233 Tour de France - stage 10 - oil on dibond

This little painting, all of these tour paintings are 16 cm x 10cm, depicts a dark and stormy skyline reflecting the dark and stormy nature of the tour as it takes another of the favourites from the race. Sorry to see Contador pull out today but it all bodes for an exciting race. Also, happy Bastille day.

232 Tour de France - stage 9 - oil on dibond

 I have been recovering from my birthday yesterday by falling asleep through today's stage in the TDF. I did wake up in time to see Tony Martin win by a huge margin in spectacular fashion. I am thouroughly enjoying my own personal painting tour as a self appointed artist in residence at the Tour de France! Can you see tony on the road, he is the little black and white dot climbing the Grande Pierre.

231 Tour de France -stage8 - oil on dibond

Happy birthday to me! So I haven't seen today's stage apart from this very brief glimpse earlier on.... Looks quick eh! 

230 tdf

Whoops... Late

229 Tour de France - stage 6 - oil on dibond

What should have been a quiet stage turned out to claim a few more riders as they fell on the wet roads, here is one such wet road. The blue you can see, top right, is a strip of cornflower that the farmers of today's part of France have planted to commemorate the young soldiers who lost their lives in the war.

228 Tour de France - stage 5 - oil on dibond

Oh dear what a lot of crashes in the tour today, also a very grey day as favourite Chris Froome had to leave the race. Here is a a treacherous corner on the cobbles.

227 Tour de France - oil on dibond

The Tour de France is now in France... One of the inks I like about watching the tour is the way the landscape changes, or not. This view of the north of France is not that dissimilar to a view of England.

226 Tour de France - stage three - oil on dibond

A surprise today in the stage from Cambridge to London, linseed oil plants have purple flowers! Lovely, and here is a field of it next to a very yellow crop, colour theory on the Tour de France!

225 Tour de France - stage two - oil on 'dibond'

Stage two and this a view over the Cote de Holme Moss, amazingly beautiful and full of everyone in Yorkshire it would seem!

Non cycling 'daily painting' fans will please excuse me over the next three weeks of my painterly marathon.

224 Tour de France - Yorkshire moors

I have begun my own little Tour de France today, I will be painting Tour de France inspired paintings throughout the tour starting with this wonderfully brooding sky from Yorkshire this afternoon you can see the peloton's bright colours along the bottom behind a dry stone wall. 

Importantly these are also my first paintings on dibond! which is an aluminum and plastic support. I wanted to make these tdf paintings on a surface that mirrors the materials used in he sport.

223 Pencil sharpening

I have always loved he shapes that pencil sharpeners make. I used to, and still do, enjoy getting all my pencils out and give them a good old sharpen. Even easier now I have an electric one!

I 'think' this little multiple painting is finished, might add a couple more bits if I feel like it.. The Tour de France begins tomorrow and I am planning to paint alongside those plucky cyclist chaps! More about that tomorrow.

222 Ukulele off cut

This is an offcut of walnut from the neck of the ukulele that I made last year.

Which was by far the best thing I have ever made out of wood!

221 Off cut

I save a lot of offcuts of wood from things I have made or taken apart. I get some odd looks from my friends.... But even I don't know why I saved this offcut!

220 Branch

A branch from a bit of tree pruning. Providing a nice balance for the lolly pop stick.