time I came up here there was a cow pat deposited just a couple of feet from my painting place, a great moist dollop. Standing in exactly the same spot each week I have been unable to ignore it. Slowly over the past twelve weeks it has been absorbed into the ground and has now all but disappeared. How nature marks the passage of time! A beautiful sunrise this morning but the day has been dull and cloudy as forecast. But sunlight broke through for a while and lit up the foreground and the houses down in Coombe. There are sheep in the field below me today. A kestrel swooped down the hillside in front of me. Just as I got back indoors after painting there was a sudden and dramatic burst of heavy rain. I was lucky to miss it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456787032-VYID8TSPNXXYHPTMQ7L0/Hill14reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 14. Tuesday 31st January 2012, 8.30am. I have just come in with the tips of my fingers burning from the cold. It took longer to work today for some reason, two hours instead of the usual hour and a half. Dull and frosty when I got on the hill with just a glow of orange pink in the sky to the east giving a pearly pink tinge to the view. As I paintedthe sun peeped through ahead of me for a few minutes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456834814-DI63H5FZWNNKHZWFF5YZ/Hill15reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 15. Thursday 9th February 2012, 2pm. A beautiful pearly pink and yellow sky today but the light is weak and there have been no shadows across the valley. This feels like deep winter, we have had a couple of brief spells of snow lightly covering the ground then turning to rain and gone in a few hours. I keep hearing of the promise of more to come. The landscape is at its deepest rest, all last year’s growth turned dry and brown, the dead leaves all blown from the trees. Judy came up and took some photos of me working and laughed at my situation and then left me to it. But there was a cup of tea and some crumpets waiting when I got back. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456859202-UE9O325XVUHX7ZS4HVN1/Hill16+reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 16. Saturday 11th February 2012, 8.45am. It is a beautiful morning, there is a dazzling sun ahead of me. A light covering of snow fell yesterday and much of it melted quickly. But there was a hard frost last night and the higher fields still have their covering of snow. There must have been freezing rain too as the trees and fence posts are encased in ice as clear as glass, a strange and beautiful sight that causes much comment from people walking by. I was startled by a dramatic fall of ice just feet a head of me, apparently out of a clear blue sky, then I saw it was from a telegraph wire warmed by the sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456933066-VSFJ4YD9NNFWPJWFKLFU/Hill17reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 17. Saturday 25th February 2012, 12.00 Noon. It is two weeks since I was up here last and what a difference, a glorious morning, blue sky and sunshine. For the first time since I started this series back at the end of October last year the sun is high enough to light up the valley opposite. There is a real sense of spring in the air, many primroses now on the sheltered bank just along from where I am painting. A skylark has been singing above the field just behind me and there is a small cloud of gnats hovering around the horthorn bush. My first butterflies this year, a tortoiseshell or a red admiral, I couldn’t see which, and a cabbage white. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456970878-WDBPMP0NLZLAKULIYUTD/Hill18reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 18. Tuesday 6th March 2012, 5.00pm. The sun has moved farther round as the year progresses and today I am painting the foreground trees lit from this side for the first time. Sheep are grazing in sunshine in the fields on the far side of the valley. As I finished work the black cows came up the steep diagonal path and curious calves gathered round to see what I was doing. My friend Richard Chidlaw, one of the founder members of the Waterly Bottom Mummers and a keen local historian, has sent me a copy of a tithe map from 1847 showing the Wotton fields with their names. Plummers Close is the big field on the left in my painting, Honey Gastons (a grass enclosure or paddock) and Hayhedge are just right of centre and in the distance on the left just below the horizon is Foxholes. All the others I am painting have equally evocative and historic names. Shortly after I received the map David Newman stopped to talk as I was working. He has lived on this land since childhood. He farms it as his father did before him and like many people who have stopped to chat he clearly loves the land and its wildlife. We talked about the flowers and butterflies that will be here in the summer in the field in which I am painting. I spoke about the map and he told me fields receiving subsidies for whatever reason from Brussels these days are identified and listed there along with all others across Europe not by the evocative names on the tithe map but by a unique number. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476456996316-DJVK3UWDM1TNS9GKR8GW/Hill19reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 19. Saturday 17th March 2012, 8.30am. Rain cleared late in the night and this morning a weak sun is trying to burn through low cloud. Mist rolls away from the top of the hill opposite as I set up my equipment. Light reflects off the ponds behind the mill and glistens on wet roads in Coombe. Hawthorn shoots are starting to burst and show green on the hill on the way out here and a few Blackthorn bushes are in flower already. The primroses are at their best and I saw a couple of very early bluebells in the woods as I was painting the other day. As I clear up my things this morning with my painting leaning against the bank behind me a bee settled on it basking in a brief spell of sunshine, I’ll flatter myself it was a sign of her approval. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457040950-WPEFEVARDCKZS1MSV889/Hill20reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 20. Sunday 18th March 2012, 6.30pm. I meant to paint into the early evening as it got really dark and set out my paints on the hill to startwork at six. At about half past I tried to light my gas lamp and found there was no gas, no light for my work and none to get me back across the hill safely. I finished the painting rather quicker than I had expected but caught the early darkness and the lights coming on down in Coombe. I watched the sheep in the big field gathering under the hedge for the night as I worked. There were stars coming out and just enough light in the sky to see to pack up my things. The big black bull was surprised to see me coming towards him in the darkness to make my way over the stile, as surprised as I was to see him. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457067298-8KXGM8TROBM7XHMRO14F/Hill21reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 21. Sunday 25th March 2012, 8.00am. Yesterday was a glorious sunny day with temperatures approaching 20 degrees. According to the paper Brighton was hotter than Barcelona, today seems set to be the same. The clocks went forward last night so I made a very early start this morning to get here for sunrise. This morning’s painting is about light as much as landscape, there is hazy mist in the valley and a bright sun burning through with a flash of sunlight reflected on the mill pond and bright pin points of light scattered throughout the view. There is little detail, just silhouetted shapes of harmonising pinks and greys. Signs of spring are everywhere now, buds bursting on the ash trees and hawthorn and there is a large patch of white violets in the bushes near the footpath. Down at the bottom of the hill the woodpeckers have been calling all morning as I work. I nearly lost this morning’s painting. I usually hang a big stone under my easel to keep it steady in the wind but thought it not necessary today. I was wrong and having turned my back to get something from my rucksack the easel and painting fell forward onto the ground. Large amounts of twig and grass are stuck all over the sky section. I will let it dry for a couple of weeks and hopefully the dirt will brush away. In the meantime Photoshop has done a great job of digitally cleaning it up for the web page. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457082303-5034KI0BF2QQAMB2DP15/Hill22reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 22. Monday 2nd April 2012, 10.30am. So here it is at last - recently there have been a succession of bright, warm, clear days and at last spring is on the move and the hawthorn and chestnut trees are already in leaf whilst others are showing colour as their buds swell ready to open. In the hedgerow down on the left there is a blur of white wild cherry blossom, and close by some blackthorn bushes now almost fully in flower. To the left of them is a rookery in the trees on Rushmire Hill and as I work this morning the rooks are continually worrying a buzzard, flying at it and calling, presumably to keep it away from their nests and eggs or fledglings. A green woodpecker flies past me, I have heard them often throughout the winter but haven’t seen one up here since October. The steep slope of Coombe Hill in the foreground is a wildflower meadow with a wonderful variety of flowers later in the year. The firstdaisies and dandelions are just showing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457117773-ULIHKMB7MX88PCR2LYKP/Hill23reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 23. Sunday 8th April 2012, 3.00pm. Easter Sunday - A grey day and in the distance rain is falling from the back edge of a large bank of cloud. It is unsettled with heavy rain and strong wind forecast for tomorrow and it gets colder and windier as I work. Some walkers are surprised I am not running for cover and say they can feel rain in the air. There is no sun and the landscape is devoid of contrast. I am not as prepared for the cold as I was in winter and pile on the few extra clothes I have brought with me and then I am saved from the weather by Polly Holloway who walks by with her dog and stops to chat. I paint on automatic as I talk with Polly and completely forget how cold I am. And of course the spring is not distracted by the change in the weather. Cowslips are pushing their flowers above the turf. I noticed the leaves in the grass last week when I was up here but wasn’t expecting flowers for weeks. I am always pleased to see them. My father said when he was a boy back in the 1920s cowslips were so abundant his mother made wine from them and he and his brothers tied them tightly to make an effective ball to play with. They seemed to have all but disappeared by the 1960s so it is great to see them making such a dramatic comeback. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476791946232-6WS0WJ21M2AWKZNYHSEP/Hill24.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 24. Wednesday 11th April 2012, 10.00am. Sun – cloud – sun – cloud – sun – cloud –sun – cloud. A beautiful morning for a walk with clear fresh air after the rain of the last couple of days but with the light changing constantly this morning’s work has been a technical challenge. The success of these paintings depends on my ability to see and put down in paint quite precise relationships of colour and for the most part I need things to hold still while I paint them. With big clouds scudding across the landscape the light has changed every few minutes and it has been frustrating trying to get a sense of the colour balance across the landscape as a whole. I have had to flit about the painting working on whatever part of my view is lit at that moment but having got the picture home it all seems to hang together OK. And there were the cows again. I haven’t seen them for a while but this morning as I got to my place there they were grazing along the path and heading for my spot. The bull seems to be quite placid but I must admit that having him as close as he was this morning while I am working makes me a little nervous. The whole group gathered close round sniffing at my stuff and at me until I shooed them on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476792189328-Z1FJMRHONU3ONK5HXWD7/Hill25.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 25. Monday 16th April 2012, 9.00am. This is the second attempt at this week’s painting. I came up here on Saturday evening at about 6pm and started work in dull light, the sky cleared and there was dramatic sunshine for about 10 minutes and then everything changed back again. There has been a spell of showery weather for the last couple of weeks and although the changing light gives drama to the landscape it is very difficult for me to manage. I took a risk and tried to capture the fleeting effect of light but it didn’t work out. My second attempt has been more successful, I painted early this morning in sunshine. The trees are opening with so many variations on a theme of green, the colours look almost autumnal with buds and new leaves on many trees glowing ochre. I saw my first swallow on Saturday, the earliest I have seen them here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476792274096-8JBSU1NQIXR8Q3YFJODZ/Hill26.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 26. Tuesday 24th April 2012, 11.00am. I am half way through my year. Many people have asked if I am tired of painting the same view again and again. I have loved every minute and expect my problem will be stopping when I had planned to at the end of October. But this is spring and it will be the beginning of winter by then and I may feel differently. We are in an official drought having had exceptionally low rainfall for months on end and many parts of the country with hosepipe bans already. But you would never know it from the last couple of weeks. This morning there is a brief respite from the showers. The poplars by the lake are glowing almost orange and buds everywhere are opening warm golden greens. A kestrel sits on the wire below me as I walk back along the hilltop, watching me as I watch him. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457174021-AUI2B6SK40JD0BRJOBEP/Hill27reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 27. Tuesday 1st May 2012, 6.00pm. Floods in a drought! There has been so much rain recently that rivers across the country are flooded but we are in a drought with water supplies severely depleted and no expectation they will be back to normal for months. Nevertheless the stream down in the valley is as fast and full as I remember seeing it with the field next to the footpath in Coombe flooded. As I walk out across the hill to paint the ground is sodden and sticky. The sun has come out for a few hours and there are patches of blue in the sky and shadows and light scudding across the landscape. As the sun drops lower my own shadow appears in the foreground. There are cowslips and just to remind me spring is definitely here a flight of about 12 swallows and house martins dart about overhead as I am packing up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457185446-Q3J2MKHRUHMC4KXDMNCR/Hill28reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 28. Tuesday 8th May 2012, 6.30am. Sometimes the experience of painting, regardless of the outcome, is worth the effort it takes to get out on the hill and today it is glorious to see the dawn unfold. This is the earliest I have been out painting, I got up at 5am. There was a lot of rain last night and this morning it is grey with the last whisps of cloud rising from the woods opposite. The sky starts to turn violet grey with glimpses of blue and bright light through the cloud. As I work the sky clears and the sun, now rising way to the left of my view, sends light scudding across the woods and fields and lights up the foreground and the rain soaked grass. There are some orange brown cows down in the field grazing just on the edge of the shadow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457239075-MSD4O7Y089RLU8VTFU8T/Hill29reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 29. Thursday 17th May 2012, 2.30pm. This is my favourite time of the year. It is the smell of cow parsley and May blossom as much as the sight of them that makes it so and the new leaves are as many different greens as you could imagine. It is very windy up here today, there is rain on the way. For the third time since starting this project my easel has just blown over with bits of dust and dirt sticking in the newly painted sky but it will all brush out when the thing is dry. I read in the paper that the recently declared drought in Gloucestershire is now over. Having had very little rain for the last 18 months we have had the wettest April on record and so far May has been little different. Today my foreground is scattered with yellow specks of buttercups and cowslips and the landscape is on it’s way to becoming as blousy and verdant as it gets. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476792391984-T2NAC9MNU3SZJJ55AC92/Hill30.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 30. Wednesday 24th May 2012, 10.00pm. I got here at 9.00pm. when the sky was still bright with light. I want to catch the dusk and have been working quickly as the sun is setting fast. I brought a gas lamp to see by and have it hanging in the small crab apple tree behind me but it is not much use and by the time I finish, although I can still see the tones of the colours I am using their hues (their particular blueness, green or pinky yellowness) is a matter of guesswork. I am not the only one working outdoors so late. Farmers are bringing in the hay crop by floodlight and as I paint big tractors and trailers roar back and forth along the road at the bottom of Rushmire Hill. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476793443646-4PTTJUMRBPEDRSQJ6KBC/Hill31reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 31. Thursday 31st May 2012, 1.00pm. We have had ten days of sunny and hot weather but today has turned dull and windy with the occasional light shower and I pile on the layers again to stay warm as I work. The cows were moved from the hillside a couple of weeks ago and consequently the grasses in the foreground have thrown up their flower spikes and suddenly the grass is waving in the wind in a way that always reminds me of summer. The May blossom is past its best already but some of the elder bushes are starting to flower and I saw some wild roses out in the hedgerow on the way here. There is a field down in Coombe turned a very yellow green by the sheer number of buttercups in it. Up here wild rock-roses outnumber the buttercups. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457273799-NO9XZGSVHD8CKRPVJ01J/Hill32reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 32. Wednesday 6th June 2012, 7.30pm. Today the weather has been dramatic, first wet, then windy, then sunny and wet again and this evening the sun is out and I am painting like fury to capture an image, racing to fix in paint the dark evening shadow of the hill as it sweeps across the trees at the bottom of the slope. My own shadow next to the crab apple tree stretches out across the foreground. The trees have already started to do their summer thing and turn a more uniformly darker and bluer green. The beech trees are no longer that acid lime green they were when the leaves were new and the oaks not their golden ochre green. I think of the change marking the transition from late spring to early summer. Someone called Joy walks by, she tells me she was born and brought up in the New Inn in Waterly Bottom in the 1930s. She has often found bee orchids on the slope of the hill in my foreground although they have not been there for the past two years. I saw butterfly and spotted orchids in the woods on the way over to Nibley monument this morning. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457302013-N0AXS956CTOM1ZEP54FG/Hill33reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 33. Tuesday 19th June 2012, 1.00pm. The green woodpecker flew out from my painting spot as I arrived, I haven’t seen it for a while. It is the longest day this week and at last there is some sunny weather to make it feel like summer. The fields are changing colour, a few have been mown and others grazed or just a different colour due to the grasses and flowers growing. It no longer looks or feels like spring, we are in early summer now. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457331113-4OUKMP0FT1W5X38ZRWBG/Hill34reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 34. Wednesday 20th June 2012, 5.00am. It is the longest day tomorrow and at 4.30am the sun is rising twice the width of my view farther round to the east than when I painted it in December. A gentle pink sunrise with vapour trails of transatlantic planes flying towards Heathrow glowing bright and as I paint light begins to move into the valley opposite with shadows reaching off to the right. But this morning it is the hillside below me that lights up first with the long grasses shining brightly against the darkness in the valley and a Burnet moth, dramatically black and red, warming itself in the morning sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457355638-2DL2UNGW3354WMIITFCT/Hill35reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 35. Wednesday 20th June 2012, 7.00pm. I am making my second painting of the day in celebration of the longest day tomorrow. I have nearly finished and the community choir parade out along the footpath to join me and settle down with picnics and Pimms on the grassy bank below and are singing as I paint. But the weather has changed since this morning and sure enough, as soon as I start to sketch in the choir it begins to rain. Much fuss as I hurriedly clear up my things to protect the picture and then when all is put away the rain clears. I have joined the choir and it is suggested we sing Sunrise-Sunset from Fiddler On The Roof to mark the occasion and we enjoy ourselves despite the gloomy evening and the dampness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476794574552-T9YA9UJ4QXDG52HNN91U/JuliaFryspicture.jpg Coombe Hill Series - Julia Fry's Painting https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457384848-IP8J87WRHTIES0B43FQQ/Hill36reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 36. Wednesday 27th June 2012, 5.00pm. Drought in February and now unprecedented rain throughout June. The hedgerows are as lush and abundant as I have seen them, a friend came back from two weeks holiday to find his garden had grown into a jungle. I am craving some summer sun. Walking out here it is grey with thin cloud but as I set up the sun burns through and it is an unexpected and welcome calm and balmy early evening before another spell of changeable weather with wind and rain forecast for tonight and into the week-end. Where is the summer sun? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457406116-4N00FBZDEKHXD40HOBY6/Hill37reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 37. Thursday 5th July 2012, 10.00am. I came up here with no expectations this morning. It feels as though it has rained solidly for a week, the weather has been so awful I didn’t expect to find enough time between the rain to make a painting. It has been the wettest June in 100 years and July feels set to be the same with rain and wind forecast for days ahead. The ground is sodden. But this morning is clear with bright sunlight flooding the valley and making dramatic patterns of the foliage in the foreground. A marbled white butterfly sits on the top edge of my canvas as I finish painting the sky, facing me and watching for a while. There are many more of them across the hillside making the most of the sun , and new scabious and masses of yellow rockroses. This morning it feels that standing here in the sunshine making a painting of this view is the best thing in the world to be doing. With the weather as it has been it is an unexpected and most welcome pleasure. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457435855-EWFNP96TLMCSCFUTY9Y2/Hill38reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 38. Thursday 12th July 2012, 11.00am. The foreground meadow is coming into its own now, rockroses are still abundant and lady’s bedstraw, pink and white clover, scabious, vetch and moon daisies are dotted throughout the long grass with marbled white and fritillary butterflies making the most of them. It is good to hear a kestrel, they were a common sight when I was young and it was unusual to see a buzzard but now the opposite is the case. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476793732608-AEYY5MVV7FSLDT9Y42NP/Hill39.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 39. Sunday 15th July 2012, 6.00am. There is a deep pink sky ahead as I walk out onto the hill this morning but the rising sun is still way round to the left of my view. I begin painting on automatic, still half asleep. It was a struggle to get myself here at this time of day but now that I am here it is wonderful, absolutely peaceful. Everything is wet with rain, the ground is sodden and the patches of turf worn bare by my constantly standing in the same place have become green again within days. I can see butterflies resting in the long grass waiting for the warmth of the sun to dry them. Big brown slugs are making the most of the wet conditions. Suddenly there is mist rising from the lakes and hillside at Coombe, there for just a few minutes and then just as suddenly it is gone. As I finish painting the bank of cloud that has been with me since I started this morning moves slowly on and the sun bursts through. It is going to be a beautiful morning. I am back off home to bed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457466465-0KK7CVCMMEX4MK2J9UTP/Hill40reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 40. Tuesday 24th July 2012, 6.30am. Surprise and relief that the hot summer sun is here at last after so many weeks of wind and rain. I am basking in the heat, soaking up the sun, everyone’s mood has been lifted. The skies are clear for the first time in months and I am up on the hill early to catch the dawn. As the sun gets higher light is moving into the valley making long soft shadows across the fields. It is wonderfully calm, no one about except the dustmen who are collecting the re-cycling down in Coombe with the noise of glass bottles and metal cans being tipped into the lorry and shouted banter between the men. Hot air balloons are drifting out from Bristol in the morning air, way across to my right, moving too slowly to make an appearance in my picture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457496110-YSWPAD5R9EPPAF89DR69/Hill41reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 41. Saturday July 28th 2012, 11.00am. 20 House Martins are sitting on the telegraph wire, surely they aren’t already preparing to fly off. It is a bright day but windy and great banks of cloud obscure the sun for 10 minutes at a time. In the middle of the winter David Newman said the bottom of the bank just behond the nearby hedge is the best part of the hill for flowers. Then I found it hard to believe such a scrubby bank could be so rich in flora, but waiting for the sun to re-emerge I am scrabbling down to take a look and find a wonderful mixture of scabious, stemless thistle, cornflowers, clustered bellflowers, harebells and many others I cannot name. For the first time there are small blue butterflies among the marbled whites and meadow browns. Now I have returned to my painting and a green woodpecker hops up the nearby telegraph pole cackling at me as he searches for grubs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457533876-GOC6IEXBPUPP9U1PY554/Hill42reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 42. Monday 6th August 2012, 8.00am. We watched the final of the men’s 100 metres at the Olympics on TV last night and for the first hour of painting this morning I am working at a sprinters pace. At 7.00am the sun is slowly burning mist and low cloud from the valley, there is a haze that shifts and changes as I look and I am painting at breakneck speed and without thinking to put it down on canvas before it disappears. We were at the Olympic park last week-end and the banks of the river Lee, only recently an industrial wasteland in the heart of the capital, are planted with great drifts of wildflowers, the same as those growing in the meadow here in front of me this morning. There has been a colour shift in the flowers over the last week with more pale lilac scabious and harebells and warm pink clover. The chestnut trees are already turning brown and having got my painting back home I can see the landscape in this morning’s picture is not so very different from in the first of this series last October. My year of painting is moving through its final quarter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476794206481-42ARVOUK9YX8V1ZSAEG7/Hill43.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 43. Tuesday 14th August 2012, 10.30am. I am off for a holiday and put out the challenge to students and friends to come up with a painting of Coombe while I am away. Chris Devall has produced a painting on her iPad. Here are her comments. Took grandchildren up Coombe Hill, they made easy work of the steep climb through the woods! Liam made notes and Rhanni took lots of photographs of flora and fauna ready to identify them when we got home. We were armed with a photo of one of your paintings so were able to find the correct view. Continued walking around the hillside then back on to London road and the car. Had a lovely morning. What a great spot to paint from! I can understand you never getting bored with that view – ever changing and so easy to get immersed in the surrounding sights and sounds. Returned home to complete painting on the iPad. And here are Liam’s notes……….. Bit cloudy – but dry! The green woodpecker is climbing up the telegraph pole. Lots of burnet moths, meadow brown butterflies and small faded blue butterflies, also there are bumble bees on the clover. No black cows today, we can see a few sheep and we met some walkers on our way and saw one lonely horse. 11:15 the sun finally came out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457558017-UM5CAY2M2DYQZN28QMC4/Hill44reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 44. Thursday 23rd 2012, 3.30pm. The blackberries along the path out onto the hill are still hard and green but the sloes are already plump and purple in the hedgerow, the haws are turning from green to red and the old man’s beard is coming into flower. It is a bright but cloudy afternoon that promises more rain. I have been away on holiday and it is good to get back here to the hill. The clover that was pink when I left has mostly now turned to brown seed-heads and the rockroses have finally gone past their best after weeks of a wonderful display. Now the scabious have taken centre stage in a field of grass that has at last started to take on a golden tinge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483038291487-Z0ARQFHC1C4HTYCA4OVK/Hill+45.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 45. Sunday 26th September 2012, 7.30pm. There are two fires in my painting this evening. Smoke rises from one of the gardens down in Coombe and Juliet and Mark on a walk out from Wotton tell me it is Alison with a bonfire in her cottage garden down there, they had stopped to talk to her on their walk before coming up on the hill and she told them she has picked 500 snails from her garden this season as it has been so wet. As I paint a balloon drifts across and this time passes right overhead and then on into my view and just on cue there is a burst of bright flame from the burner and I touch it into the painting. It is dusk when I walk back through the woods and I'm startled by a large brown owl flying out just feet in front of me, and when I emerge from the woods, despite it having been overcast all evening there is a brilliant pink sunset to see me home. It is now the next morning, a bank holiday Monday and Judy and I have been to Gill and Mark Pasco’s for an extravagant breakfast that was their present to me for my 60th birthday. Some gentle jokes about my age and a limmerick to tease me about this project. Here it is.   ‘Hope at 60’ There was a young man called Rob Who’d paint on a hill for a job. Through all kinds of weather He’d create something clever And earn himself quite a few bob.   Two weeks later I stop for a chat with Alison who tells me it was 500 snails in one night! And that I am not alone in my place on the hill, apparently many a deceased Wottonian has had their ashes scattered up there so they can continue to enjoy the view. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457585080-V7RPL4P9BCQ0V21KH0JB/Hill46reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 46. Monday 3rd September 2012, 6.30pm. Two fires again today. There is a great billowing drift of smoke coming from Grist Cottage down by the mill and then later on a smaller garden fire in Coombe itself. The weather seems to be settling down at last and the air is calmer. And because the air is still, suddenly I am aware of sounds again that have been muffled by wind for so long, the shouts and cheers of a football game on the field at Synwell, sheep in the fields on the far side of the valley and lawn mowers all over the place. What is the word to describe the call of a buzzard? I don't see the bird this evening but hear its persistent and rather melancholy call over and over again.My friend Eric tells me it is probably a young bird calling to its parents for food. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457611086-MMD63JW4BISDXMRD32VR/Hill47reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 47. Friday 7th September 2012, 10.30pm. There are glow worms just beside the path on my way out across the hill tonight, I have heard they are here but not seen any in years and here they are, just two of them in the grass below the path. There has been a succession of hot, calm days recently with clear, starry nights and a bright moon and there is a promise of a beautiful moon tonight. This is the painting I have been anticipating all year and I’m excited at the prospect of coming out onto the hill to paint at night. The moon is due to rise at 10.35pm and I am out here ready to start painting at about 10.15pm. I hang a gas lamp just behind me in a tree but even so I am guessing at the colours and painting more by instinct than good judgement. I can see lights down in Coombe and just make out the shape of the grassy bank in front of me but where is the moon? It should have risen by now. Then I notice an orange glow in the trees way off to my left and there it is, I've misjudged the place it would rise, assuming it would be within my view but it is way round farther along the horizon than I had expected. I think of using artistic licence to shove it round a bit and get it into my picture but the whole point of this project is to be true to whatever the landscape offers. It is still a beautiful night and the sky overhead is busy with stars and even though there is light pollution near the horizon a few faint stars still make it into my painting. Walking back across the hill the moon teases me again, I see glow worms everywhere then realise they are just moonlight reflected from dewdrops in the grass. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457643442-BL4UIW88OYMR8M00U878/Hill48reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 48. Tuesday 18th September 2012, 8.30am. It is a glorious morning, Judy has come out early with me to pick blackberries and she too is taken with the beauty of the morning and the valley before us. The sun is blazing just above the horizon and down the hillside sunlight dazzles on the wet blades of grass. The cows must be back after their summer spent away from the hillside, the wildflower meadow is visibly shorn already and there are fresh cowpats, but the cows themselves are nowhere to be seen. But I do see one solitary swallow, he keeps dipping from the telegraph wire to land a few feet farther on, keeping just ahead of me as I walk back round the hill and I am concerned that maybe his fellows have left without him. But there they are, half a dozen of them. He’ll have company on his long journey home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457667614-ME7APF5ZAVNYXXT6P0D0/Hill49reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 49. Saturday 22nd September 2012, 4.30pm. We picked a load of blackberries this morning down in the deer park at Berkeley. The landscape is taking on a distinctly autumnal tinge and even though it is a sunny afternoon I am cold up here for the first time in ages but despite the north wind there are still some swallows and swifts about. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457693125-CRCSKBN9K19HHFD0K28R/Hill50reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 50. Saturday 29th September 2012, 7.30pm. There is still pink in the sky directly behind me this evening as the sun dips below the horizon. The sky is clear and ahead a stunning full moon hangs above my beloved landscape becoming brighter by the minute as the light fades. I have been waiting all year for this and I am full of anticipation as I start painting. Despite the lamp hanging in the tree behind me I can see very little colour, a trace of a dusky blue sky with yellow near the horizon and a golden glow around the moon. I am painting by instinct, finding colours on my palette from memory and in mixtures I have known and used for years, using a palette knife to spread the darkness out thickly on my canvas. Suddenly I am startled by someone approaching. I hear laughter butcan only see the flashing light of a head-torch. It is my friend Eric, unknown to me, Judy has phoned him to say I am out on the hill and he is here with his camera having left a glass of wine and a log fire and the Ryder Cup on the telly to come out in the cold and the darkness to take some photos of me painting by moonlight. With his camera on a tripod he sets up a long exposure shot to get an image in this very low light and then I am startled again, this time by a low snorting exhalation of breath. And there is another old friend standing about two metres away in the darkness. The black bull is there on the path puffing away and not at all phased by seeing us out here, he comes close and sniffs the air and then passes by and carries on grazing even at this time of night. We have much fun trying to get a picture of me painting and the moon and the bull, Eric is waving his head torch around to get some extra light onto the bull but the animal moves on before the exposure is finished, he’ll probably be just a mysterious big dark blur, (photo below). But then Eric looks at my painting and jokes that probably it too is best viewed by moonlight. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457726226-GPGYI2V6BFPYF8X1PZSI/Hill51reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 51. Saturday 13th October 2012, 8.00am. I dragged myself out of a warm bed to be here this morning and it is grey and cold and dull. But now, twenty minutes on, there is a sunrise and the sky is turning blue and gold and drifts of mist are forming from nowhere, making a low cloud that hangs for a few minutes above the valley and then in wisps it evaporates into thin air. Under pressure to get this all down before it changes again I am working with intense concentration. The last hour has been just a blur of activity and before I realise it, the painting is finished and two hours have gone by. With perfect timing there is someone in black running along the hilltop towards me, I can’t quite make out who it is and then realise it is my wife Judy out for some exercise, bringing me a very welcome thermal mug with hot tea. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457789051-WJYUEMACR99QBL7AYJEY/Hill52reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 52. Tuesday 16th October 2012, 2.00pm. It is a very windy day, I thought I had better get out here and paint the autumn leaves before they are all blown away. The billows and gusts down in the valley are dramatic winds up here on the exposed hilltop. I have weighted down my easel and painting table with great pieces of rock suspended beneath them, even so, the painting needs a constant steadying hand. Not ideal conditions to paint in but great fun nevertheless. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1476457835205-6CWD14G8NLQ1L2PF5MIU/Hill53reduced.jpg Coombe Hill Series - 53. Monday 22nd October 2012, 2.00pm. The sun is masked by low cloud, mist gathers and disperses at intervals, there is a palpable sense of calm over the landscape and the grey light intensifies the autumn colours. And then the mist thickens and becomes a fog. All the colours shift towards grey. But what I notice most is the noise, all sounds muffled by the fog. There is a pheasant shoot in the valley, at first just the occasional pop of a gun then five minutes of loud noise but even this is dampened by the moist air. The sounds have such a distinctive quality that you would know there is a fog even if you couldn’t see it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1482938448639-JBQX3T1HJ8U8PP29VRXF/Hill+project+Header.jpg Coombe Hill Series http://www.robcollinsart.com/interiors daily 0.75 2019-05-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483368482553-AMYMYOH3YEES1QWIA2FQ/Lasborough.jpg Interiors Amarylis at Lasborough   Lasborough is a beautiful house set in its own landscaped park at the head of the secluded Ozleworth valley in the south Cotswolds. The house is a feast of textures and surfaces and beautiful soft daylight, a real treat and a technical challenge for a painter, particularly trying to capture warm firelight and natural daylight in the same image. My hosts couldn’t have been more helpful, allowing me to move plants and furniture to create the compositions and lighting a fire for me to include in the painting. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483368522238-8O1TO49JHBZ4FIFG4KEN/Tulips+at+Lasborough.jpg Interiors - Tulips at Lasborough Lasborough is a beautiful house set in its own landscaped park at the head of the secluded Ozleworth valley in the south Cotswolds. The parrot tulips and blue vase in this painting were a sizzling colour sensation but it is light that enables us to pick our way from them across the polished floor and flagstones to the table in the room beyond and to the outside space beyond the window. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483368553989-Z8KEM4ID2T0PDHHTW0YO/Grandes+Meulnes+copy.jpg Interiors - Le Grand Meaulnes On the 100th anniversary of the birth of french author Alain-Fournier, Francis Kyle held an exhibition to celebrate Alain-Fournier’s only novel Le Grand Meaulnes. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood. Central to the novel is a scene where he falls in love with the girl he sees playing the piano at a garden party at a beautiful but faded chateau. The book has a wonderful atmosphere created in large part by a sense of a wild and magical landscape. It comes as something of a surprise to learn the novel was based on real people and real places and events. Quite by chance I happened to be talking about the project with a stranger at a party in Gloucestershire who turned out to be an expert on the book, he was able to tell me where to find the Chateau in the Sologne, a region of lakes and sandy forests in the heartland of France managed for hunting and shooting. It was boarded up but I found a way in that was secured with barbed wire but clearly others before me had gone through the fence and I did the same. A week before travelling to France to start work on the project I watched a film of the book made in 1967 and to my astonishment the film-makers from 20 years before had left props from the film which were still there. I walked into the ballroom I had seen only the week before in the film and there was the piano the heroine played when Meaulnes first saw her. The arcade in the painting is one side of a courtyard around which the chateau is laid out, it’s flaking paint and creeping weeds giving it the mysterious and timeless atmosphere of Sleeping Beauty’s palace and of Fournier’s book itself. The painting was used as the poster for the exhibition a few months later. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539613951413-NZMSPT4XAKXZNMMQC0HT/18.jpg Interiors - Tuscan interior with vine leaves For my first painting assignment abroad for Francis Kyle gallery I was invited to stay for a week with archaeologist John Romer and his wife, cookery writer Beth. I painted interiors at their home in a tobacco growing region near Arezzo in Italy. They were wonderful hosts. Each evening Beth cooked up an Italian feast and John goaded me into wine fuelled conversation. It was my first experience of really wonderful food, Beth was trying out local recipes for a new book she was writing. They lived part of the year in Egypt where John was busy with excavations and I was riveted listening to stories about his work. It was my birthday whilst I was there and they took me as a treat to see Piero Della frescoes in Arezzo and at Monterchi. I have never forgotten the trip, it was wonderful, nightingales kept me awake at night! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539613889678-BMQ6PNOPNYYQPPLRSK8Z/Tuscany.jpg Interiors - Tuscan Interior Another interior at John and Beth Romer’s beautiful home near Arezzo in Italy. Warm mid-summer shadows and light animating the traditional terracotta tiled floor, beautiful objects and calm and peaceful atmosphere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1483286580690-RKJXQ8YPCMDR2ZO0UHN4/Class2.jpg Interiors http://www.robcollinsart.com/flowers daily 0.75 2018-10-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539783194431-Z6TMI5AZTG9JPOD655JD/3.jpg Flowers - Primrose One of the first paintings made when I moved back to Gloucestershire. I wanted that feeling of discovering the primrose in spring nestled almost hidden in amongst the undergrowth. It took three or four attempts to capture the image. I’d start a painting then return to finish it only to find the flowers had changed. Sometimes rain or wind stopped me returning and again the subject had altered and I had to start again. But I think my patience paid off, I love this image, it really sums up early spring for me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539783449575-W0E9X0O28A50AL2B57V2/2.jpg Flowers - Primrose in spring My second attempt at a similar subject painted in Westridge woods near Wotton-under-Edge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539783749575-Z9KJJ115RG5503DJDPST/IMG_20170207_0006.jpg Flowers - Green Jug with Anemones Occasionally a fabric echoes the visual qualities of the main subject as is the case here, the bold pattern of the cloth mirroring the anemones. The painting was used on the invitation to the private view for my one man exhibition in 1998 when the art critic John Russel Taylor wrote of the painting “Look more closely at….Green Jug with Anemones. Do you imagine that ….. the meticulous placing of that wrinkle in the foreground of the peasant fabric upon which the green jug rests is not the most cunning suggestion of casualness imaginable? Collins has a passionate feeling for the organic, for the sensuous touch of a petal or a rind. His pictures seem to live and breathe before us. Nature he loves, and next to Nature, Art. Wait, I think I mean that in reverse. But then, does it ultimately matter, when nature and art are so intimately bound up together". https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539784715249-XXLKAPWGC5D7RCMEQMA8/12.jpg Flowers I have painted the Indian patchwork in this picture dozens of times and after 30 years the colours are fading but it is still just as beautiful. This modest picture of two cyclamen was a technical challenge as there are two opposing light sources, electric lighting from the right and daylight from the left. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539784755283-7MB6C85EHC0DS31OA59P/4.jpg Flowers I was loaned this wonderful piece of fabric and by pure luck I came across this little primula whose bands of colour perfectly compliment the wandering bands of colour in the textile. The composition couldn’t be simpler but the pattern and colour are full of visual dazzle. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539783798593-80I3ZJFPCYDI56ZM7QE7/Roses+and+clematis.jpg Flowers New Dawn roses and purple clematis in a cottage garden in Gloucestershire. The tumbling flowers and foliage fill the composition. Everything is on the diagonal, a baroque composition suggesting the energy and abundance of summer. My compositions are never casual or unconsidered. Despite the apparent randomness here, I selected and cropped this group to make a composition that feels energised but without any jarring notes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539784897048-ZJFAV5RPCGWQ54TLJHL5/Irises.jpg Flowers Only very rarely do I just come across a beautiful subject without having to add or adjust the elements to make a satisfying composition. But I walked up my garden path one afternoon and saw this exactly as you see it here. I got out my paints and in a couple of hours the picture was finished. Purple and blue irises and catmint set off by the deep shadow behind and light catching the edges of the flowers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1539783376220-891QCMEBC4GJS7DDB2P7/3.jpg Flowers http://www.robcollinsart.com/new-page daily 0.75 2021-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57ff6fc1cd0f686af9279ac0/1629551219054-HSKR6EHVOQ9R442SNCJF/Banner3.jpg <p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Art Appreciation</p>