'Butterfly pebbles at Budleigh Salterton, in the Pink and Blue'

acrylic, salt water and heat on canvas

by Chloë Tinsley

61cm x 46cm x 4cm *original painting size including frame

54cm x 39cm truest print size (largest)

I love painting on the beach at Budleigh Salterton, this place full of Victoriana Extravaganza, a place well loved and perhaps well forgotten.  With ghosts of Millais and Raleigh wafting about, with lobster to be haggled direct from the pots and the Creamery dolloping great bergs of memories past.  

The pebbles here on a late spring day heat up a fair bit, and midsummer, you can come down here and happily bake yourself, imagining healing forces pushing into you from the nobbly rounded rocks. 

When I paint, here, as I often feel when I'm out and about; I feel like I am the luckiest soul about.  It's a scene well imprinted in many a mind but for me, the red of those cliffs and the haze of the sun, and the red wash into the sea, suggests an active spine, affecting the scapes around it, bleeding, painting itself into the water.  On a blue sky day with the sun beating down, the dazzle is strong and concentration needs to be fierce and the colours of course, the hot, hot pink is needed here.  

How to find where I painted: The best way in to Budleigh Salterton is to catch it unawares; climb up and in from near the golf club and find the path that winds you down the cliffs until you find yourself looking down at the beach.  Be careful here, the cliffs are crumbly, don't stray off the path.   You'll find your way fast enough and you might find a nudist or two if you go too far, back along the bottom of the cliff spine.   Turn around and you will see a handful of pines in the far off distance and the river breaking through into the sea.  The Otter I think.  Return from your sun and picnic spot up along the main drag, past a curious museum, worth a visit, and an ice cream a the creamery.  The gallery here is good, take a look too.  If you have come by car, stop in at Raleigh's birthplace in East Budleigh, there's a good pub with an outside bench and a walk here also.

Original sold.  

Available as a limited edition print max size 54cm x 39cm, smaller size available 27cm x 19.5cm.  

Please enquire for current lead time.