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Fuzzy brain

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Finished or almost finished? Not sure. I’ve spent the last two days painting this while having my studio open to the public. In the end you lose track of what you are doing. What you are saying. I can waffle forever but it stops making sense after a while.

I like people to ask me questions about art. But then I get nervous. It’s like a fog descends over my head and I can’t articulate or describe what I mean. I hope my paintings are pretty self explanatory but I still try and explain what I am doing. Artists on TV seem to be able to tell people what they are doing, but I can’t do that. I’m a painter not a public speaker…..

So anyway, I finished this painting today. It’s called mermaid.

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Cold

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The chill cold of autumn has penetrated Spode studios this weekend, the high ceilings prevent the warm air produced by heaters in each makers studio from keeping the chill air out. As soon as you open your door it escapes like a hot air balloon. If we had our studios in the roof space we might be warmer. The studios are little wooden boxes like hermits cells sprung along both sides of corridors that meander off around corners  Some of the studios are open, without false ceilings and these get even colder unless you put industrial sized hot air blowers on. The studios with windows are single glazed with either wood or metal frames. Some have louvers to allow air in. Even when they are closed they let cold air in.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, just explaining. There are a few warmish spots, like the kitchen if you shut the door.

Each studio that does have a false ceiling also has a layer of insulation above it. So you can actually be warm there…. But walk along the corridor when it’s cold and your breath steams. If you make yourself a coffee in the kitchen it could get cold just walking back to the studio.

One architectural novelty are the curved, almost barrel vaulted ceilings along parts of the corridor. I have never seen anything like it before. Great waves of concrete curve like giant corrugated tin above you. But the wavelength is far longer. Its a very interesting building to work in… But did I mention… Its cold ❄

Which is why I have used a warm picture of autumn flowers to illustrate it.

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My studio

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If you want to see somewhere full of paintings you could look round my studio. There are paintings of people, abstracts, animals, landscapes, buildings, cars, plants, or anything else you can think of.

I tend to use acrylic on canvas but also paint in watercolours and gouache. I have worked with pastel and with pencils and ink pens. I like anything that makes marks. Once at college I even drew with boot polish.

I paint on canvas and paper but I have painted on wooden doors when I was a student..

So yes I’m an artist, I can’t stop!

Work in progress, mermaid

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I decided to paint a mermaid but didn’t want it to be Disneyish. So I’ve used a photo of a victorian painting to work from. Obviously that face was not blue and I have changed the image in other ways to make it more interesting. I don’t have much more to do to it but I have left it for the moment. I will probably finish it off in the next couple of days..

Twisted photos

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I’m at it again, can’t resist. Loving autumn colours, and autumn mist.

Spent the day shooting, not animals but flowers, its easy to play around in floral bowers.

The lakes a stunner, full of ducks and drakes, and the gardens cafe makes lovely cakes.

Swans are skulling slowly across the water, seeing them is awesome, they don’t falter.

So now it’s autumn, colds and chills await, winter is a coming, and the flowers fate.

Coming to the garden, death will take a ride, and the pretty flowers will have nowhere to hide.

So come and see the garden, come see the show. Before the autumn’s over, and it’s too cold to grow.

Yes then all will be compost, thrown away my dear, and we will have to wait again, at least till next year!

Sculpture at Trentham Gardens

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We visited Trentham Gardens yesterday and it was great to see so many statues at the park. Many were fairy sculptures, several were new (at least to me). The only one that I think had always been there was the sculpture of Medusa being killed by Persius. I can remember seeing it before the Gardens were sold off. Now there are so many more sculptures there. Many of them are of fairies holding dandelion seed heads. There are also wildlife statues including owls, mice, slugs, frogs and other animals. I had a lovely afternoon taking photos of them.

The day was rather overcast and the flowers were past their best but there were also a lot of shapely seed heads to enhance the view. We don’t go to the gardens very often, perhaps once or twice a year. But it is worth visiting.

Remembering south devon

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I just found photos of this perfect small bay near Plymouth, Devon.

I think these were taken in 2015 or 2016. We stayed at a nearby caravan park and would come down to the bay either in the day or during the evening depending on what we had been doing.

Luckily there is little or no plastic pollution. The water looked very clear and it was warm enough to swim. However caution is required for going further out. Apparently a woman died a few years ago after trying to swim round the headland to the next bay.

on the way back to our caravan we had the excitement of seeing a slow worm (a type of lizard) in the field next to the pathway.

I do want to go back again soon.

 

Smell the flowers

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Poppy time is my favourite time of the summer. First the buds swell, then split. Papery petals unfurl and stretch. Like butterfly wings emerging from its chrysalis.

Poppies are my favourite flowers, to see their cheery heads waving in the breeze in a cornfield, or along the grass verges of motorways. Their lovely flowers help feed the bees, and their pepper pot seed heads spread thousands of seeds everywhere. I love breaking the dried seed heads off and scattering the tiny grains of seed all around the garden. They don’t always grow where they are sown, but like disturbed ground and can lie dormant in the soil, which is why they can appear on building sites and why they bloomed in Flanders fields.

Poignant reminded of war. Pretty flower, or even narcotic. Poppies have power.

Here

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Here I am again

Doodling little squares,

Trying to catch life in a box.

Here I sit with pen in hand,

Drawing the world

Squeezing reality into 2 dimensions.

Time pauses while I sketch,

Only to leap forward an hour

When… I. … look.. .. Up..

Here is life compressed,

Its size shrunk like a postage stamp

With the world drawn on it…..

Here is here at Etruria, here I sketch.

Adult colouring books

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I see perfectly coloured pictures on Instagram that adults have done to release stress, and it’s almost as if they are in competition with each other. No one colours outside the lines. The colors match perfectly and they are always filled in with solid colours.

This is my partners drawing, it’s a bit messy but expressive. He is not an artist but he still wants to enjoy the freedom to relax, he has some problems and doing this helps him relax. Time flows, the pattern of colour grows. When I asked him if he had finished he said he wanted to do some more to it.

It’s fascinating watching him. It’s great that anyone can just do this. Why didn’t someone think of this before?

Art of whatever sort needs to be encouraged. Art is life, the opposite of our stress led world.

Instead of being tied to a computer all day perhaps we should all carry a small sketchbook around with us. Of recycled paper of course

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