working on paper again after making three large paintings in a row I started a new one but then began a week of caution, working small on paper instead of tackling the canvas. I produced several paintings of A2 size on 220 gsm paper, a reasonable quality cartridge, bigger than my series made during the winter. working on the floor with my long handled brush thinking about shapes on Kinshaldy beach and generally letting paint flow a bit also I worked over an old less successful painting. this can often be quite releasing and after walking in Cairngreen, those four larch trees … all the ferns are unrolled now buckler fern in the wood and the much more upright male fern this seems to be the scaly male fern, it’s quite shaggy this speedwell seems to like the low light of the beech woods and I found this, which turns out to be grass of parnassus, around a sycamore tree in Cairngreen, and also where the wild garlic grows in profusion in Tarvit gardens next to the ice house. the deciduous parts of Cairngreen have wonderful fern groves walking up and down the paths there feels a bit like playing snakes and ladders you are never sure where you are going to pop out, onto a ride, or a deer fence. the mountain bikers build jumps on the steepest trails; coming up them, climbing over all the tree roots is like scaling a ladder. tree roots or the drifted trees on Kinshaldy beach? I bought some new paints, two greys, several yellows, and this iron oxide red in vast quantities. and pthalo blue, which I always found too strong before. this has the kissing gates, the ferns, the douglas firs and all that …. getting looser meanwhile some of this paint was landing on the big canvas, also I stuck on some tissue paper, pink and gold … and I was thinking of the shimmering glittery wet sand and wide pools of shallow water at low tide so the next move was some of the words from my notebook written on the beach shilly-shallying in the shallows shimmer and kinshaldy and glitter and glimmer and some pieces from a copy of the Guardian (2012) Lytton Strachey and Virginia for the glitter Taliban so it’s not quite so shallow ditto but here’s the swinging bit .. and reflecting my career in fashion. just a little bit of autobiography … and then all this blue, and grey, and white some details this very strong blue is pthalo blue. CuPc (copper phthalocyanine) was first prepared in 1927 by the reaction of copper(I) cyanide and o-dibromobenzene, which mainly produces colorless phthalonitrile as well as an intensely blue by product. it certainly is intense, but also quite translucent, so all the underpainting shows through. if I mix it with zinc white the resulting paler blue is also translucent. with graphite grey it’s not too opaque either. I did this one while trying out the blues and greys, 30 x 30 cm, a much painted over linen canvas with great texture. gradually doing the shimmer … and then the deep blues arriving at this yesterday. it will have to be stretched by a framer and then the cream edges will all be folded back and it will look like this last night I watched a film about Jean-Michel Basquiat and thought right, it’s finished then. love that man’s paintings. and also I think I should make much more of my writing and use the words in my paintings. however I must go back to smaller canvases! Post navigation blue painting and bluebellssummer’s been and gone 2 Comments Wonderful to see these projects progress and the wonderful photos interspersing the painting makes it so much more interesting Jane. Thank you Reply Really interesting to see your paintings evolve and to see the places and things that inspire you. xxx Reply Leave a ReplyCancel reply This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Wonderful to see these projects progress and the wonderful photos interspersing the painting makes it so much more interesting Jane. Thank you Reply
Really interesting to see your paintings evolve and to see the places and things that inspire you. xxx Reply