Today we had a cancellation for our Painting Week next spring. The participants were planning to celebrate their 70th birthdays while they were with us but there is going to be a big family celebration organised for them next March and they have had to cancel their booking with us for the painting week.

This means that our ‘bijou’ double apartment, ‘Serica’ is now available for the painting week arriving on Friday 2nd March and departing on Friday 9th March 2012. You can find out a little more about ‘Serica here:

‘Serica’ apartment at Glandore

If anyone is interested, you can contact us for full details on the email address
office_at_glandorescilly.info

(please remove the underscores and replace ‘at’ with @ )

We’ve joined forces with Chris Garratt of Garratt Studio who will be offering two morning of oil painting tuition and advice. Steve will be doing three mornings of watercolour painting and advice and there will be a full day off in the middle of the week for partipants to spend as they wish. Steve will probably go out painting himself on that day, if the weather is fine, and guests are more than welcome to join him if they wish. Forecasts, oracles and seaweed will all be consulted!

We’re planning dinner for everyone on the day of arrival, probably at the Isles of Scilly Golf Course, which is only five minutes walk up the hill, and where Fay and Ramsey provide excellent catering. Then we will provide dinner for everyone at Glandore on the final night before departure. Having had our own very successful guesthouse for twenty years, we have plenty of experience when it comes to good food and catering for a party.

Since we only have three apartments (two for two people and one for two/three), the maximum number of participants will be seven. We’re assuming that not every guest will want to paint so the number may well be more like four or five.

On the morning that Lois was printing out the letters ready to send, we had our first booking when some visitors, already on the list to receive details, came into the Gallery and decided there-and-then to book for the Painting Week. So we were off to a flying start!

At the time of writing, we have the first week (Friday 2nd – Friday 9th March 2012) fully booked already and are starting on our second, reserve week which will be Monday 12th to Monday 19th March 2012! If anyone is interested, we have a two person and a three person apartment free for the second week – contact us for full details on the email address office_at_glandorescilly.info (please remove the underscores and replace at with @)

Original watercolour paintings Stephen Morris 21-07-2011

Not long ago, from the window of our Gallery, we saw the tarpaulin had been removed and Peter and his wife, Fiona, were working aboard the yacht to prepare her for a season of summer sailing.  Her mast was brought out of the shed and set in place with great care and attention to detail. Much polishing and hard work was carried out to get her pristine and immaculate, ready for launching from the slipway.

On the hot sunny afternoon of Friday 1st July, Steve went out onto Porthloo beach to continue working on a large beachscape watercolour. During the morning, I had seen a large tractor carefully tow ‘Shuna’ on her trolley down the slipway and onto Porthloo Beach, to await the high tide later in the day.  So, late afternoon, I put a notice on the Gallery counter ‘Back in ten minutes. Please feel free to look around’, grabbed my camera and hurried out onto the beach.

Shuna of Melfort preparing to leave Porthloo 1st July 2011

It might have been fifteen minutes actually … but I took some photos of Steve painting and also of the ‘Shuna of Melfort’ with Peter and a crewmember on board, preparing to sail to her mooring in the harbour. As I came off the beach, I met Fiona Martin who had come out for a walk with her dog and had forgotten her camera so asked if I’d got any photos. I said I had and she asked if I could email some to her. I was happy to do that and despatched three images by email that evening. I asked about the ‘Shuna’ and Fiona kindly supplied the following details (for anyone who might be interested)

‘Shuna of Melfort’ was built by Dewar’s in Bo’ness, Scotland in 1963 and designed by G L Watson.

G. L. Watson | Classic Yacht Design and Restoration | Superyacht Management

I also found an interesting blog post about the ‘Shuna’ on the Scillywebcam site together with a couple of photos showing the sad state of the yacht when she was salvaged from the Western Rocks in about 1999. Click on the image in the blog post to open it in a new window and you can see the damage she suffered.

‘Shuna of Melfort (from Scilly webcam)

'Shuna of Melfort' 1st July 2011

'Shuna of Melfort' leaving Porthloo, St Marys, Isles of Scilly 1st July 2011

After nine years of hard work to restore the yacht to its current immaculate condition in 2008, it’s a credit to Peter Martin that she looks so fabulous!

This shows Stephen working on a large watercolour of Porthloo Beach, using his adapted picnic table with adjustable legs for uneven surfaces. It’s heavy but useful.

Stephen working on a large watercolour painting of Porthloo Beach, 1st July 2011

By 9.45am, the first participants were arriving and Stephen chatted to them in the Gallery, doing brief demonstration sketches with the ink brush and water pen to show what they would be doing. As an aside, he suggested that I might make a cake so they could have coffee and cake when they returned from their outing … though I suspect he was hoping I’d make a large cake and there would be some left over for us

Once all seven were present, Stephen took them out onto Porthloo Beach just after 10am and they spent a while sketching in the shelter of Newford Island, out of the wind, before crossing the sandbar onto the island and sketching from there. Fortunately not only the weather was favourable but so was the tide. When they went onto the beach the sandbar was covered but the tide was dropping quite quickly and, before long, the bar was dry so they could cross without getting their feet wet.

Porthloo Beach, St Marys, Isles of Scilly. 8-05-2011

In their absence, I made a Victoria sponge with strawberry jam filling and set out plates/forks, teapot, cafetiere, mugs etc on trays ready for their return. I also created a brief Feedback form so we could ask for their comments about the Sketching Morning – whether they enjoyed it, what we might have added and what level of experience they had as an artist. Feedback is very useful for us to help with planning next year’s event.

When they returned just after 12.15, some participants were quite chilled by over two hours out of doors in the wind and were grateful for hot tea and hot coffee to warm them up. The Gallery itself gets quite warm when sunshine pours through the big windows so it wasn’t long before everyone had thawed out. The cake was well received as well

Victoria Sponge Cake

Six out of the seven participants filled out the Feedback Form which was valuable for us. We had three beginners who all said that the Sketching Morning was perfect and they couldn’t think of anything we might have added. They particularly enjoyed Stephen’s informal approach, his willingness to talk and explain various ideas, his tips on using the materials and his ability to give them confidence rather than allowing them to feel daunted by the new materials. One wrote that Steve made her feel relaxed about being a beginner and able to make mistakes without being judged. She said it was ‘great fun’. Another said she felt she could not have had a better morning, gave it ten out of ten and added that she couldn’t wait for the next one!

The keen amateurs particularly liked his helpfulness and enthusiasm, his instructive comments and advice about how to get the best out of the new and unfamiliar materials, and the freedom to enjoy playing around and experimenting with them. They also felt that the Sketching Morning was pitched just right for its mix of artists’ abilities, offering a relaxed and informal introduction to sketching with the ink brush pen and water brush.

Once all the participants had gone, we cleared away and had lunch. Stephen relaxed by watching the Turkish Grand Prix on the TV then shouldered his painting Rucksack and headed off to the beach path below Harry’s Walls to continue painting the colourful cluster of Echium candicans with the Hawthorn decked in May blossom as a backdrop. He didn’t return until gone 7pm and was very pleased with his progress on what is a complex and detailed painting. He’s hoping to keep it for his next Exhibition at Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses in November.

There were already a lot of people present when we greeted Oriel and wandered around downstairs a bit, peeping into some of the studio/workshops down there. Steve bought me a purple swirl necklace from Paula Smith of ScillySmiths for Christmas and it’s very pretty. Then we headed up stairs where the ‘Bar’ was set up in the corner and a table with ‘nibbles’ was laid out nearby. Having acquired a glass of wine for Steve and one of apple juice for me, we chatted to various people and looked around.

ArtScilly 2011 social evening

We left at about 9.15am, just as the heavens opened with a fairly sharp downpour and walked briskly home, getting quite wet on the way. The rain was just stopping when we reached home. Steve headed into the Gallery to prepare the art materials for his informal Sketching Morning tomorrow – brush pens, water pens, clipboards, paper and fine water spray bottles. He has at least five attendees and the weather forecast is looking good – sunshine and southerly winds between 20 – 30mph.

This afternoon, he spent his third session working on a painting at Thomas Porth (Sharks Pit) just in front of Grenofen where someone has planted a cluster of small Echium candicans on either side of the beach path. This plant is otherwise known as ‘Pride of Madeira’, and is the bush echium with its candelabra shape and vivid blue-purple blooms. The plants still have a lot of growing to do but they’ve been resplendent in spires of bloom for about a week to ten days now. The spires are made up of hundreds of tiny flowerets all arranged around the central stem and are very intricate.

Detail of echium watercolour

The painting probably still has two or three afternoons work to go and, as yet, there are only two echium spires but no background or real foreground. It’s not a traditional method of working in watercolour but it works for Stephen and it worked for his late aunt, Nan Heath, who used the same technique for her softer, less detailed watercolour paintings.

On Monday morning, one of us will be manning the ‘ArtScilly Hub’ at Tregarthen’s Hotel just by the Harbour in Hugh Town, where information and artwork will be on display to help visitors make the most of ArtScilly week. If he decides to take this ‘shift’, Steve is planning to take along his rucksack and actually do a painting of the view from the window. We are also scheduled to be on duty on Friday morning so, if he needs to, he will take along his rucksack again and either do more to the painting or even complete it. I’ll be looking after Glandore Gallery while he’s busy.

Finally, a photo I took of a particularly large Echium candicans at the entrance to Jacksons Hill, off Church Road leading up to St. Marys’ Health Centre and Hospital. Spectacular hardly does it justice!

Echium candicans and blue sky, April 2011

However, in the meantime, I’ve created a brand new website called Scilly Cards which offers our entire blank greetings card range together with a Paypal Shopping cart which enables customers to buy Glandore Gallery products online for the very first time

Here you can find both Stephen and Nan’s cards – each one illustrated on a separate page with a large image. They can be bought singly for £1 (GBP 1) per card with 50 pence postage and packing if you only want one card. However, we’re also offering our brilliant value-for-money packs of cards – five different packs of Nan Heath cards and three different packs of Stephen Morris cards. Nan’s card packs comprise five cards each while Steve’s comprise six cards each.

This is exactly the same price as you would pay in our Gallery on Scilly and represents excellent value. Each pack is £4 (GBP 4) for five/six cards and we charge £2 (GBP 2) for postage and packing. If bought in a pack, Stephen’s cards work out at an amazing 67 pence each while Nan’s work out at 80 pence each. We think you’d be hard-pressed to find cards of this quality at an equivalent price anywhere!

I’m also planning a similar website for the prints as well as being in the process of redesigning the Apartments website. Like the Gallery website, this has ‘evolved’ considerably from its first incarnation and, with the introduction of our new apartment, Slippen this spring, it’s also suffering from ‘add-on’ navigation complications.

On the personal side, we have our lovely adult autistic daughter home for a three week Easter holiday which means our day-to-day lives have to be adapted to fit her need and routines. It makes it much more difficult for Steve to get out and paint since it can be challenging for me to run the Gallery AND look after our daughter. We have to gauge her mood carefully before he leaves to paint and he has to check mobile phone reception at his chosen painting spot to ensure that I can reach him if necessary. Nonetheless, he has managed to get out to Watermill three afternoons this week where he has been painting a fabulous sea of bluebells with a background of the headland and blue sea.

Mesembryanthemum tumbling over our patio wall

The garden has been looking lovely this spring, with the white froth of pear blossom now giving way to the pink cloud of apple blossom. The bluebells are flowering underneath the trees as the daffodils and narcissi begin to fade. The brilliant and colourful Geranium Maderense is now coming into flower. This geranium species is native to the Canary Islands and flowers profusely on the islands every spring. Even the mesembryanthemums are getting in on the act with several plants in our garden putting on a brave early showing. It’s a bright and breezy day today and there’s a good forecast for the Easter weekend.

Preparations are already well in hand for the World Championship Gig Racing this weekend with the marquee being erected on the boat hardstanding next to Holgates Green.

Preparing for World Championship Gig Weekend

Town Beach, St. Marys, Isles of Scilly 22-04-2011

This page isn’t wide enough to show the panorama of Town Beach above at full size so just click on the image and it will open on its own for you

As part of our own contribution towards helping publicise all this fabulous work, we took on the task of designing and crafting a large advertising board with details of all twenty five different craftspeople, both with and without their own studio/galleries. It is on display at the Isles of Scilly Tourist Information Centre in the middle of Hugh Town so it can be seen by as many visitors as possible.

There were originally three Arts and Crafts Display Boards. One was in in the TIC, another in the waiting room on St Marys Quay and the third (the largest) was at Lands End Airport, St. Just, in the Skybus arrivals/departure lounge. We updated and revised all three in 2004 but, in 2007, when we came to do them again, only one remained. Unfortunately the one in the Quay Waiting Room and the one at Lands End Airport had both been removed.

In about 2004, Oriel Hicks designed the first Arts and Crafts brochure (the one in the centre of the picture below) with illustrations and a map by Sue Lewington, a well known artist then living on St. Martins. After Sue left the islands, Oriel produced another brochure in 2007 (the one on the left) and this year, 2011, saw her design an updated version (the one on the right).

'Made in Scilly' Brochures

For the 2011 board update, Steve Sherris joined the team and produced a modern white stained frame for the display. Oriel brought me a CD with all the images from the new brochure and I spent the last two days creating twenty five different panels for all the artists and craftspeople working on the islands. Steve designed and cut a very complex and fragile mount to house all the panels as well as a central map of the islands so the location of each Gallery could be shown. He used our big giclee printer, Bertha, to create and print the map which had to be L-shaped to fit the space in the centre of the board.

I’ve put a digital image of the board below but it wasn’t easy to get as much detail as I wanted. Still, it gives a good idea of the whole concept

'Made in Scilly' 2011

Steve finished the board and took it in to the TIC this morning where it now hangs in a prominent place. Visitors can use Oriel’s brochure together with the board to plan their route around the arts and crafts galleries that they want to see. Hopefully they will find it useful and interesting!

Don’t forget that it’s ‘ArtScilly’ from 7th – 14th May and all these artists and craftspeople will be welcoming visitors to their galleries to chat and many will be demonstrating their work. There will be workshops, Exhibitions, displays and other activities for visitors to enjoy. Check out the website for more information.

Oh, and tomorrow sees the start of ‘Walk Scilly’ so please keep your fingers tightly crossed for some nice weather Last year some of the off island trips were cancelled due to gales and rough seas which was a great shame.

Steve had spent two days hanging the magnificent curtains and voiles so the apartment was now looking much more ‘dressed’. Artwork was still in the pipeline but we had two of Nan Heath’s original oil paintings (bequeathed to Frank by friends) and a large watercolour of Steve’s looking up into a green and leafy tree in Old Town Churchyard as well as a giclee print of ‘Slippen’ the gig and an autumn view of Peninnis with blackberries. It was just a matter of deciding where in ‘Slippen’ they would fit and look their best.

I took some photos of ‘Slippen’ before our guest arrived so I could put them here on the blog. The final photos and website are still a work in progress (around the last of the spring cleaning and an Open University course).

Supper in Slippen - view from bedroom door

Supper in Slippen - view from table across lounge/dining room

Supper in Slippen - view from patio windows towards kitchen

What did we eat, you ask? Well, I did an Artichoke and Smoky Bacon Soup with Onion batons to start, then Steve did Gammon in Coca Cola for main course with new potatoes, beans and butternut squash, then pudding was my responsibility. I did a recipe I’d never done before (which was a bit of a gamble) but it paid off – Mocha Tiramisu Cheesecake … which was delicious

Mocha Tiramisu Cheesecake

Today we are expecting our first guests (Serica is looking sparkling and fresh) and the weather is warm and sunny with a gentle breeze. The boats on Porthloo Green are nearing the end of their winter maintenance, sporting fresh coats of paint and preparing to go back into the water for the new season. ‘Sea King’ went down a couple of days ago.

'Sea King' waiting for high tide on Porthloo Beach

We are also picking up some short break bookings for late March/early April. Don’t forget that it’s Walk Scilly week from 2nd to 9th April and Art Scilly week from 7th – 14th May 2011. We have some short break vacancies in all three apartments for Walk Scilly but only ‘Slippen’ is available for Art Scilly so you’ll have to be quick

It usually takes us a good six weeks to complete a thorough spring clean, do any necessary painting and redecorating, replace anything broken or damaged, before finally heaving a sigh of relief when the Gallery is open and the apartments are occupied. Then we can take a breather and get into our ‘summer routine’ ….

So these are images of Glandore Gallery and Serica apartment that few customers and guests will ever see!

Yesterday the weather was kind so Lois was able to open up all the windows in the Gallery both north and south facing, to clean them from top to bottom, getting rid of the debris of the winter including dead flies and sand. Her equipment for this job includes a stepladder, a big bucket of hot soapy water, a large Jeycloth, a rough scrubbing sponge and, most importantly of all, a battery of toothbrushes to delve into the really difficult spots. Then all the hinges have to be treated when dry with silicone spray to ease and protect them.

Then Martin, who helps us with the apartments and the garden, was able to move in with a massive box of dustsheets and swathe the Gallery from end to end, preparatory to bringing in the brilliant white emulsion for the ceiling and the magnolia emulsion for the walls, a massive box full of brushes, rollers and paintpads.

Spring cleaning the Gallery

More spring cleaning for the Gallery

Yet more Gallery spring cleaning

Down in ‘Slippen’, Steve has been cleaning the building dust of the winter from every nook and cranny of the kitchen which served as hub for all the alterations. It is slowly emerging from the dust, debris and junk like a butterfly from a chrysalis! No photos of this – sorry. The sight of ‘Slippen’s kitchen after The Big Conversion is not a sight we would like to inflict upon our sensitive readers ….

Finally, up in Serica, spring cleaning is also underway. The weather wasn’t kind to Lois today – wet and windy – so she couldn’t wash and clean the windows as planned. Instead she dusted coving, washed and polished the lightshades, cleaned and polished the over bed cupboards inside and out, cleaned skirting boards, wardrobe, then had to call Steve up from ‘Slippen’ to help her move the bed so she could clean underneath the bed and vacuum the carpet. Maybe if the weather is nicer tomorrow, she’ll be able to do the windows … but don’t hold your breath, it’s not looking good :\

Spring cleaning Serica's bedroom

Spring cleaning Serica's bedroom

Spring cleaning in Serica

And we haven’t even touched Golden Eagle yet, or the stairs, or the entrance hall, or the entrance lobby, or the outside steps ….

Last week we tackled the stocktaking – another winter job which takes at least a week. Just as we were about to start we took delivery of twelve thousand cards from our printers in Birmingham – three thousand each of four of Stephen’s existing cards (Tower of Pebbles, Rockpool Reflections, Porthcressa Memories and Porthloo Poppies). It took us a day just to re-organise the store rooms and put them all away. The Stephen spent three days number-crunching and battling with the Excel database and stocksheets on the computer – his favourite job ….. NOT!!!!!

Preparations are also going on behind the scenes for Stephen’s Exhibition at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Edgbaston in the autumn. Provisional date for the opening is the last weekend in October and it should be on for a month. Make a note in your diaries!