SKETCH BOOK OF NORMANDY JUNE 16-24 2012

I have just returned from a week in Normandy with friends .... and here are some of the scribbles I made ... 

of the coast near Les Salines,    the landscape around Hambye,  and the well known calf market at Gavray with  children and  animals ( poor little things) and the sellers/buyers who showed their sensitivity to being drawn and 'recognised' but not to the vey young animals in their care .....!  

I am not an animal rights activist or a  vegetarian, I just am a person who noticed the fear in the young animals and felt both angry and sorry for the humans who had power over them  who seemed  so brutally unaware ....  one cannot ignore it, though I was very aware of the English being sentimental about animals ....  it just seemed so very LAZY  an attitude and made life more difficult for the farmers etc too...  

Here are also happy  and sketches of friends, boozy lunch under the trees etc ...   a very full and happy week... storms on the channel notwithstanding!

NEW BLOG, NEW POND PAINTINGS, NEW LEAF....

NEW POND PAINTINGS These are three new paintings - one of which I started during Art Week .....    I could no longer bear to be separated from my paints so dragged them and my palette out and just began painting again.  took a leaf out of Charlie Baird's book - who does not do all the clearing and poly filler-ing that we do for Art Week - and I think he has the right idea! I also like being back on blogspot - didn't like wordpress blog at all. So all seems well and getting better, sold another painting at the weekend and have made what seems like a very useful new contact with a London agent...  and also have other new plans in the pipeline....  more very soon.....

Dorset Arts Week at Orchard Park......

Several of us from the North Dorset area of Dorset Arts Week spent time last saturday demonstrating  aspects of our working practise.....  here am I showing iPad drawing which people found very interesting and instructive.  Just to remind you that Robert Paley and I are opening our studios and gallery next week - venue 268 /281....  more about this later

Below is Kate Toms (venue now 286/298) showing her machine embroideryAnd here is Graham Nolan ( venue 273) - who is also showing his beautiful pots at ZMMA in Shaftesbury, with me Charlie Baird, Rob Woolner and Anne Hitchcock...  who makes beautiful ....   sewn images ....  I will have to ask her to send me an image to show here.

The ZMMA exhibition is very interesting and I will post about it when I have some images......

 

>NOWNESS - this is how I want to be ... ( or maybe I am already)

>

I must thank whoever it was that led me to this  video ... do watch .... just for fun!

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/3/23/1382/advanced-style-age-and-beauty

THERE IS NOTHING CLEVER ......

'there is nothing clever about not being happy' Arnaud Desjardins

I keep a file with some of my favourite poems and sayings on my desktop - and have been looking through it while having a brief pause in activity - too much going on with preparation for DORSET ART WEEKS and ....   I have so many beautiful poems - what gifts they are....   Rumi is one I may just add here

Time to go Home

Rumi

Late and starting to rain, it's time to go home
We've wandered long enough  in empty buildings.
I know it's tempting to stay and meet those new people.
I know it's even more sensible
to spend the night here with them,
but I want to go home.

We've seen enough beautiful places with signs on them
saying This is God's House
That's seeing the grain like the ants do,
without the work of harvesting.
Let's leave grazing to cows and go
where we know what everyone really intends,
where we can walk around without clothes on.

This speaks to me so much and expresses how I feel about this landscape ....

and this one too - I can almost imagine doing a painting of this subject ...

The Baler - Seamus Heaney

 

All day the clunk of a baler
Ongoing, cardiac-dull,
So taken for granted

It was evening before I came to
To what I was hearing
And missing: summer’s richest hours

As they had been to begin with,
Fork-lifted, sweated-through
And nearly rewarded enough

By the giddied-up race of a tractor
At the end of the day
Last-lapping a hayfield.

But what I also remembered
As woodpigeons sued at the edge
Of thirty gleaned acres

And I stood inhaling the cool
In a dusk Eldorado
Of mighty cylindrical bales

Was Derek Hill’s saying,
The last time he sat at our table,
He could bear no longer to watch

The sun going down
And asking please to be put
With his back to the window.

 

CALLING ALL SPIDERS........!

I have put this on my Facebook page - while my blog was being updated .... and/but I like it so much that I am including it here.  Thank you   Nina Katchadourian....   she has done some amazing other things too .... no doubt I will show you them too .....  xxxP

MEDLEY for TWITTER....!

I obviously don't have enough to do - I spent time doing this for my ....profile page on TWITTER???

Actually its also a practise blog too......!

 

EXHIBITION IN SHAFTESBURY ...OPENING NEXT WEEK....

Adam Zombory-Moldovan invites you to the launch event of ZMMA's new Architecture Studio and Gallery in Shaftesbury.
Adam Zombory Moldovan came to visit me last week to choose a painting to go in this mixed show of artists he admires.  The show  is  curated by Anne Hitchcock and I think it will really be interesting...   it  is very good when people who have a real eye and also opinions about things visual take an interest in one's work...



 

 

It is an interesting choice?   The white abstract, that people may be surprised to find out was painted by me - is something that I do from time to time....  I have often said I feel that ...one of the points of being a painter or an artist is the excitement of doing things differently!  Experimenting....   trying something out and seeing if it works - or how it works.   Sometimes it just dosnt!  tant pis!

And sometimes it does, and one comes back to have another go - from a slightly different place...



 

 

VALUE OF TOUCH SCREEN TECHNOLOGY FOR PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA AND THEIR HELPERS…..

This morning I went to the Stour View Day Centre for the Elderly and Disabled of the local area,in Sturminster Newton.    Stephen Hopcroft  who is the centre manager had seen the article  about  my iPad drawings in the Blackmore Vale Magazine and asked me if I would go and give a demonstration there.

Stephen told me that the University of Worcester has done a study of touch screen technology and the benefits different apps have for people with dementia and their helpers .....  and identifies how different apps help to improve the quality of life for people .....   might be us one day!

The dreadful thing is BT class the centre as a service so they have to pay business rates for telephone and broadband ....  like so many things - awareness needs to be raised on this.  Maybe more later?

 

Phyllis Wollf and Robert Paley

Here is our joint entry showing our venue details in DAW 2102 brochure - we both have studios and work showing paintings, prints, and drawings - please do drop in



VENUE 281 in the DAW 2012 catalogue

Since Phyllis moved deeper into rural Dorset, under the mound of Melbury Hill her personal association with the landscape has become more intense, with an obsessive need to paint and draw the essence of Melbury. Using her distinctive palette she joyously records the garden and ponds they have created.” Tony Birks-Hay in ‘Colourscapes’, Phyllis’ book. Robert continues to paint his atmospheric watercolours and now he uses oils to movingly interpret the Scottish Highlands, Dorset and Europe. Studio and gallery in superb location. Pub and tearoom nearby, Bring picnic? Please contact for information about Commissions visits or classes.

Hawkcombe, Hawkcombe Lane, Compton Abbas, Nr Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 0JH

t. 01747 812610

Dorset Art Weeks

Please take a look at my solo entry which highlights the artistic possibility of the iPad in the new 2012 DAW brochure ... all welcome to see my collection of work created using this revolutionary piece of kit.

SEEDLINGS TODAY - TOMORROW'S PAINTINGS ....!

Today I looked at the seedlings in my greenhouse, and this year's cosmos are really ready to go out, likewise the sweet peas and nicotianas etc ....   but is it safe with all this wind about?  Robert thinks his broccoli is getting leggy....

 

Misty Melbury & Flowers 80 x 80 cm   SOLD

I also put some varnish on these two paintings from  last summer's profusion .....  they are now at the framers ...    This rain is so necessary, but it is a bit tough isnt it?   I am going be resident artist on an ark with Jane Garvey ( woman's hour)  .....   we arranged it on twitter!

August Border I oil/canvas 60 X 60 cm

LA GOMERA OILS

When  I was in La Gomera I thought I would do loads of oil paintings from the sketches, iPad drawings and photos that I had amassed during our week there.    As it has turned out I have only done three and not sure I will do any more ....    being so busy getting ready for DORSET ART WEEKS  and preparing for other exhibitions has taken up so much time that the memory etc has faded.  Which is a pity, it was lovely and we were both surprised - such a varied and beautiful UNSPOILT   island - so close to the dreaded Tenerife .....     The Villa Cortes was actually in Tenerife and was where we had to wait for four hours between ferry and plane....  fortunately I had my little iPad in my bag so was able to do some drawing!



VILLA CORTES I  - that crazy hotel   oil on canvas 75 x 60 cm



VILLA CORTEZ II  - that crazy hotel    oil canvas  65 x 50 cm   unfinished state

 



Petra Chico La Gomera    oil on canvas     60 x 75 cm 

 

 

 

HAWTHORNE and COWPARSLEY....

This is really a cause for celebration!  I am making my first post on the new website, AND I have just sent off all the information for our DORSET ART WEEKS invitation AND ...   I have also updated our entry on the DORSET VISUAL ARTS WEBSITE.



Hawthorne and Cow Parsley  oil on canvas 60 x 90 cm 

 I love the white blossom of these - they speak so much of rural England.   Over the years I have done many paintings of both subjects, this particular view is on the downs near Tollard Royal which I used to drive past nearly a year ago when I was visiting Johnny Bull, when he was helping me with my book, Colourscapes.

 

THE MINSTER GALLERY Winchester

Spring in the orchard 60 x 60cm  SOLD

Misty Melbury & Flowers 80 x 80 cm   SOLD

August Border I oil/canvas 60 X 60 cm   

I have just sent three paintings to the Minster Gallery  www.minstergallery.com - they seem to sell them rather quickly...  Its a lovely gallery - do go and see if you are in Winchester.  It is just opposite cathedral.

I will be changing the format of this blog and my website soon - the same old layout gets a bit boring doesn't it?   Here are some enlargements of the pictures - I think they will be a nice change..

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