A Father’s Love is a painting of an Exmoor National Park Red Stag. These are the largest wild animals in Britain. These majestic animals roam freely in the hills just a short walk from where we live in Porlock.

The painting Melody is introducing is a Giclee print on canvas that she has enhanced with oil paint. The frame is a float frame in black with gold edge. The painting is available on our website, please follow this link to view.

We are just a week away from Easter Sunday and it seems an appropriate time for Melody to describe her painting and her thinking behind the painting.

Melody studied Art and Art History at Winchester School of Art. It is her love of Art History that permeates all of her paintings. On this occasion she is able to combine this with her love for her Christian faith in Jesus.

The talk is quite unscripted and unrehearsed and we are aware of a few mistakes. We felt in the interest of the spontaneity and flow that we would not redo the video. We hope you can agree that you are more likely to find a herd of deer than a flock and that the other mistakes just give us something to smile at.

You can find out more about Exmoor by following the link to the Exmoor National Park site. But, we both agree this is one of the least discovered gems in England. Exmoor has a beautiful coast and lovely landscape and is an ideal inspiration for an artist or photographer.

Melody hopes you enjoy her talk.

During the video Melody will be talking about her paintings and how she applies the gold leaf. Melody often uses gold leaf on her paintings and will describe how this is relevant to her work.

Welcome to Melody’s studio. Today Melody is hand finishing a Giclee print on canvas with oil paint. Please look out for our next vlog when Melody will be describing how she applies 24ct gold leaf to this painting. Today we join Melody, as a fly on the wall, we get to see how and where she works. Whether an original painting or, in this case a Giclee print on canvas, Melody works with her music in the background, and surrounded by her paints and many paintings. We hope you enjoy these videos and find them interesting and informative.

About Melody’s studio

Melody’s studio is in the centre of Porlock a working village in Exmoor National Park. We found the studio in an old Tannery, as you can see it has high ceilings and is much bigger than you can see here. Melody has many paintings on the walls, some in progress and some still wet, the smell of the oil adding to the atmosphere.

The studio is open most Saturday’s or by appointment. It is quite an experience visiting the studio.

The journey to Porlock brings you into Exmoor National Park, as you approach you can get a sense of what Melody paints and her inspiration. Exmoor is set on the coast overlooking the Bristol Channel towards Wales. Here the National Park merges with the sea, making this a unique setting for an artist.

We believe that this unique setting with it’s clear unpolluted air gives a special quality to the light. We know that artists in Cornwall, especially St Ives, talk about the light. Here on Exmoor we find a similar light, but perhaps a bit softer. Combined with the rich colours of the landscape, the gorse, heather and bracken, we find a richer spectrum of colours. Both Melody and husband David are inspired by these colours and are privileged to work here and to capture this in their work.

To see some of Melody’s work please view her paintings on this site, but Melody has more work in progress and much does not appear online.

To view more of Exmoor National Park please view the website.

Melody almost always paints with her Christian music in the background, this is the case with this video. We have not added a sound track and hope this is not a problem to the artists. Music: Mighty to Save by Hillsong; From the Inside Out by Hillsong; Here I am To Worship by Maranatha Praise Band, thank you for your inspiration.

Now you have printed your Giclee print, prepared your stretcher bars and are ready for the final step. I always find the process, whether printing on paper or canvas an exciting process. Whether a photograph or a painting I find each step from viewing the image on a screen to holding up the finished product seems to add dignity to the image.

Giclee printing an exciting process for the artist or photographer

I remember the first print we produced, Melody and I kept looking at it, not believing this was a flat image. We kept coming back expecting to find that the image somehow had the texture of an original painting. I think part of this is the accuracy of the original image. I have always scanned paintings rather than photograph them. Scanning produces a very large image, sometimes approaching 1 gigabyte. The result of this process is that I have an image that is perfectly in focus, but more than that if I zoom into the image I can see all the swirls and colours that are in the original.

Future blogs and YouTube post

This giclee print is for a customer order and Melody will be transforming it to a mixed media painting. To be honest we never quite know what to call these paintings, they are more than a giclee print and with enough work become originals in their own right. I am currently videoing the process of applying oil paint. Once dry Melody will be applying 24ct gold leaf to bring the painting to life. Keep a look out for our next blog which will show Melody at work in her studio.

You may like to look at our YouTube channel, some relates to art or photography, other posts relate to events I have photographed in our village and some to our travels on Exmoor. I hope you find these interesting.

The stretcher bars, although in metric, are sized in 2 inch steps. For Melody’s original paintings this is fine but for giclee prints you will need to size the canvas print according to the available sizes.

In part 1 I dealt with printing the canvas and protecting it with lacquer, if you have come to this video first it is well worth looking at this. In part 3, I will be stretching the canvas print to produce the finished picture ready to hang.

I started my journey in Giclee printing when Melody and I formed Melody Art in 2003. At that time the process was relatively new and it was quite rare for an artist to self publish. Using this form of printing, researching techniques and obtaining materials was much more difficult. Now the technique is known and used by many artists.

Over the years we have met many artists and have found many to be very helpful. Using YouTube and this blog is a great opportunity for me to equally helpful and free with the experience I have gained during this time. So, I hope you enjoy this article and find it helpful in your journey.

The gallery is situated in Porlock, a lovely working village in the heart of Exmoor National Park. This is a beautifully inspirational place for an artist and a lovely holiday destination. Exmoor National Park has abundant wildlife, is one of the only parks that extends down to the sea and is at the start of the South West Coast Path.

The gallery will be open on Saturdays and at other times we are available to meet you or by appointment in our studio / gallery. We can be contacted via email. Melody paints a variety of subjects which you can view on our website. We have many original paintings some of which are on the website and are added as time permits. We also offer Giclée prints on paper or canvas of many of Melody’s paintings. All pictures can be shipped within mainland UK at not cost, other locations are charged at cost price.

We do look forward to welcoming you to Porlock and hope that the paintings and photographs give you a glimpse of this stunning location.

I started my journey in Giclée printing when Melody and I formed Melody Art in 2003. At that time the process was relatively new and it was quite rare for an artist to self publish using this form of printing, researching techniques and obtaining materials was much more difficult. Now the technique is known and used by many artists.

So what is a Giclée printing on canvas

We see many prints, allegedly Giclée prints, but it is a case of buyer be ware. Having an inkjet printer and sticking in a bit of copy paper does not produce a Giclée print. Firstly the printer is an inkjet printer like many everyday printers, the difference starts with the quality of the inks and papers used. The full definition of the process is covered by The Fine Art Trade Guild, although we are no longer members we do follow the guidelines they publish.

For me the process starts when the image is captured, I scan all our paintings, cameras were not sufficiently accurate back in 2003 and I still have issues with taking photographs of art work. Part of the scanning process is to produce an image that is colour calibrated and can be sent to a printer to produce consistent results.

The next stage is to have a printer that can accept colour profile information from Photoshop or any other high quality image package, and can also accept profile information relating to the paper or canvas being used. Our printers have always used pigment inks although dye based inks are used by some printers. Printers have changed over the years, the Canon printer I use has 12 colours, my previous printer had 7, both produced consistent prints with colours almost identical to the original.

The next choice is the paper or canvas type. I have for many years used Hahnemuhle papers, they have always been expensive but since Brexit have become even more expensive. There are now many sources of papers and canvas and it is worth looking at samples and choosing a surface that suits your particular style, we use etching paper and a matt canvas. The paper as defined in the process should be of a particular weight, off the top of my head the paper we use is about 200gsm (grams per square metre) and the canvas is 340gsm. In addition the papers are coated so that the ink is not absorbed into the paper. Should you try printing on ordinary copy paper you may be able turn up saturation on the colours to approach something like the original, but in truth the paper will be absorbing much of the ink and will be muting those colours.

The papers should be supplied with their own colour profiles ensuring that the print looks the same from one paper to the next, alternately one can have custom profiles produced that take into account the idiosyncrasies of your own printer.

The print shown in the video is “Purple Headed Mountain” and is a limited edition print of one of Melody’s paintings. The painting is of Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Exmoor National Park, and was painted when the hill was covered in heather and gorse.

In part 2 I’m going to be stretcher bars together.

My sleepy eyes recover,
I fix my gaze,
Twinkling stars beacon,
Lights overhead blaze.

I’m nearly home now,
Majestic and calm,
The church is alight, a beacon,
Guiding me into the night.

Welcome!
Visitors and its children alike,
Rest is a promise one can surely rely,
A magnetism draws me,
The warmth prevails,
Invisible rays guide me
To my port,
Curing my ails.

Here the abundance of nature reigns,
Life’s fuel
Is a gift,
To enjoy.

Home for a while,
To rest and be free,
Here is my anchor
Greeting me.

This poem-records the view of St Michaels Church which is on North Hill where we lived in Minehead and is depicted below in Melody’s painting, the church is the blue building in the centre of the hill . Melody has several stories of the church, one is of using the powerful floodlights to roast apples.

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  Mist At Wimbleball Lake – sunrise over the lake

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  Autumn Tide At Wimbleball – a strange find but lovely Autumn colours

Camping in October

Well usually we have our caravan, what luxury, as comfortable as home maybe even better.  This year I had asked for a tent for my birthday, why, I almost shout at myself, well I have found that I want to get places to take photos but it is just too far to travel for a sunrise or sunset.

The caravan is great and would be my first choice, but you can’t tow a caravan into the middle of Exmoor, so a tent seemed to be the answer.

So late October and I decide that if I am going to try it out this year then now is the time.  On a lovely day I set out to Wimbleball Lake.  It takes a while to translate the minimal instructions but eventually the tent is up and looking good.

Let me suggest to anyone thinking of using  a tent for the first time in years, they re not naturally warm, I woke a few times in the night realising how cold it was.  Surviving until the morning and emerging from my tent I realised how cold it had been as the ground was white with frost and the tent was covered in ice.

At least it got me up early and I watched the sun rising over the misty lake, it was spectacular and it is in those moments that the effort is worthwhile, of all the things I see or watch on television this was a moment that I could easily have missed and yet here I was watching my own personal show.  

Later on I walked around the lake and that is when I found the canoe sitting under a tree surrounded by autumn leaves.   I was an interesting walk, the lake which was formed as a reservoir during the 1970s was very empty with one section being almost completely empty.  I didn’t manage a full circuit, it is probably about 10 miles, partly because I stopped and took photos on the way and just enjoyed the day.  I did make it to the dam, to be honest it wasn’t the most scenic dam I have seen, but the lake was lovely and except for a few walkers and a group of fishermen I had it nearly to myself.

I must remember this day when I next plan a stay in my tent, it was certainly worth a bit of discomfort and I got two photos that I have now printed and framed.  Some days out, even if well planed, end up with none, so this was good.

As this is a few days before Christmas, may I wish anyone who reads this a happy Christmas and new year.

Last night I got a sneak preview, I was taking photos at the first dress rehearsal, it is the first time I have done anything like this and it comes with a few challenges.

Firstly the show was very good, so much so that I am going on Friday with Melody and some friends, I am looking forward to being off duty and able to relax and enjoy the performances.

This is what Porlock Visitor Centre has published about the show.

Porlock Pantomime & Drama Society present: SHOWTIME, an evening of well known songs from a range of genres including Musical Theatre, Movie Sound Tracks, Country, 60s Pop, Mowtown and much loved ABBA.
Bistro style seating. Tickets available from: Porlock Home & Hardware; Toucan Wholefoods, Minehead or www.wegottickets.com/porlockdrama

Time: 7.30pm; Bar available from 7pm
Venue: Porlock Village Hall
Price: £8

I think it should be Motown, but perhaps this is a cut above the rest.

My first thoughts for taking photos was that the spotlights would be great, and I would not need a flash.  In fact, I haven’t got a flash that would have lit the stage sufficiently, but the spotlights caused their own problems and my first shots were failures, thank goodness for digital, in the old days I wouldn’t have known until they came back from processing or in the dark room.

A lot of the cast were dressed in black with black stage and silver backdrop, the only white was the faces, the metering didn’t stand a chance, so the first shots were bright white blobs on black suits.  A bit of compensation and constantly being aware of the different costumes and that low angles really didn’t work and finally a bit of post processing that I hope has dealt with those issues.  Anyway, if you come along you will find that the wonderful thing about eyes is that designed long before the digital age they perform so much better.

I’m looking forward to the performance, do come along.