Newcastle Upon Tyne and Beyond

A Ticket To Ride

Halfway through my latest visit to Newcastle Upon Tyne - my host is at work and I’m taking a break from painting first thing in the morning to do a bit of writing. Several weeks ago I had enlarged giclee proofs made of some collages and they needed to be touched up or enhanced by hand, which has been an excellent portable project for me. I’m using teeny weeny brushes and watercolor, a process I forgot I totally enjoy, and so far the results have been very exciting. We’re going to shoot them again at a much higher resolution so I can make bigger prints later on. We showed them to friends over dinner last night and they got an even better response than the bird pieces I brought along as well.

We’ve been busy all week, galleries in town, a lovely walk through the Jesmond Dene, cooking and grocery shopping, but so far, the most interesting thing was our day at the coastal beach. We started out at Whitley Bay, which is situated on the North Sea coast. From there we walked to Cullercoats with its dramatic waves and where Winslow Homer did his gorgeous paintings of the fishing community. Then we walked down the beach to Tynemouth, which I loved so much the last time I was here, to check out the craft fair they have every weekend in their Victorian rail station. After speaking to a few vendors, it is quite clear I could have a booth there myself if I move here. 

So that, as they say here, is sorted.

We’ll be doing more galleries this week, and we are headed for a day trip by rail to Edinburgh via the Northumbria coast on Saturday. We hope to squeeze in a visit to Sunderland, where my host grew up, and we have a studio visit planned with another artist on Sunday, but today we’re doing laundry when he gets home from work. There is blue peeking through the clouds left over from yesterday’s rain, it could prove to be a beautiful afternoon.