I include below images of just a few of my pen and watercolour sketches of a variety of waterfront scenes in different parts of Europe to which I have travelled. Click on any one to view a slide show of all the images and locations in larger format . . .
Tag Archives: coast
To HEAL the HURT
An Etheree is a 10-line poem in which each line follows a syllable count that matches the line number. For example, the first line has one syllable, the second has two, etc. The poem is unrhymed but has rhythm, meaning, imagery, and sometimes an underlying second meaning.23 May 2017.’
The etheree can take a variety of different forms, but for this, my first attempt, I have kept things simple (if that is the correct word for a tricky exercise) and hopefully straightforward.
She
Was late
After nine
Walking slowly
Along the seashore
With only one purpose
Looking for his sand imprints
The staunch assurance in his stride
Resolution taut as pre-stressed steel
Hoping against hope she’d find him weeping
Runswick Bay
Atop the sea cliffs
I tread the uneven
foot beaten
wind worn path
I turn and look back
look down
along the line of this eastern shore
across the arc of the bay towards
the cliff-clinging terracotta cottages
carved from the rock of the wave beaten coast
I watch the writhing waves
pound the seawall rocks
insistently biting into the land’s defences
high casting their salty spume
into the sky’s blue blanket
and all the time beside me
at the path’s edge
the rustle of waving barley
their sighing hush
competing with the sea swell
to bring the landscape into one waving vision
the smooth surface tension of the early summer scene
contesting the still silence
of the placid inland rolling moors
delighting both eye and mind
and bringing contentment
to a world of both beauty and sorrow
Runswick Bay is a small coastal village, set in a sweeping, sheltered bay on the North Sea Coast of Yorkshire. It borders on the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and the Cleveland Way National Trail runs on the coastline above the village.
The Coast of North West Cornwall
[ Photo Gallery # 87 }
To the east and the west of the Camel Estuary (see my blog of a week ago ) lie numerous inlets of the sea . Delightful coves and small villages clinging to the Cornish cliffs. Below is a gallery of my photographs of a number of these.
Rough sea on a misty morning at Polzeath
After the shower near Port Quin
Sign on entering the National Trust village of Port Quin
View of the inlet at Port Quin
The village of Port Isaac – used as the setting for the TV series ‘Doc Martin’.
Looking out to sea from the harbourside of Port Isaac
The beach at Trevone Bay near Padstow
The Lighthouse at Trevose Head, a headland on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall
The Neal Rock with the Trevose Head lighthouse in the background
Close up view of The Neal Rock at Trevose Head
The cliffs and rocks at Bedruthan Steps
The granite rocks that are dotted across the beach are, according to legend, stepping stones for the Giant Bedruthan.
North Yorkshire Coast #1
[ Photo Gallery # 78 ]
After my three Photo Galleries displaying the delights of Whitby, my next two galleries will cover some of the delights of the Yorkshire coast further north, now named the ‘North Yorkshire and Cleveland Heritage Coast’.
‘Heritage Coast’ sign at Sandsend
A sea mist masks the church and gravestones of the coastal village of Hawsker
Evening view to the north from the beach at Sandsend
Rough sea looking south towards Whitby from Sandsend.
Misty morning beside Westbek at Sandsend
The picturesque artists’ village of Runswick Bay
High tide in the bay at Runswick
Further view of Runswick Bay
The old mining village of Skinningrove where the Kilton Beck meets the North Sea and still runs red with the iron deposits carried down from the surrounding hills . Known as ‘Britain’s Iron Valley’.
Kilton Culvert (N.B. not one of my own photographs)
Three views of the ‘Repus’ Cobble, an old Skinningrove fishing boat now positioned looking out to the North Sea from the beach at Skinningrove.
It is not clear why this cobble has been named ‘Repus’, but it has been pointed out that the name spells ‘Super’ backwords!
Manning the prow of the ‘Repus’ Cobble
Cornwall – The South-East Coast
[ Photograph Gallery #70 ]
Moving west from the coast of Somerset, which was the subject of my last photographic gallery ( See – ‘Coleridge and Watchet’ ), I intend, over the next few weeks, to offer some of the photographs which I have taken in England’s western-most county, Cornwall, mainly in its coastal areas, on my several visits there over the last ten or so years. I begin today on the south-eastern coast of the county, covering part of the area between Cothele on the border with Devonshire and Fowey (pronounced (Foy).
Map of the South-East coast of Cornwall
Calstock and the Viaduct from Cothele House (National Trust)
The Harbour at Looe
Polruan
Polruan Siesta
Polruan – Coastguard Lookout Station
Rame Head
Cawsand
At Mount Edgecumb
School’s Out – at Mount Edgcumb
Cottage in Fowey (pronounced ‘Foy’)
Old timbers at Tor Point
Ship’s Figurehead at Anthony House
Ireland – The Dingle Peninsula
[ Photo Blog #57 ]
Following on from the photographs of my visit to Killarney and the Mulcross Estate, today’s tour is of the Dingle Peninsular, one of the 3 promontories which jut out into the Atlantic Ocean from the south-west coast of Ireland.
Map of South West Ireland showing the Dingle Peninsula
Beach along the southern coast of the Peninsula
Further along the southern coast with a view to the outlying islands
Looking eastwards back towards Dingle
One of the Dingle Peninsula’s many small secluded beaches
The Dingle Peninsula has many dozens of standing stones such as this menhir beside the coast road.
. . . and this menhir further along the coast
The roadside remains of a one-time occupied croft
Dingle Slea Head Crucifix – one of many such roadside shrines
Seagull on the seawall with the Blasket Islands behind
Sea thrift beside the coast road
Roadside wild foxgloves at the south-western end of the peninsula
The ROCK
Triassic Red Rock at Exmouth, Devon … Photograph WHB – 2010
Offcut of the Jurassic coast
Orphan of the distant cliffs
Detached from its mother lode
Now an imposing sentinel
A majestic rock
A Triassic red rock.
Descendant of the Devon Cliffs
Ancestor of a million pebbles
Reliving its life in isolation
Facing the diurnal tides
Confronting Poseidon’s rage
Andromeda’s chains now long cast off
This pedestal of the shoreline
Now serving a valued purpose.
Harbouring shore life
A haven for gulls
Cosseting kelp
Succouring seabirds
Sheltering shellfish
Anchoring limpets
Its periwinkles
Feeding on its algae
Minimally diminishing with every tide
Yet serving its constituency
With resolution.
And promising
Its adherents
A fitting future.
Runswick Bay & Staithes
These are my Pen & Wash sketches of two quite different but equally fascinating coastal villages of North Yorkshire, England. Below them is a short article about their history of attracting and inspiring artists.
RUNSWICK BAY & STAITHES
These two villages lie only a few miles north of Whitby and within the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. The villages, only about 4 miles apart, each grew up around an inlet of Yorkshire’s North Sea Coast. Both villages have a distinctive character and are fascinatingly atmospheric. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries they nourished separate artistic communities, which are now considered to be of greater significance than has previously been recognised because of the number of artists who worked there and the paintings they produced.
One of the best known of these was the Yorkshire-born artist Arthur Friedenson who visited Runswick Bay to work many times. Friedenson was initially apprenticed as a sign writer, before training as an artist in Paris and Antwerp. However, it was in this lovely Yorkshire coastal village that Friedenson met his future wife, and after they married in November 1906, he returned to Runswick Bay the following spring in order to paint the picture below. It was much admired at the Royal Academy that year, and purchased for the nation.
Arthur Friedenson – Runswick Bay -1907 . . . Tate Gallery
An interesting website, which contains a lot of material about the art galleries and museums in the area, can be found at: Staithes & Runswick Bay Art Galleries
Aberaeron
Pen and Wash painting from the harbour – Aberaeron … WHB – 2013
ABERAERON is a small 
harbour town in Ceredigion, Wales. It lies on the coastline of Cardigan Bay looking out towards the Irish Sea. It has a small but vibrant harbour usually heavily stocked with pleasure boats of all sizes and shapes. There is much extremely impressive and beautiful Georgian architecture to be seen in the town. Many of the houses have taken on a distinctive look by being decorated in bright colours as can be seen in my pen and wash painting above. The town has the reputation of being “one of the best examples of a planned township of small scale in Wales”. Today the town, situated between Aberystwyth and Cardigan, serves as a touring centre for the Cardigan bay area of Wales. The town’s name is from the Welsh meaning “mouth of the River Aeron”.
I include below images of just a few of my pen and wash sketches and two photographs of scenes in different parts of Wales (titles below). Click on any one to view a slide show of all the images in larger format . . .
Criccieth – Early Morning
Carreg Cennan Castle
Abergavenny-Brecon Canal
Criccieth Castle
Bishop Rock Lighthouse Pembrokeshire
Brecon Foxglove (Photo)
Farmyard – Brecon (Photo)
Fishing at Criccieth – Early Morning;
On the Abergavenny – Brecon Canal;
Criccieth Castle; Bishop Rock Lighthouse, Pembrokeshire;
Foxglove nr. Brecon (Photo); In a Farmyard nr. Brecon (Photo)
Roland's Ragbag 