Carneddau Pony

This is painted from one of my favourite photographs of Gary/'s.  It was one of those special moments when we were walking over the summit of the final mountain on our walk and this beautiful wild pony appeared from over the skyline towards us - we both looked at each other, thinking the same thing - magic!  Gary managed to get a wonderful photo and I've wanted to have a go at painting it ever since, only now plucking up the courage to do it!  Here is the photo.....

We've also now completed our 4th waterproof free walk of the year - that must be already a record on last year which was horrendous weather wise!  We decided to walk up Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales and it was a gorgeous (although cold) day... so if you'd like to see the photos pop over to TWO PAIRS OF BOOTS for a nosey!  Here's a taster.....

First painting of 2013!

I've always loved Gary's photo which I used as a reference for this painting - I love the composition of it with just the eye showing so I've been wanting to have a go at painting it for a while now - but all those stripes!!!!  Arrrgh!!!  And I have to say they did drive me a bit nuts but I'm glad I persevered  - so here it is my first painting of hopefully many more to come this year.  We've also had our first walk of the year, on New Year's Day up onto Conwy Mountain, a really great start to the year.......

for more piccies from the walk, hop over to Two Pairs of Boots where you'll see the smallest house in Britain (it's tiny!), Holly in her element swimming in the Conwy Estuary and some gorgeous wild ponies which we often see in this area  - we could do with a few more followers over there as well if you like!  We're off to South Lakes Animal Park tomorrow, looking forward to that and then Friday another walk - I hope the year has started full of excitement for the year ahead -  til next time bloggers!

Castell y Gwynt (Castle of the Winds)

Our first proper winter walk of the year - loads of snow up on the Glyders in Snowdonia and even though I've been full of a horrible cold all week I was determined to get out there as the conditions were looking good .... and we weren't disappointed.  This is one of my favourite views, Castell y Gwynt (Castle of the Winds) up on Glyder Fach with the Snowdon Horseshoe looking glorious in the background.  It's a view that has been painted by many landscape artists - I've not yet tackled it but plan to one day - whether anyone will actually get to see my effort is another matter!

Here are some of my favourites from real artists!

© Louise Morgan
see more on her website HERE

© Alwyn Dempster Jones (pastel)

I've seen this one 'in the flesh' at the Helfa Gelf event (North Wales Open Studios) amazing detail and really nice to meet him, here is a link to his blog
LINK

© Dave Roberts (pastel)

I've been lucky enough to see this one up close as well at the Helfa Gelf when we visited Dave Robert's studio - a brilliant painting and a really lovely guy too

© Rob Piercy

 from the amazingly talented artist Rob Piercy painted this wonderful interpretation of Castell y Gwynt - fabulous isn't it....
here is a link to his website
LINK

Rob Piercy is previewing his Christmas exhibition at his Porthmadog gallery tomorrow and Gary's taking  me to see it - can't wait to meet the man himself!

Here is another of his paintings and another place where we walked yesterday - the beautiful Cwm Idwal,  what a fabulous painting and just how it looked yesterday with the snow topped Glyders behind

© Rob Piercy

 to see more photos from yesterday's walk,  pop over to our walking blog

 TWO PAIRS OF BOOTS, 

if you like winter mountain landscapes I promise you won't be disappointed!

Now for something completely different.....

After painting nothing but birds for the last few weeks I'm having a play around with other subjects - so as Autumn is well and truly with us I thought I'd start with a little study of conkers.

Bonkers about Conkers

© Sharon Whitley

As some of you reading this will know from my last couple of  posts I've been away for a few days walking in the Lake District with Gary and despite it being rather a mixed bag weather wise we got some wonderful walks in, starting with the beautiful Cadair Idris on Saturday where we had great weather...

The glaciated bowl of Llyn Cau

Cadair Idris summit - Penygadair

We did a round of the Coniston Fells on Monday - 5 more Wainwrights completed and again, pretty good weather for most of the day...here I am on Grey Friar, with the mighty Scafells behind me.

Grey Friar with a Scafells backdrop

One of the things I always love seeing when walking in the Lake District are the local sheep, especially the tough Herdwicks or Herdys as they are more affectionately known......here is a particularly cute one....

 and I've also got a soft spot for Swaledales....how can you not love this face!

Both of these are contenders for future paintings, hopefully sooner rather than later so watch this space!

We ended our stay in the Lake District with a visit to Loweswater where we stayed with the lovely Ann and Roger Hiley of Loweswatercam  fame.  Here they are with a drawing I did of their dogs Harry and Bethan.  Take a look at their website to get to know them better and maybe buy one of their calenders (we did) in aid of Mountain Rescue.

The Hileys made us feel so welcome and really looked after us, freshly made bread, home made soup before a wet and windy walk up Low Fell (enabling me to tick off my 80th Wainwright fell) and a wonderful Greek themed supper - the first thing I did when I got home was get the bread maker out which has been hidden away in the cupboard for the last few years!

Holly enjoyed meeting Bethan and Harry, here they are on Low Fell looking down over Crummock Water

Thank you for reading and don't forget to leave a comment so I know you've popped by - have a wonderful day!

A good walk and a Wood Pigeon

On Saturday we got out for a good walk on the Aran Ridge in Southern Snowdonia - I've walked this ridge a few times before but always in miserable weather and have never got a proper view, just a couple of glimpses so I was hoping this time I'd get the view I'd always missed before.  Luck was with us and even though it was a bit cold and very windy, it didn't rain! and the clouds stayed high enough to give us a view!  All the following photos are taken by Gary.

 Looking back towards Aran Benllyn

 The lovely cairn on the ridge between Aran Benllyn and Aran Fawddwy with Creiglyn Dyfi below

 A very friendly sheep

Holly loves walking especially when there's lots of opportunities for swimming and fetching sticks from water - here she is diving into Llyn Pen Aran to fetch her stick 

I'm still painting the birds that visit the garden and the latest is a quick watercolour sketch of the all too familiar wood pigeon - they are common visitors and make me laugh perched on the top of the feeders while the smaller birds flit around them.  I love their repetitive soft cooing song  cooooo cooo cu cu coo coooooo cooo cu cu  - I know some people find it annoying, but I find it really soothing and often find myself cooing along with them!  Anyone else do that or is it just me?!  

Wood Pigeon call

Wood Pigeon

© Sharon Whitley

I had a real thrill tonight when I went over to the kitchen sink to wash a couple of cups - I looked out of the window towards the bird feeders and there was a Sparrowhawk sitting on the fence - then it flew straight past the window in front of me - will have to keep my camera on the windowsill ready in case I see it again - so now the Sparrowhawk is on my painting list too!

Hope you're all having a wonderful day/night!

Red Kite fest

I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that red kites are stunningly beautiful birds. Up until last Friday I'd never been lucky enough to see one, but my word I was in for a treat!  Early Friday morning we drove down to Cadair Idris for a walk up to Llyn Cau, probably my favourite spot in Snowdonia

Regulars to the blog will remember I attempted a painting of this photo in July which I wasn't happy with at the time but it has grown on me a bit

Llyn Cau
© Sharon Whitley

LINK

Anyway, after our walk up to one of the most stunning places in Wales, we drove across to Rhayader and Gigrin Farm where they feed the local red kites each day at 3pm.  Soon after entering Powys we realised why the red kite is the much loved symbol of this vast county as we saw a few overhead on our drive down and I got very excited at these sightings.  Little did I know I would soon be seeing hundreds of these magnificent birds swooping down to grasp their food supplements for the day. There were literally hundreds of them, and a few buzzards taking advantage of the free food too!  Gary took some beautiful photos while we were there which I'm sure will soon be on his blog site.  I'll definitely be painting one or two of these I think! In the meantime though I'm posting a coloured pencil sketch I did of a red kite early last year, my first go at coloured pencil so its not that good!  I'd like to give cp another try some time as I've not really given them a chance and could do with experimenting with them a bit more.

Red Kite
© Sharon Whitley

To make the day even more special we had the most gorgeous weather, beautiful blue skies perfect for photography - I forgot my paints so no plein air, although I was so busy enjoying watching the kites I don't think I'd have done any even if I did have the paints with me!  The rest of the weekend continued to be lovely and sunny and on Saturday I led a group of walkers on a circular walk from Loggerheads to Moel Famau and back, a beautiful, leisurely walk with wonderful views of Snowdonia from the summit, and luckily I didn't lose anybody en route!

Gary and I enjoying the views

I love this photo that was taken by another Sharon who joined us on the walk, this is the view to Moel Famau from Loggerheads at the start of the walk.  I'm hoping we get just as good weather next weekend as we're off to the Lake District on Friday for 3 days, lots of walking and more plein air painting to bore you with!  I'll hopefully get a red kite painting in before then though! Til next time fellow bloggers, take care of yourselves!

Walking in the Carneddau

For the last 2 days of our week away we camped in the Ogwen Valley in Snowdonia under the watchful eye of the majestic Tryfan.  I love this place and Tryfan is a favourite of many mountain walkers. The North ridge is a scramble pretty much from bottom to top - I managed to get a quick sketch in using water soluble graphite and a bit of watercolour - all of course while being attacked by those darn midges whose bites I'm still itching now a week later!

Tryfan sketch

We didn't climb Tryfan on this occasion but instead crossed over to the other side of the valley and walked the beautiful Carneddau mountains. It was a glorious day and I wore my shorts -eeek! ... a very rare occurence for me but luckily it was only a few other walkers that had to suffer the sight of my very white, never see the sun, chunky mountain legs!!!

Here is a small selection of the photos that Gary took on the day, we again came across a few of the wild Carneddau ponies which roam this are and which always give me a thrill and got some lovely shots of swallows being fed on the wing.

Tryfan in the early morning sun

A fledgling swallow fed on the wing - one less midgey to worry about!!
(thinking of painting this one!)

Tryfan and Llyn Ogwen

The beautiful Ffynnon Lloer (Source of the Moon)

A nice little scramble up the East ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen 

Carneddau pony

Ffynnon Llugwy below Pen yr Helgi Du (Hill of the Black Hound)

This beautiful wild pony appeared from over the hill, a lovely sight to see and followed by many more looking for water on a hot afternoon

It was a beautiful walk though the soles of my feet were hurting a bit towards the end - which they never used to on big walks - think it may be time for new boots!!!

That's enough of my rambles for today, hope you enjoyed the photos - I'm very lucky to have a walking partner who doubles as an excellent photographer!  To see more of Gary's photos from our trip you can check out his blog site here.

As always your comments are most welcome - I love to read them and I've switched off the word verification - I know it's a pain!

The Welsh Matterhorn

Cnicht - the Matterhorn of Wales!

Hello fellow bloggers!.... just a quickie today, this is a watercolour sketch I did last week as we were passing through Dwyfor in Snowdonia.  This is a mountain called Cnicht which comes from the word Knight in English (the silent K used to be pronounced in olden times apparently).  I just love how it looks from this angle - it is also known as the Welsh Matterhorn because of its appearance when viewed from the south-west but is actually the end of a long ridge.  It's part of the Moelwynion range of mountains in Snowdonia.  We'd been admiring the view from the car while driving from Harlech and decided to stop so that I could do a quick watercolour sketch - first time I've sat at the side of the road painting something but it was great fun especially in such beautiful surroundings on a gorgeously sunny day.....

Portmeirion

Following on from yesterday's post -  after Sunday's strenuous walk around the Snowdon Horseshoe and climbing Moel Hebog (Hill of the Hawk) and Moel Ogof (Hill of the Cave) on Monday, when it came to Tuesday we decided on a 'chill out' day and visited the beautiful little village of Portmeirion.  This is a place I've wanted to visit for some time but even more so since seeing Rob Piercy's watercolours inspired by his love for the place.  Portmeirion is a tourist village built between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian coastal town.  It's a wonderful little place and we were blessed with glorious sunshine the day we visited which made the colours of the buildings and gardens all the more vibrant.  I took my little watercolour sketch pad with me, a paintbrush and a palette of watercolours, got some water from the pond in the gardens and sat sketching for an hour in the sunshine.....

Watercolour sketch of the Dome Gallery, Portmeirion

Gary took some great photos of this gorgeous place with loads of juicy colours for me to use in future paintings......

Click here for a link to Rob Piercy's Portmeirion collection which I saw exhibited at his gallery in Porthmadog earlier in the day - they are superb!  Oh to be able to paint like that!

Oh and to finish off here are a couple of photos from Monday's walk

Making my way up Moel Hebog - Hill of the hawk, not that we saw any!

The beautiful little village of Beddgelert

Thank you for taking the time to read my rambles, as always I would love to read any comments you have, enjoy your day!