A Painting! Yes, really!

A little breather between collages took the shape of this small painting:



Calm Before the Storm



 I have tried photographing it in every room, on every terrace, using every setting on the camera .... and still the true dark colour of the sky refuses to be pinned down!

 

In reality I used a mix of Windsor Blue and Violet with a dash of black

to make a rich night sky and here it is, looking like daytime!

The sheep have a muddy Naples Yellow wash too, but you wouldn't know it.

But I have lost patience now.

If I get a truer photo I will replace it.

 

Anyway, it's a small piece intended for a group show in St Ives in August, quarried

from one of my old sketchbooks with doodles done on my last visit to the Peak District.

 

 

Many, many years ago, when I lived there, I used to make and sell sheep along the lines of "fairings"

out of plaster. Very primitive. And I still have these three hanging around in the studio here, very much the worse for wear.

But still inspiring me, it seems, years later.

I'll never kick the Staffordshire pottery habit!

 



Sissinghurst scanned and other stuff

Vita and Harold at Sissinghurst

Picked up Vita and Harold and others from the printer yesterday (now how does that sound?) and they are now nicely scanned, a big improvement on my uncropped distorted homemade images so thought I'd reprise them, as they say.

The Eve of St Agnes

Feeling a bit grumpy and disillusioned this morning because the rains that finally arrived yesterday seem to have vanished overnight. I stood outside in my pyjamas and whooped. The wilted gasping flowers whooped. The stressed out leaf shedding trees whooped.

The cats huddled on the window sills and looked on, mystified by water falling out of the sky.

Now we are back to searing sun by the look of it right now.

Big grumps.

Deep sigh.

 

So ... back to the sketch book and drawing board.

Charleston Farmhouse. (Home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant).

I've almost finished the tiled roof which was my biggest worry when starting. The flint wall with classical heads on top is an interesting prospect. And a borrowed black swan. I love black swans.

More later.

Dove Cottage, Grasmere and a lot of weather

Finished at last.

After a lot of putting in taking out of sheep and a whole lot of weather. As I said in another post, heavy weather and the cozy clicking of windscreen wipers are what I remember most about my childhood day trips to the Lakes. 

Consequently it is a bit of a wet and blustery vision I have snipped of the cottage with Mr W himself watching that flock go by, though they look lively rather than leisurely, I'm afraid.

So here it is again, that inspirational fragment from To Sleep:

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,

One after one; the sound of rain, and bees 

Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,

Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky ...

Far too cold and wet for bees , murmuring or otherwise I think.

As usual the picture above has lost some details, it not being the same proportion as my camera shots and me being a non-cropper (still).

So here is the unadulterated version, adulterated by bits of masking paper round the edges.

Reality re-ordered

Sometimes, just stumbling around from site to site on the Wonderful World of Internet apart from wasting precious time, you come across somewhere really exciting and thought provoking that sets you off on another series of stepping stones. In the end you forget where you were, which in the case of the interesting blog I came across this morning I have. I shall try hard to retrace my footsteps later on.

But I did note down a quotation that popped up on the first page:
"Art, no matter how minimalist, is never simply design. It is always a ritualistic re-ordering of reality."
I love that. I have inscribed it into my sketchbook
Camille Paglia came up with that gem. I had never heard of her before but will now make it a mission to find out more about her.

In the meantime here is one of my re-orderings of reality, a largish (for me!) (21x26 cms) mixed media on paper which was a take on a tiny (7x10) fragment of another.

And the heavens opened ...

It has been pouring down today.

Wonderful stuff, sloshing down our hill, beating down the petunias. Grey drizzly clouds hanging across the valley like a curtain, blocking out any view farther than the highest line of banana trees. It's a fiesta of the senses: the feel of rain on our upturned faces, the pungent smell of soaked earth and the glorious sound of ecstatic birds, most particularly a mouthy blue tit who has been hanging around taunting the cats of late.
If there's one thing Spanish birds appreciate it's a good old downpour.

Darkness is almost upon us and I can still hear blackbirds singing as they swoop past.

So here's a painting of our previously parched summer garden to celebrate the turning of the season.