Friday 31 December 2010

SOL'S HILL in the snow


  
Sol's Hill in the Snow     80 x 80cm oil on canvas (2nd stage)

I didnt manage to do as much as I intended yesterday -  will finish it today I hope.    I am pleased with this painting - though it has developed in a way I had not intended - more primitive and playful ....  but I like that.  I have learnt to allow the unexpected to happen and not try and control the way things go...   to  paint instinctively....  but it isnt always easy!  I will write more about this in future blogs.....

Happy New Year!






NAMING PAINTINGS is difficult .......

                 Solomon's hill iCCRCn snow 80 x 80 cm unfinished      

This  is the painting I began yesterday, in the studio from a photograph I took in the snow last week.   I walk most days in the landscape around where we live, with my dog, Solomon. My friend Caroline Whalley has named the hill after him....  


Naming paintings is difficult.....  because I tend to paint things in series ....  naming them 'Snow Painting I'  - or ' Snow Painting IX'   helps no one to identify them.  sometimes I name them after the music I was listening and dancing to ...  
like Creedence Clearwater  120 x 120 m....  see below...  
































































Thursday 30 December 2010

SNOW PAINTINGS 2010

Trees in snow                                                                          oil/canvas    24 x 36"

    White tree in snow                                                                           oil/canvas 80 x 110cm


Photographs of paintings in their not-quite-finished state....

Wednesday 29 December 2010

SNOW POETRY.....

Today I have added paintings about the snow.   The first two have been painted during the current snowy weather.   Everything looks so beautiful and the first morning, after I had fed the birds the dog and I went out to do our walk...   


The excitement I felt at the sight of the familiar landscape transformed I remembered Colerdige's Frost at Midnight....   and am once again grateful that I was at school when this was what one learned.....

"The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.  The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again! Loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! So calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness.  Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village!  Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! ......."

I find I read poetry more and more ....   and being new to blogging feel that a short extract is better than reproducing Coleridge's poem in full.....

SNOW PAINTINGS from previous years

Shaftesbury in the Snow   oil/board  30 x 30cm 1992  from Frenchmill Lane, where I lived for 30 years

Hawkcombe in the Snow  oil/board 28 x 35cm  2009 SOLD

Sue and the sheep  oil/board 28 x 35 cm 2009  SOLD

LAST PAINTINGS of 2010 ...... and all that beautiful snow....

                                      White tree in the snow    oil/canvas  80 x 110cm   (unfinished state)

Trees in the snow         oil/canvas 24 x 36"  (unfinished state)

Monday 6 December 2010

THREE WINTER PONDS .... from photographs and my imagination..

Winter Pond II  80 x 80 cm oil/canvas 
unfinished state

Skywater 1 x 1m oil/canvas

Winter Pond and clouds 24 x36" unfinished state


Can you tell which is which?     I dont know whether I shall paint more ponds....  I think it is more than likely ....   finding subject matter that inspires and delights is really important and the two ponds we have made here in the past three years have so far been the subject of more than 20 paintings ... I have rather lost count, not all of them have worked, most have been painted in the summer with me  standing in front of the pond in question and all my stuff in a wheel barrow ...  (more pictures in later posts) ... the first and last are  from a photograph - and that is different, not better or worse the middle one I invented ...  more of this anon....!   The apples are painted from life because that is how it happened.

AUTUMN HARVEST ....More paintings from the last few months ....

Cooking Apples  oil/canvas 26 x 26"
View at my studio

Apples II 22 x 24" oil/canvas
View at my home studio

Yellow Crab Apples 38 x 32" oil/flax
View at my home studio

Red Crab Apples II 10 x 11"  SOLD
The Russell Gallery, Putney, SW15

Michealmas Daisies, Springhead  1 x 1m. oil/canvas
Alexander Gallery, Clifton, Bristol.

Winter Pond I




Winter Pond I  24 x 36" oil on canvas  SOLD
This is a painting I did last winter of one of the ponds in our garden, it is one of a series ....   A lot more paintings in the next post.

Red Crab Apples I




Red Crab Apples,  oil on canvas,  28 x 30"   


This is the first in a series of paintings that I have done this autumn. This particular painting is on show at the Russell Gallery, 12 Lower Richmond Rd.   SW15 1JP.  Do go and have a look.  More news of the other shows I am participating in this winter in the next blog ....