moths

this month I have been painting and writing/constructing poems about moths

I began by putting lots of text on the paintings, but I didn’t like how it looked in oil paint. So this one has the word moth, and I have mostly obliterated the text that was down the right hand side, but you can still vaguely see bits of it.

This smaller one is also a blotting out, a scraping over of quite a lot of a poem. Layers are never a bad thing, the painting has a history, a depth.

It’s easy to make words float around and become part of the painting in watercolour, I just load a brush with water and the paint runs nicely all over the page.

Now I want to integrate moths into my garden paintings, and am puzzling whether these paintings will have to be night-time in light and colour.

This is the Isle of May out in the Firth of Forth, a couple of weeks or so  ago, after the big storm. We walked from Crail on the coastal path, along the Firth to the Ness of Fife. The waves were still carrying a lot of energy.

The surf was booming. It’s a rocky coastline with Carboniferous and Pre-Carboniferous mudstones and limestones tilted up into craggy, bricky structures.

Quite a few ups and downs.

things blown inshore,

with well paved steep steps.

The foam is just air and sea water frothed up. some piles of it were wobbling in the wind. Off shore we could see the new windfarm, it seems much closer here, though it’s 9 1/2 miles out to sea.

Here’s a good view of the rock formations, which continue all the way along to St Andrews.

One of those romantic Scottish tower houses, Balcomie. We walked back to Crail inland, along the narrow road, past what was  an RAF base, now a go-kart racing track, very noisy on a Sunday.

A few days later, walking at Tentsmuir. The pool is really full and overflowing towards the beach, but the pile up of sand prevents it from flowing down the beach as it used to.

plenty of foam blowing about there as well.

My willow trunk seat almost buried.

Very sad evidence of the tough time birds have been having. This little puffin no doubt died of starvation, the rough weather makes the small fish it needs swim too far down in the water column.

The flooded dunes and a crown of last year’s flowers.

I have started taking part in Chloe Briggs’ Monday evening drawing is free sessions on Zoom. All the artists may be asked to sit for the length of a track of music, so usually we get about ten different people to draw from the computer screen.

I am trying to bring watercolour into it.

the second session I  did with just watercolour, which makes you think, as you have to be very definite about what to paint and what to leave blank paper.

I use almost every sketch book or pad I possess as they are too wet to turn the page.

sewing again – Lucy washed Scott’s wool shirt too hard and it shrank a bit – to the right size for her! So I made him another.

I cannot resist sewing projects.

Outside it has mostly been mild and the snowdrops are popping through the grass.

lots of snow in the Cairngorms (and some here on the Lomond Hills in this photo) – enough for skiing, a rare event these days. Snowfall high up and a lot of rain lower down here on the east side of Scotland. The north west has been really dry though.

The river Eden rose

we wore our waterproofs

The paths were very muddy and so were boots, dog towels, dog clothes and equipment and the car.

But it has dried up quite a lot now, and feels quite springlike.

 

Back to painting moths –  this one a little board 20 x 15 cm, about 8 x 6 inches.

And now a series of woodland painterly backgrounds – this will take at least a week before I can do any more to it, maybe two. But I am planning more moths.