The new studio, a converted Cart Shed in the garden, was finished just in time for the North Yorkshire Open Studios event in June 2010. It will not normally be open to the public, but the event produced a steady stream of visitors who were also able to enjoy the garden at its best in the early Summer sunshine. Several paintings were sold, and there were 2 offers of shows from galleries. I guess its downhill all the way from here on tidyness.

St Kilda

The remote and hauntingly beautiful islands of St Kilda (www.kilda.org.uk) have long fascinated and inspired naturalists, artists, writers and poets. They lie 41miles West of Scotland's Outer Hebrides, in the middle of the Atlantic. The native population was evacuated in 1930, ending an extraordinary story of survival that had lasted 2000 years. The islands, a double World Heritage Site, are now under the joint care and protection of The National Trust for Scotland (www.nts.org.uk), Scottish Natural Heritage (www.snh.org.uk) and the MOD (www.mod.uk).

My visit in 2010 inspired a series of small oils which try to capture the isolation, solitude and stark beauty of St Kilda's magnificent windswept cliffs, sea stacks and islands in the quickly and ever changing light and weather.

2010 began with the need to assemble a body of work for the North Yorkshire Open Studios in June. A series of Winter paintings inspired by a visit to the Scilly Isles provided the starting point. A stay at the famous Hell Bay Hotel www.hellbay.co.uk on Bryher led to a number of small oils, hopefully showing a different side to the bright and clear sunlit images normally encountered. With limited light and a limited pallette, moody skies and breaking clouds were the order of the day.