autumn echinaceas

gradually the echinaceas are turning into something more sculptural – blackening seedheads that may well be shredded of their seeds by birds in the coming months

this week and last they still had some colour, and I made a painting of them in this semi-autumnal state

this is the canvas with the pink and green stripes and rusty paint wiped over with newspaper that had been drying in the studio for a couple of weeks.

it ended up like this. I spent a lot of time considering how many flowers to put in between sessions, but while painting I was listening to Arundhati Roy reading her new autobiographical book about her relationship with her mother, Mother Mary Comes to Me (a Beatles quote) and I think her beautiful voice had an extraordinary effect.

anyway, I enjoyed trying to get the essence of these

the painting tries to make an echinacea environment

with no boundaries

or edges except the canvas

quite transparent so as not to cover up all the lovely translucent layers

leaf shapes and wing shapes

a pause in painting to make this, from Merchant and Mills waxed cotton. I made the same coat – from a pattern of theirs – in green herringbone tweed last year. As the weather has gone into almost winter I think the tweed coat is going to win out.

this painting, half finished has been hanging around since the hot days of summer …

I got it out again and spent a couple of days working over it with a palette knife. It’s very gnarly with lots of lumps and bumps, a long history.

It had occurred to me to put the actual painting that’s above the desk in my living room into it.

and this led to working on the desk, lowering the sofa and other improvements, while leaving the figure and the table alone.

the things on the table are remotes and various books, including this huge heavy art book of Elizabeth Peyton’s portraits, Live Forever.

and the measuring tape/snake – hence the title, On a hot hot afternoon, referring to D. H. Lawrence’s poem The Snake, via Andrew Cranston’s several paintings with snakes in them …. I have to state that this measuring tape does tend to be on my table, I have four in the house altogether. But it’s a nice reference. There are several references to my painting crushes in this painting.

now I am “curing” another nap-on-the-sofa painting.

meanwhile a small drama – Bims to the vets with this enlarged bobble on her toe.

an infected cyst which has not bothered her at all but bothers us as it looks nasty. She’s on antibiotics to get rid of the infection. happy to be on her sofa, chilling.

I love watering cans! I found a French interior design book by Jean-Loup Daraux – En passant par la demeure – once with some photos of old watering cans. All sorts of shapes and metals. These are just plastic, but they belong to Mrs Cameron at Pittormie Fruit Farm. Still very paintable.