all the yellows

It’s the last few days of autumn leaf colour here in Fife. Already pools of colour are saturating the ground rather than the sky.

In Kemback the beeches have been letting their yellow-orange leaves go for  a fortnight or more and the remainder make a graceful lacework.

Above Jenny’s steps they have held on to them. We have had two storms pass through but not as strong as two years ago.

The steps themselves a bit of a childish delight of swish and crunch.

In Tarvit Mansion’s gardens more exotic trees and shrubs create spectacular effects.

and everywhere larches are sifting down their yellow and rust needles.

Even the Woodwos and forest monsters are taking on new aspects.

at Lindores, walking around the loch this week in sunshine

as well as at Kemback,

the leaf colour is inspiration. Working on small paintings at Thursday evening sessions in the old

station master’s house at Ladybank, which is a community art centre – Off the Rails Art House. Just two hours of company and concentration. Woodwos and now Scottish wild-cats.

In fact my model was my friend Victoria’s pixie-bob cat,  Ralph, with his extra claws. Whereas the little painting’s cat was inspired by the illustration (by Kipling himself) of the Cat that Walked by Himself in the Just So stories. “walking by his wild lone through the Wet Wild Woods and waving his wild tail.”

But I think Ralph looks quite content staring out at you from the canvas of this new painting –

The Cat’s Forest or Coille a’ Chait which has taken me weeks to get right. It’s a nice heavy quality box canvas from Jackson’s, 61 x 91 cm. So not a huge painting, but big enough to make it quite difficult after working on so many small ones. And the width of it, it’s a shape I’m not used to.

Bims has her yellow jumper on too. from Sofa Dogs in Poland.

And I made a seasonal feast with four different kinds of squash from Pittormie fruit and veg farm.

Last Sunday we went for a glorious sunshine walk in Perthshire, from Scone.

There was a lot of leafage

The map and the actual paths didn’t quite match up (see red lines and our blue ones)

It was actually quite hard work (see ascent) and we were all a bit shattered when we got home.

Scott took both dogs and did some running up hills, which Bims thought was good fun.

At least there was a bench at the MacDuff monument.

and great views of the Trossachs and the Cairngorms.

Tentsmuir, or rather Kinshaldy beach, has had a bit of a makeover due to very high tides and Storm Babet bringing easterly winds and swell. My favourite tree trunk at our turning point on the beach, has been swept up into what is left of a mixture of marram grass and reeds, off which water was still running a couple of days later.

The high tides also destroyed the coastal path at Wemyss and some gardens in Cellardyke where old fishermens’ cottages back onto the shore.

The Eden rose up with the first weather event, and stayed high for a couple of weeks.

I spotted this cormorant on the railing of the path below South Bridge in Cupar.

And the footpath along the road before the  Ceres Moor “Road” was flooded and carved up by water that should have gone down a storm drain, but there was so much earth and potatoes from a field further up that it got blocked.

The water had carved several small canyons into Kinshaldy beach,

and the high tides washed up some interesting tree trunks.

I do love trying to see the monsters in these.

Here is my seat, it’s a big piece of a willow tree that arrived last year.

Then this is one from Kemback woods.

I have a new fun project with the watercolours.

Painting rooms, sometimes with one of my paintings included, as above. These started with a club on Instagram, Room portrait club, where a photo of a usually rather bohemianly furnished (and cluttered) room is posted and people have a go at painting it.

Like this –

and this –

and this. It’s a nice challenge, I haven’t done anything like it before. Of course it means there are about fifty very similar paintings being posted on Instagram, but it’s a learning curve for me. I’m just doing them in an A4 sketchbook.

But I do like the idea of including one of my paintings, using a virtual room from the “Art Rooms” app and changing it a bit.

It’s interesting to do a version of these recent paintings, in miniature.

I spent rather a lot of money restocking my watercolours. These are from Germany, and they use natural earths and other interesting pigments, which allows for good granulation.

They are very splendid for doing things like this – another tree root monster, it looks just like a bear from several angles.

These things change completely when I do them in acrylic. This is quite a small box canvas, WHERE WERE YOU ONCE, 2023, 30.5 x 25 x 4 cm.

An even smaller one, Look I am chosen as a Bear, acrylic on gessoed panel
20cm x 25cm and 2 cm deep. This is a very smooth surface to paint on. Artist Support Pledge gave me a special award for it, donated by Artists’ Surfaces, a company that makes beautiful panels that don’t warp. I am going to be getting one in the post, that’s quite exciting.

They also mentioned this one, Kith, Acrylic on cradled board, 25cm x 20cm another one with the wood backing that makes it 2 cm deep,

and this one, Where have you been? Acrylic on canvas-covered board 25cm x 25cm. I have quite a pile of these little paintings now, I set up a painting table in my back bedroom for it

so I can keep the watercolour table set up in the living room. But now I have brought my spare easel indoors – the studio is just too cold now – it was 5 C this morning, and put a dust sheet down to protect the floor.

Meanwhile I have some serious sewing to do for Christmas presents for these two.

poems to write, and wood monsters to think about – Wood or Wodwos.

Here is Ted Hughes’ poem

Wodwo
What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
Following a faint stain on the air to the river’s edge
I enter water. Who am I to split
The glassy grain of water looking upward I see the bed
Of the river above me upside down very clear
What am I doing here in mid-air? Why do I find
this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret
interior and make it my own? Do these weeds
know me and name me to each other have they
seen me before do I fit in their world? I seem
separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
out of nothing casually I’ve no threads
fastening me to anything I can go anywhere
I seem to have been given the freedom
of this place what am I then? And picking
bits of bark off this rotten stump gives me
no pleasure and it’s no use so why do I do it
me and doing that have coincided very queerly
But what shall I be called am I the first
have I an owner what shape am I what
shape am I am I huge if I go
to the end on this way past these trees and past these trees
till I get tired that’s touching one wall of me
for the moment if I sit still how everything
stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
but there’s all this what is it roots
roots roots roots and here’s the water
again very queer but I’ll go on looking

what shape am I
But what shall I be called?