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august

Posted jane -->on 26th Aug 2016

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there’s something special about august, it’s late summer with a tinge of regret, but at the same time it’s school holidays and beaches and sand-between-the-toes and silly season.

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the verges are full of seed heads and dry flowers that have finished, or the grass and plants are cut down and drying.

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the oak trees in the hedges are dark green, some full of pale acorns

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mornings are darker, misty and cool

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some evenings there is a harvest moon before the sun has gone down

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or there are wonderful displays of cloud

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our short evening walks always a pleasure

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I went on a bat and moth watching evening at Natural Surroundings on the Bayfield estate

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saw and heard wonders – five kinds of bat, including the one we heard but couldn’t see, Daubenton’s bat, which skims the lake there. more different kinds of moths, trapped the previous night, young harvest mice in a big aquarium ready to release, and slow worms, a whole shiny taupe wriggling mass of youngsters and one adult – which we released in the dark under a sheet of corrugated iron.

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morning skies are also a delight

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though some mornings we are up too late and the sun gets up a bit too fast and hot for us

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and tree shade is always welcome

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Cakes lane has more shade, but where the sun comes in it’s trapped and there’s no wind.

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mostly it is quite overgrown and the lower part a green tunnel

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flowering thistles

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too beautiful to cut

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Miss T has caught so many sweethearts in her coat that she’s looking exceptionally well groomed at the moment

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in the garden the chicory has outgrown the salad bed

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and ripe damsons fall

 

and it’s back to the clay again

Posted jane -->on 25th Aug 2016

it’s been quite hard to switch back to clay from my painting binge. in between I went to Art in Clay at Hatfield, which was good for making me think about what I want to do.

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so I started coiling again, perhaps a little aimlessly

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trying this beautiful butter pat maker for texture. it’s not really the right tool for clay but it’s a lovely thing in itself.

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in the end it grew a double base and I got very hands on with some wet clay

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from making that one I got some ideas. the weather being so hot, the clay stiffened up quickly and this piece grew rapidly

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I’m using white St Thomas stoneware clay, it is lovely to work with and you can get a smooth finish.

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but again I decided I didn’t want smooth

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these are closed forms, so after a bit of time drying, during which it’s easier to handle them because of air pressure inside, I make a hole underneath and the extra air whooshes out

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this one is more problematic, because it insists on looking like first a truncated torso

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and then like a shape with breasts

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I’m trying to see it as two joined forms.

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now joined by the stem drawn around them.

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back to simpler things

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barley fields and more

Posted jane -->on 12th Aug 2016

I have just put up the fruits of my almost four weeks of painting in the village hall on the walls of said hall, to share them with the users of the hall, and anyone else who wants to see them. so tonight we have our monthly fish and chips night and it’s a bit like a private view, and I’m feeling rather nervous!

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things have moved on since my last blog, I’ve mostly gone forward with the same sort of idea as the painting of the barleyfield and the blue horizon trees, or at least I have tried to, and made my painting as loose as I can, closing in on small portions of some of the other paintings,

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(this is from one I painted back in late winter)

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or working more loosely from photos. on each one I am learning more, how much I need to simplify, but draw convincingly with the brush

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letting the brush strokes themselves tell the story

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trying canvas again after fifteen or so years, this one had its own special difficulties

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but this little tree worked

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this is a coarser canvas which is quite problematic to work on if you want loose brush strokes to work. I think this is too much dark too early

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but I arrived at this, eventually and I’m pleased with its overall simplicity

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this one started simple

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ended up a little overdone

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going for more simple

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after painting this one, they both have their good points, I think …

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a bit different, from a very dark photo which allowed me to invent more …. but the red came from the original image, I kept it because it’s so strong.

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then I revisited the barley field with the blue trees, pulled out this oak from the soft and smoky background, it’s on a linen canvas, which is SO much nicer to paint on, an old painting, I just restretched it with the back uppermost.

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it’s great to see them displayed together, with a couple of older pieces

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framing makes them look very much more grown up

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I haven’t got as far as framing any more (huge expense)

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the canvases at least don’t absolutely need it like the ply panel ones

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but at least the white paper background helps a bit.

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fourteen altogether. so now, what about all that clay, and coil pot work waiting to be done?