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Under the trees, Castle Hill, Great Torrington	I live in Barnstaple, North Devon and I paint landscapes in pastel, acrylic, oil and (rarely) watercolor. My paintings all grow out of walks that I take in the countryside, which is why so many of them have paths winding into the picture. I am very interested in the texture of grasses and leaves, water and sky. I want my paintings to feel real, so that you can imagine walking into them, feeling the earth beneath your feet as you do so. If I was asked to give my style of painting a name, I would call it "Raw Earth Painting." It is about the earth being there as a real presence, beneath the grass, even when you cannot see it.
Marleycombe Down	My paintings are also about places that mean something to me. This is Marleycombe Down, in Bowerchalke, Wiltshire, my most favourite hill of all. When I worked for my father, James Lovelock, in the 1970`s I used to walk over Marleycombe with him most days, and he would talk about the idea he had that the Earth was a self-regulating system (Gaia). As a family we have always cared about the environment, and I like to think of myself as a "Green Artist" - I don`t drive a car, and use public transport nearly all the time. Nearly all my trips to wind farm sites have been on foot, or by bus, coach or train.
With the statue of Gaia, in Bowerchalke,	This is a photo of me at the time I was working in the "family business", with the statue of Gaia in the garden in Bowerchalke. The footpath in the painting "Marleycombe from the footpath" is just above the hedge. One of my jobs was to take sunphotometer readings (all to do with Global Dimming although no one called it that, then) I also helped enter chlorofluorocarbon data from the Shackleton into our (then) state of the art computer. I was an athlete in those days (running under my then married name of Curthoys) and South Western Champion at 800, 1500, 300 and Cross Country. I ran the fastest laps in the National Road Relays in 1973 and 1976, competed internationally and later (after having three children) won the World Veterans 10K Road Race Championships (Overall winner). It was great competing, but what I loved most about running were the early morning runs over Marleycombe and into the woods of Verndtch Chase. I used to see paintings in my mind that I wanted to do, and I am working on some of them now, many years later.
Hungry Hill	This painting is of Hungry Hill in Bantry Bay, West Cork, my favourite mountain. It may not be very high, but it is impressive, rising straight up from the bay. My parents bought a bungalow here in the 1960`s and it was during the long summer holidays then - when not climbing Hungry Hill - that my father started looking for industrial tracers in the haze that came from Europe. His electron capture detector was so sensitive that it discovered CFCs not only in the haze but in the clean Atlantic air.. Eventually the bungalow became an atmospheric monitoring station, run for many years by Michael O`Sullivan and. I carried on handling the data from it until 1986.
	This is a very old photo of my father and I, up on Hungry Hill. He was taking air samples. If I remember correctly, he then flew to America with them, and there was some amusement at US Customs about containers filled with "fresh air from Ireland". Hungry Hill is a marvelous mountain to climb, made of Old Red Sandstone, the slabs of rock often at just the right angle so that you can run up them. From the summit you can see both of the adjacent peninsulas and you feel as if you are on top of the world.
Great Torrington	This is the view from Mill Street In Great Torrington, another of my favourite places. I lived in Torrington from 1986 until 1998, and walked on Castle Hill nearly every day. The town itself is built on the hill, and surrounded mostly by common land. It is made of the same kind of rock as Hungry Hill. Walking down the hill in springtime, when the air was rich with the coconut smell of gorse, I often felt as if I was in Ireland again.
Barnstaple	This painting is called "July, Manning`s Pit". Manning`s Pit is the field just beside my house in Pilton, Barnstaple. I have done many paintings of it, and Tutshill Woods nearby. I live on the edge of the town, so I am lucky enough to be able to walk out into the countryside each day. The Fullabrook Down Wind farm is over the hill in this painting. It isn`t close enough to effect me personally, but having walked those hills, I know that they mean as much to the people who live there as Marleycombe, and Castle Hill and Hungry Hill.mean to me.

Great Torrington, Bantry Bay, and the hills to the west of Barnstaple are all now threatened by giant wind turbines. Only Bowerchalke is safe from the threat, for now.

More Paintings

The Bathing Pool, Great Torrington	The Leper Fields, Great Torrington	Cliffs near Lynton	Fields near Rosemoor
July, near Great Torrington	Hen Harrier hovering over Blackcraig Hill, Scotland	The Footpath by the church, Bowerchalke	Summer evening, River Torridge

More Fullabrook Photos - from a walk around Patsford

The developers describe this landscape as "bland"- I wonder if they have ever walked around it properly?

Wild flowers on a bank - lady`s smock and primroses	Burland Lane, the ancient road from Ilfracombe to Braunton	A view of the sea - Lundy was visible	A view of Dartmoor
Looking towards Hartland	Mare Lane - towards Marwood	Tathill and Spencer`s woods	Crossroads

After the walk, I took part in the Art Trek, an Open Studio Event that is part of the North Devon Festival While my walk was not a Festival event, I called on several Art Trek artists as I travelled around Devon, and support for my walk appeared on the Festival news website.
For more about my paintings rather than my walking, go to www.chrislovelock.co.uk
For more about why I built this website, and photos of the devastation at Cefn Croes windfarm in Wales, click here

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Christine Lovelock

Christine`s walk round Devon wind farm sites, May 2006 and her Exhibition July 2007 "A walk round Devon"

Paintings and Photographs

More Paintings

More Fullabrook Photos - from a walk around Patsford