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working on paper again

Posted jane -->on 15th Jun 2021

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!

 

 

 

drawing in the wood

Posted jane -->on 7th May 2021

now the wood is coming to life I am discovering plants that are new to me. this delicate white flower with clover-like leaves is wood sorrel.

I’m finding violets in lots of places too … the edge of lawns and in the woods

I’ve been spending a lot of time in there drawing, and I hope to keep going back to that. it’s a tremendously varied place, much of it still mysterious dark conifer plantation

opened up by frequent mossy rides and owned by the deer – this roebuck seemed as though he would stand there looking at me and the dog for ever as long as we didn’t move – and by the mountain bikers. I hardly ever meet any but there are steep trails I scramble up and down.

other parts of the wood are new growth birch or sycamore, their trunks encased in moss like furry green socks, the ground pocked with rocks and fern humps

the larches are vivid green with their new needles, from a distance the wood can be seen to be peppered with them

there is deer fencing which is breached in many places, but also allows egress through these tall kissing gates.

they are quite a feature

I have to work out how they can come into the paintings

as the wood is pretty much left to itself there are fallen trees lying amongst the rest, and like this one, they are often still alive, sending up new trunks, or just converting branches into uprights.

now it’s spring the wood is full of birdsong. willow warblers station themselves singing that marvellous sweet dribble of notes everywhere, they have the wood drawn up into territories.

another part of the wood has these magnificent great douglas firs, their soft needled branches draping the air like dark witch hair, so many Rapunzels.

then we get to the end of a finger of the wood reaching over to Dura Den and emerge to this view, away to Balmullo and huge Tentsmuir forest, sit on a wood planked hunt jump over the ditch and hedge to contemplate and see what I have drawn.

B does not like sitting still for long

my little four winds pocket book also has its uses

back in the studio there’s a big canvas started, tacked to the wall. the biggest I have painted for a couple of years. having the wall, and a roll of canvas allows this freedom, but it has its own complications and restraints. I have chosen more of a letterbox format than I am used to.

it progresses, in between walks and more drawing

I resist the first pretty stages and keep going

there is a blue reminiscent of B’s satin brocade collar and the sky in that view from the hunt seat

a lime green

varied and encouraging some subtlety

some of the big bold lines disappear

reds come and go – this is venetian red, an earth colour which is quite opaque until one brushes water and medium into it –

eventually I have this – and take it off the wall and roll it up, possibly to get it stretched professionally when the time comes. rolls are easier to store, I can keep them in the roof here.

there are so many more inspirations in my head – a deerstalker’s tower in Kilconquhar which triggered something like this –

watchtower in the wood

these nets of air
stirred by your migratory flitting
your routes flown
flanking my listening post
hedging high rafters
unpinned braids coloured ribbons undone
untwist the curling strands outside
resist the trap, pitch into this draughty
circle, blow, cry high
scrape noon’s height, ease
low, splay wings in bursts
confessed, I’m unwound
the rain hurls itself
unbound.

something to do with Rapunzel and the yet to arrive swifts. there was a swallow two weeks ago at our hunt seat. but one swallow does not a summer make, as we all know, and I am still protecting my seedlings from frost at night.

there are still cherry trees in flower all around, these tall natives seen from my window, gean here in Scotland – Prunus avium – and the various Japanese hybrids suburban and urban – very uplifting when spring is so slow and we have cold days and nights, with midsummer only six weeks off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

winter comes back

Posted jane -->on 7th Mar 2021

at last I have a usable studio. there is stuff in it – boxes of pots and paintings – that will go in the small shed I have ordered and will receive this Thursday – but I have been able to work in there. it’s been very cold again so as I can’t afford to spend lots of money keeping it warm I haven’t had a lot of time, but things have started. Also there is an issue with the bottom of the door – a large gap as the joiner didn’t make the new floor extend over the step enough.

I have 2 trestle tables, the one on the left will have even more space to lay out all my paints etc when I have resolved the problem of where certain other things should go. the logistics of moving from a place with masses of sheds …

it’s great having walls that are smooth enough to bluetack the work onto. before I only had flint cobble, or shiplap wood. So I’ve been working on paper as it feels safe, I’ve got rather used to it over the last 6 months.

it can be tidied away into folders or plan chest drawers, and it’s very cheap compared to canvases. I have lots of blank canvases which I am ignoring for the time being.

the old paintings, from the 90’s which we edited down to a smaller stack in the summer, will go in that shed, and then I will have room to bring in the studio easels, and to use the piece of wall opposite the table I’m painting on, as a painting wall.

meanwhile I am also walking to paint, doing research with my feet, taking little notebooks out in my pocket

to scribble in and try to find the essence of the local landscape

Cairngreen wood is one of these focii

from my door to walk to it and around it is almost six miles, with some steep bits.

it has a wonderful shape on the map, which I am intending to work on as the basis of some paintings

you can see by the concentration of contour lines the “steep bits”.

parts are conifer plantation, other parts, higher up around the quarry, are sparse skinny birch and sycamore between rocks, the rocks and the bases of the trees thick with bright green moss.

these paintings on paper are beginning to express the ideas of landscape, paths, textures, shapes.

another place I am focusing on is Garliebank. I can see this side of it, the very steep side, from my house. pity that streetlight is always in the way.

but if I walk up to Ceres moor

and turn right

I am up on top of Garliebank, with a view across to the hill of Tarvit

where a magnificent fox crossed the ploughed field in a leisurely fashion the other morning

the notebook received several swoopy lines and scribbled-in areas

these books are made of paper folded and cut

and then scrap paper of all sorts folded and stitched inside each of the three main folds (In this case the “spine” has four sections, a “four winds book” from India Flint’s Nomad school of arts course taken through February)

and they are included in my “morning pages” routine, before I get up with a cup of tea and the dog waiting … I am finding them extraordinarily fruitful.

the papers themselves will suggest pattern which can be co-opted in a painting

the faster I do them, the better – here while walking down the steep hill below that foxy wood

and the scalloped edge of the ploughed and the unploughed field

yellowhammers sing up here, they like the gorse and the open sky.

larks too,

though the promise of these catkins has been put on hold and spring seems far away. the municipal daffodils are still fast in bud.

 

 

working with pen and ink

Posted jane -->on 25th Feb 2020

this week instead of painting our own things at art group in the village hall we had a drawing workshop with Fionn Rawnsley who used to teach on the foundation course at Norwich Art School. this was actually really good. I have been lazy about drawing, especially since I started painting abstracts. Fionn used techniques to make us draw like poetry and work inside out

firstly to draw one’s face by feel. I took pen and ink because I’m awkward, but also because I love that medium. I fell in love with it the first time I saw illustrations by Charles Keeping as a child.

I still have all the books I treasured then

his style changed a bit, loosening up,

but the drama of them mixed with the kind of drawing, angular, expressionistic, yet tamed to fit around the page was irresistible.

the book design is exciting in itself, plus Sutcliff’s novels are far beyond much of her contemporaries’ writing for children.

so I am up for whatever can be got out of a pen nib and a bottle of ink.

I just had to replace the nib on this pen as yesterday I crossed it, trying to draw with my left hand

I was given this line ruling pen by a friend, on a mark-making course we both did a few years ago. we made folded aluminium pens and used frayed canes and various other found things. I don’t think I was ready for that course in fact.

if you swerve a pen around, using your wrist and elbow, you can get it to do some quite wild things.

tip it and let it judder over the paper

or if you tip the triangular pen, having dipped it too deep, the handle catches on the paper and you get a thick line as well

for these smudgy lines I used a chinese ink stick, dipped in spit (sorry), in my left hand, then swapped over.

this was the second exercise, to draw someone else and try to draw the details and contours inside the obvious outline, not relying on the outline, and trying not to look at the drawing too much …

then we applied these ideas to still life drawing – I brought three of my pots, some wiggly hazel twigs, and some dead hydrangea heads, and Victoria brought spring flowers and a very handsome earthenware jug.

three hours of concentrated drawing

my head was buzzing

I hope this gives me some new ways into my paintings

but drawing is worthwhile for its own sake

I think I will be trying to fit in a daily drawing now

 

more and more air and water

Posted jane -->on 23rd Feb 2020

and I’ve been even worse at keeping up this blog in the new year. still I have a stash of photos of more wet and watery so here we are.

just walking up the Sharrington road yesterday morning early with plenty of air blasting around my ears – and the clouds going at who knows how many miles per hour up there. the gusts down here were supposed to be around fifty three miles per hour; they felt pretty vicious, and it wasn’t even a named storm.

the soggy fields won’t absorb any more water so there’s plenty of this

and this

this

and this. some soaks away just a little – until the next rainstorm. however we don’t have big enough rivers in north Norfolk for flooding to be serious.

this morning the Glaven was looking twice as big as normal, after heavy rain in the early morning,

but here it has room to overflow into a wide valley of reed beds, sallows, sedges and rough grass which sops up much of the excess since dredging was stopped and raised banks got rid of.

several trees down; this is an alder

mayhem here in the river bed, with two more alders gone, one earlier in the year and one after Dennis. on Monday one had to duck under it but it’s been cleared up now.

but it makes the river gurgle and chuckle pleasantly, and the wren sings along. the cut alder wood is a bright orange-red. I wonder if it would dye fibre.

at the ford the level is very high. more wren song too.

but for most of it it seems the deeper it flows, the quieter.

up in the woods at Bayfield, the trees very dark and slick with rain, which had only just stopped as we got out of the car.

the sky clearing as the front swept on south east. the farrowing huts are all full again – the sows don’t seem to mind the weather – it’s quite exposed up here. in the distance you can see the woods that edge Holkham.

at home I’ve had a wonderful winter for snowdrops. they are almost over now, but this time last year they were brown with the sun and warm weather we had in February. this year it’s the wind that’s browned them I think.

wild daffodils were looking like this a week ago, they are fully out now. and all the nettles are coming up. some work is needed.

meanwhile Bims and I go to Holkham for her runs, where it’s quiet if we follow the horse entrance to the beach. there’s been a canine gastro-enteritis virus around, it’s really severe, with dogs needing veterinary care for several days, best avoided if possible. she doesn’t mind the light plastic basket muzzle at all. it means she can’t poke little dogs and make them squeak, and she can’t eat anything untoward which we know does sometimes fetch up on the beaches here – fish with paralytic shellfish poisoning, and palm-oil solids.

it’s more beautiful over on that side of the bay too

on Thursday the wind was ruffling the little waves.

and I found an asemic poem made by some lug worm ….

 

 

back to norfolk

Posted jane -->on 28th Aug 2019

after another early morning walk on West Sands

although it would be warm later in St Andrews

the mist was only just burning off, and there were only one or two runners and not many dog walkers

I thought it would be a kindness to Bims to let her have a run before the long journey home

and a paddle. but it turned out that her adrenalin levels were quite raised, and she was not happy in the car, it took her at least a couple of hours to settle. stress equals adrenalin even when it seems like she’s having a nice time. we of course had air conditioning to insulate us from the 33 degree heat on the drive, but the heat of the following two days has got us in a rhythm of very early walks – straight out of bed on waking and off before seven, even six fifteen yesterday.

our norfolk fields are very beautiful then

the stubbles full of frolicking hares

pink horizons

and sea-wards a lingering mist

those hares got B’s stress levels up again – in fact it takes days for the levels to go right down, and she seems quite over-alert even three days later.

sun on my back and a bit warm already by six forty-five ..

not a creature to be seen along by Bale wood, where the huge field (named the prairie by the neighbour) has had its oilseed rape harvested – however much B hoped to see another hare

the silver-washed fritillaries long gone

and the thistles now beneficial to birds rather than insects.

this morning we are cooler, and slightly damp – what a relief!

but at Bullfer Grove there is devastation

all the non-National Trust part of the wood is being cut for selected timber removal

and a right mess the machines make getting in and out

I would guess that Albanwise are harvesting mature oak trees all round here

there are I’d estimate at least a hundred trees piled up here where there’s access from the main road

each side of the NT gate

really it’s a shock to find this many trees felled

and they have been in to all of it and taken the large oaks

leaving smashed up branches

and stumps. so the question is, are they going to replant? and does this have anything to do with a 2013 statement

that they were then thinking of more intensively managing their 300 hectares of woodland, possibly using the product for woodchip fuel

whatever the intention, it’s horrifying to see trees cut down that would have been viable for at least another two hundred years, and helped to keep our carbon dioxide emissions just a little lower, at the same time as we are seeing apocalyptic film of the Amazon forest burning, and fires in the Arctic boreal forests out of control in Siberia, canada and Alaska.

 

holt lowes – a favourite place

Posted jane -->on 14th Aug 2019

a few years ago I stopped going to this place, because under the aegis of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust all the mature silver birches were grubbed up, and a lot of soil removed back to flinty ashy subsoil

in an attempt to get it back to the four thousand year old heathland it had once been.

the idea is to encourage the heathers – bell heather like this –

and ordinary like this –

and to cut the gorse back.

the trees got in the way and changed the biome.

but nature is irrepressible, and a few Dartmoor ponies put in to encourage the grass will not keep back the growth of trees. Once it was common land with rights of grazing and furze cutting for households in Holt, and presumably there were hosts of goats, cows, geese, sheep and people using the land. now it’s dog-walker territory, with some rare flora and fauna – sphagnum moss and natterjack toads, more common on Dartmoor than in Norfolk. the birch seedlings sprout everywhere.

not many people walk here either, it’s very quiet,

the ponies are fat and peaceful,

a little mischievous perhaps,

appearing and disappearing mysteriously amongst the remaining trees.

I’d thought we were going to get a wet walk but the morning warmed up,

there were gatekeepers and painted ladies flitting about,

and the regrowth of the gorse makes the paths sheltered.

one could have done with a sit down,

but Em and Bims got a paddle at least.

the flinty dry upper heath is cut in two by a damp trickle and pools – a small wetland.

this pool’s trees are full of willow warblers in early summer.

it’s the time of year for heather –

here the gorse cutter has succeeded in making it look like a heath.

it’s a place that’s good for winter walking with these dry peaty, sandy paths. of course, you can’t let dogs off the lead near the ponies – but I wouldn’t have Bims off anyway.

 

a little bit of norfolk squit from Bullfer Grove

Posted jane -->on 22nd Apr 2019

Gods and Goddesses

here I’m surrounded by little gods

the ones that don’t need me – wren

and thrush worship them, voices across

field and tree. My dog is inhabited

by them, her long glossy neck and

cocked ears tell me so, she’s listening

to them, head in the sun. The climbing roses

and wild ones that loop sharp stems

have them in their buds, just swelling,

and in their thorns. We meet them in the

green lane when there’s no-one about

dressed in bridal flowers and trembling

new leaves, in the wood they tower

tossing wild cherry blossom down

and on the ground they mist among

the bluebells, ringing hanging heads

heavy with dew.

Scottish woods are different

Posted jane -->on 25th Jan 2019

(more…)

folded woods in January

Posted jane -->on 21st Jan 2019

I’ve not been able to get to the village hall painting group this month due to a succession of horrible colds in the head and a lingering cough, so once my head cleared a bit I took strips off my lovely roll of cartridge paper and worked on some folded books.

I made myself go to the writing outside sessions despite the feebleness encroaching –

the first one was on the shingle ridge at Cley in a bright sunny gale. I found a nest of marram grass clumps sheltered from the forty mile an hour north westerly wind and was overawed by the brightness of sun and reflection of light in the flooded marsh after a very high tide.

as well as the piece of writing, a piece of stitching resulted, on a strip of old wool blanket, in the same form as the tsunobokuro bags we made in Orkney

it’s still waiting for plant material and a bundling.

winter skies dominate here, particularly on the coast.

coming back to watercolour and paper, after the writing outside session in the wood last week –

looping branches, bark texture, leaf-litter, light, colour, all inspired the large painting, which folded down into a book.

I’m also using them as notebooks out on the walks we do. this one is folded from a strip of the paper underfoot in our improvised studio in Orkney, so all the paint on it is actually contributed by the group.

I’m finding the separate interstices of this type of book really inspiring for making these sorts of notes.

I bought a set of kid’s rubber stamp letters and made text in the book folded from the painting in the first image, words and phrases taken from what I wrote after walking in the woods last week.

you would have to be very clever to make this quite crude alphabet come out looking like properly printed text. I like the way it jumps up and down and some letters are bigger than others. lack of control is good.

today was very misty

it thickened as we walked down to Bale wood, and I just caught this photo as the sun almost came out again. in the etherial light there was a curlew calling, shadowing us as we walked up the green lane, behind the hedge.

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