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29th December
A belated seasonal greeting and good wishes to all of you who have either been following or buying my paintings over the year. New works have been a little thin on the ground this last year as I had to transfer my efforts to my bio-degradable cottage. However, most of this work is now behind me and I hope to supply you with interesting paintings thoughout 2012.
I have added a new service to this website which I hope will be of assistance if you wish to find a picture that shows a particular part of Dartmoor that means a lot to you.
View Map of Dartmoor paintings & prints by artist David Young in a larger map
Our very mild and unseasonal Christmas is now behind us and thoughts turn to the forthcoming year. It's a time to take stock, literally for me with my annual plough through the accounts and stock taking, but more importantly a period when I stand back and wander the landscape renewing that connection with the natural world that makes me tick as an artist.
This time of year finds me wanting to shun human company which is the complete opposite of most peoples behaviour at Christmas. For me it is a time of melancholic beauty, and although this may sound a trifle depressing to the observer, is in actual fact when the ideas and thought are at their best. Happiness, although fun and jolly in its place, rarely results in very good works of art.
24th October
It's certainly been a while since I updated my latest news and for that I add my apologies to those who follow my goings on. My cottage, which is in a fairly remote hamlet and was originally built for miners during the copper and arsenic boom of the mid 19th century, has been showing serious signs of wear due to years of neglect while I have concentrated on my artistic career. Things had come to a head with mould affecting my health due to inappropriate building methods carried out during the 1960's.
So, this year I have thrown myself into rectifying lots of theses problems by getting rid of lots of cement and modern materials and replacing with traditional materials such as breathable lime. The effect has been immediate - gone are the musty smells. I'm also using the opportunity to do some serious insulation on the walls, ceilings and floors with breathable insulation such as wood fibre and sheep’s wool.
 Off with the concrete and on with the lime! 
Being a typical artist, its not surprising that I have enjoyed getting stuck in using lots of the old skills with traditional materials but it has meant that these past months have been devoid of new paintings.
I hope to have the new wood burner installed in the next couple of weeks - not a moment too soon with the approaching winter and so I hope that will herald the tipping point in the house renovation and the resumption of my painting which I am so desperate to get back to.
In between the building work I have continued to keep the galleries up to date with prints and my selection of original paintings so there is still a huge variety of my work available for sale while I have been painting with lime wash rather than oil paint!
26th May
Good news for people who wish to see my work in the Newton Abbot area of Devon. After the closure of the late Newton Gallery I have not had a presence in this part of the County. This has happily changed with Frames and Boxes Gallery now showing my work. Having met and talked to joint owner Molly Robertson about the gallery and their Trade Award's for quality framing I am sure you will be given a warm and efficient welcome if you want to come and browse the gallery.
  in Newton Abbot, Devon. (now showing David Young's pictures)
30th March 2011
Things have been busy behind the scenes of late. There is some good news for people who follow my work in south Devon. I have now started showing my work in a new gallery in the area.
 Lime Square Gallery, Ivybridge
Dartmoor & The Sea / Lime Square Gallery
Update - Exhibtion now closed but David Young's work still available at the gallery
I have put on an exhibition of my pictures for the months of April/May at the Lime Square Gallery in Ivybridge. There are about twenty works showing my range of Dartmoor pictures and seascapes of the South West for viewing & sale in this well lit and friendly gallery run by Mark Coombs.
26th February
The Hartland Peninsula - Oil Painting (also available as a print)
It's been a while since I ventured onto this page with any news. Since December I have been working on new paintings to show at the West gallery in north Devon. I have done quite a bit of work on seascapes which has been a pleasant change for me.
I have done more than a few coastal pictures over the years but not so many in recent times so it has given me a fresh challenge to get back to the effects of light on waves and the careful observation that is needed to convey the patterns & textures of the rock formations that create that wonderful jagged coastline of north Devon.
I took the paintings up to Rob Walker of the West gallery the other day along with some prints that I have published of 'The Hartland Peninsula'.
Hartland Quay Seascape - Oil painting
22nd November
After what has been a glorious Autumn I am now bedding down into my winter mode. I have just completed a large seascape of the north Devon coast up on the Hartland peninsula. I spent some time up there this year and was really impressed with the dramatic rock formations on this stunning stretch of coast. I have subsequently completed two paintings and expect to do more. I hope to upload some images of them in the near future.
All the galleries are stocked up with my work for Christmas so if you want to pop along to any of them to se my work I am sure you will be given a warm welcome. If you cannot spare time to do that you can just as easily buy off this website and the picture will arrive at your required address within days and ready for Christmas.
29th July
This week I took up two paintings to the West Gallery near Bradworthy in North Devon. They are replacements for a painting that had just sold ('The Wave' - see below). The owners of this new gallery, Rob & Belinda Walker, really seem to have the feel for running such an enterprise. There was a constant flow of people when I was there looking at what I considered to be a really good selection of arts and crafts. It gave me a boost because it has been such bad news in the last few years with so many galleries closing down.
1st July
I have just completed my latest painting of Dartmoor. It is of Burrator Reservoir and Sheeps Tor with Snapper Tor to the foreground. (Snapper Tor isn't named on most maps though with it's prominence in the landscape it fully deserves a mention).
I am really pleased with this work as I feel it conveys the grandeur of the landscape which is found on this part of the moor. I have put particular effort into the effects of the sky with its rays of light cutting through the clouds to water below.
The painting is now on exhibition along with another work of mine; Valley Mists, Belstone, at the Paperweight Centre, Yelverton, Devon. Both are for sale with a limited edition of Giclee prints of 'Burrator Panorama' also available.
'Burrator Panorama' - Oil Painting Size 100cm X 50cm plus frame
For viewing and sale at Yelverton Paperweight Centre. Tel. 01822 854250
22nd May
My apologies for the long break. May is a time for using all the senses as it bombards you with all its sights, sounds and sweet fragrances and is not a time to be huddled over a soulless computer.
Every hour and day is now bringing great changes to the landscape. For me trees are now at their finest showing off a confusing amount of differing greens as the tender leaves unfurl. There is a small beech wood not far from where I live and it gives everyone in the district an uplift to walk through it at this time of year as the newly opened papery leaves suspend like a million translucent green opals. Added to which are the erect trunks coated in a rich green moss and contrasting with the red/brown leaves coating the woodland floor.
Giving me equal pleasure, and just down the hill from the wood, is a local pond that has a returning a pair of moorhens. Though lovely to see I think the little bird I have been observing to the rear of the wild and overgrown pond has given me most pleasure. This is the tree creeper. A small, shy, but energetic bird, it spends its day strutting up tree trunks looking for food with its curved bill. Seen up closely it's white breast, contrasting with its brown, camouflaged back, has an incredibly soft, velvety appearance. A tree creeper always works its way up a tree where a nuthatch tends to work its way down the tree.
8th March
....New Gallery....
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I finally start emerging from this eternal Winter though the easterly winds that have plunged our little temperate island into a temporay iceberg still refuse to lessen their chilling grip on us. In the wind free environment of the greenhouse it is now warm and a joy to start planting the first tomatoes and lettuce.
Likewise I have been planning my new paintings for this coming year. I had been working on paintings that reflected this hard and trying Winter; not at all works of art that would appeal to the buying public in the galleries, but maybe paintings that will be appreciated for their artistic merit in years to come.
Now with the coming of Spring I want to escape the gloomy confines of Winter's mud, ice and darkness to work on pieces that will excite and challenge me. |
I also have some good news regarding a new Gallery that is opening in North Devon. They kindly asked me to contribute some work which I have gladly done. I went up to see the artist and owner, Rob Walker, and was impressed by all the work that had been done in creating this well lit and presented new gallery.
detail of The Wave, Crackington Haven (now on sale at the West Gallery) Sold
The 'West Gallery' is now up and running and quiclky establishing a reputation as a major West Country art gallery.
West Gallery, Glebe Farm Barn,
West Putford,
DEVON.
EX22 7XE
Tel. 01409 241989 email robwalker@fsmail.net Map dirctions to West Gallery - please click
The Wave, Crackington Haven
1st November 2009
If you are visiting Dartmoor.......
I will be showing some new pictures at The National Trust,Widecombe on Dartmoor from the beginning of November. They have kindly agreed to let me exhibit several of my Dartmoor prints including my latest pictures of Arms Tor and Grimspound.
Arms Tor, Dartmoor
Arms Tor is the latest addition to my portfolio of Dartmoor prints. It is now available from this website and all the listed galleries, as will my other new Dartmoor print of Grimspound.
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5th August 2009
Five young swallows have outgrown the nest in my dog's kennel. Today they take their leave of the nest and move out along the beam. Their first step in a journey that will take them to southern Africa in a matter of just several weeks. If they make it........
Above my back garden, as the young swallows chatter for the meals brought in by their parents every couple of minutes, twenty or so swallows, including this years first brood take to the sky in a frenzy. They shriek an alarm call but not the usual one that I hear in the presence of a sparrow hawk or cat. This is different, one I have not heard before. Up above, amongst the swirling swallows is a bird of prey with menacing pointed wings. Either a peregrine falcon or a hobby; I can't tell.
The swallows repeatedly dive at it but it continues to circle above my head not in the least concerned about my presence. Has it seen something and is about to stoop?
No. The fearful realization dawns on me that it is only biding its time. Round and round it circles with the frantic swallows skimming past its head. And from a gentle circular glide it instantly strikes into a kill.
It only took a second. A young naive swallow clearly wriggles hopelessly in it talons as I look on sickened. It hovers, like a kestrel, for a few moments, still pestered by surviving swallows before this master of the skies glides away to the Cornish border to feed its young.
25th November 2008
Last Saturday I took Thomas out on the moors as usual with a few friends. Though dry it had followed a week of fairly persistent rain and the ground was waterlogged. Over the last few years the 'management' of large parts of the moor has changed with less grazing by livestock. In a remarkably short time vegetation has flourished and the soil structure has been less compact. In consequence the soil now acts more like a sponge.
This is good news in that Dartmoor will now act as a slow, releasing reservoir but it can mean the going is heavier going on the horse.
Despite the conditions the horses were in fine fettle and the landscape had a pale earthen hue redolent of those winter days following the celebrations of Christmas. In other words not for everyone but I love it.
But what changed this day in to something far more extraordinary was the sudden flight out of the long, dead grasses of a short eared owl. I had seen a similar bird twice in the last twenty years.
This one flew low for about a hundred yards and disappeared back in to the long grass. On we went and crossed the leat to return on the higher side. Sure enough it again alighted and then gave us a marvellous display of day time hunting as it covered the ground, up and down, only a few feet above the grasses.
It wasn't in the least bit perturbed by our presence and continued to hunt for what seemed an eternity before disappearing out of sight. Unusual for an owl in being a day time hunter it commands an impressive presence. With a wingspan not far from a buzzards and pale brown plumage it seemed made for this wild landscape.
A Well Earned Rest - A pair of collie dogs enjoying the view. Limited edition print from an original oil painting by artist David Young (please click here | 
