Yesterday was a great day of life imitating art and glorious colour.
This magnificent tree was on my walk to my favourite haberdashery store. Where I needed to buy a spring green thread.
I just caught the tree in his skeletal form before the sunshine brought on Spring growth.
I was also on the search for some orange buttons. My favourite navy blue cardigan has contrasting (non-contrasting) dark brown buttons. Every time I put the cardigan on I feel the energy drain away from my soul . Dark Brown with Navy Blue! Make at 140 saved the day.
Now things are much more joyful.
Joyful too was the end to a recycling project. I store bigger, older canvasses in the garage. I had three, all the same size that I was planning to paint over once the weather improved. A couple of weeks ago I discovered that the local mice had started a recycling project of their own. Two were unusable but one was in perfect condition. Their nests must be in glorious technicolour. I haven’t painted many large paintings since the Covid lockdowns. Smaller watercolours or prints have been my thing since then. I wondered how two years of painting small would have affected painting big. I also now live in an urban and maritime environment rather than rolling countryside. My subject matter, this week, was a curious mix of urban and natural.
We live in an area with lots of old concrete built as defences for the Naval Dockyard and Port of Plymouth. Some of the older concrete is a bit battered and breaking down. Nature manages to find a way of rehabilitating the ugly angular shapes. In this picture Sea Holly fills the gaps
How has two years of small watercolour painting and some printing affected the bigger picture?
Confidence I think, in painting with colours that I would not naturally use much of , and accuracy in creating layers. Spending time with the bobbers, some of whom are obsessed with turquoise and blues. Just for comfort’s sake, I hid my favourite reds, golds and purples in the underpainting.
Erygerum and Concrete is ready for some Summer exhibitions. I am so glad the sun is out and life is full of colour again.
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I’ve been a sourdough hunter for years. Always on a quest for perfection. Easy enough when I lived in London where the population can support any number of Artisan bakers, not so easy elsewhere. Don’t even start me on supermarket sourdough or the debacle that was making my own. Imagine the pleasure I get from knowing this fabulous bakery is within easy reach ; the bread freezes and defrosts easily ,remaining in perfect condition.
It was a jewel bright day but bitterly cold as I took a series of photos that became this painting.
Warmth and light suffuse this image of grains of sand nestling in a shell. These images were taken using only natural light and my iPhone with a macro lens attached .
I’m always intrigued by the unusual. Passing a building site in Hoi An , Vietnam , I found this metal basket full of old tea-shop crockery , the builders had clearly preserved the old China rather than just lob it in the skip. Still in a filthy condition the bits clearly represented “treasure” to the builders.
The Tamar road and rail bridges are immense structures when viewed from below. Sunset, on spring evenings gives them a gorgeous blast of warm colour.
Sometimes solitude sneaks up on you and sometimes many of us sneak off to find it. Time out from busy lives. This is a favourite spot in Cornwall and the solitude was fleeting but precious.
Scale is everything in life and art. Dungeness in Kent is a place to put both life and art into perspective. It’s shingle beach and wild flat landscape give the perfect landscape for getting things into perspective.
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