Painting

Looking through the catalogue of work that I have made this year I notice that I have done more watercolour paintings than anything else.

Painting is something I enjoy. If the weather is good I will take paints and paper and walk to a place outside; if it is raining, I’ll paint in the studio, from memory.

Painting gives me two things: an exploration of mark making and materials – in this case paint and paper; and it gives me the opportunity to consider something that is becoming increasingly important when I make work – that ambiguous space between an experience and how I may evoke it, either immediately or later. These ideas feed each other as I paint.

A painting comes from my manipulation of materials to exploit their specific properties. How does paint move around paper? What tools should I use to move it around? What marks can I make? How much water should I use? It is a process that is largely intuitive and each time I squeeze paint onto a palette and pick up a paint brush something different happens. What I discover whilst working with these materials feeds the expression of the image that appears on the paper.

These paintings were made in the studio and come from my memory. I find I am increasingly making work from the memory of an experience: the remembered sensation of seeing, of hearing, of touching that constitutes a moment of being in the world. These paintings explore that space between the original experience and how I might evoke it here and now.

I have spoken before about artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and her idea of ‘outer sensing and inner seeing’. These paintings are an expression of contemplation and imagination and come from an amalgam of experiences within me: of space, of light, of time, of rhythm. They are the result of the interaction between my inner perceptions, my materials and my hands.

These paintings are done on half a sheet (approx. 56×38 cm)  Bockingford,  300gm, not, watercolour paper.

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Fragment 8

Baleshare.

Scudding clouds and sunny intervals.

Brisk wind.

 

A long, pooled shore,

scintillating in the sun.

Sea roar obliterates all other sounds.

 

On the strandline

the translucent remains of by-the-wind-sailors,

Velella Velella.

 

I wonder how far they have floated across the sea?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fragment 7

Udal.

Sun. 50mph wind.

The tail end of a storm.

 

Huge red waves

are pushed crashing onto the beach by a

strong onshore south-westerly.

 

Coloured by churned seaweed,

this boiling red sea

is a reminder of its irresistible power.

 

Fragment 4

 

West beach.

Drizzling rain has given way to dry, but dull cloud.

 

An ebbing tide has left lines of kelp along the top of the beach.

 

In the receding water more of the rubbery fronds

are pitched and flung by the waves.

Some escape to form another curving contour on the sand.

 

Folded and curled on themselves they scribe

their own story of time and process.

Fragment 3

Fragment 3

The start.

White sand like wet putty.

Clear, green-blue water.

 

Whistling calls.

Turnstones, ringed plover, sanderling

run along the edge of the water.

 

Fading light.

Sand and water dull and merge to a grey/blue.

 

In tidal lines, shell fragments.

If I look hard I can find tiny cowries, limpets and periwinkles.

 

 

Fragments 1 and 2

I have been on holiday to Scotland and have just spent one week on the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. Berneray is tucked away on the very edge of Britain and is about as far away as you can get and still be in the UK. It is a small island that is attached to a very slightly bigger island, North Uist, by a causeway and it is the ideal place to satisfy my need for remoteness and stillness. It is a place to walk and to experience the natural environment in a slow and contemplative manner. Berneray and North Uist are small islands, surrounded by sea and white shell beaches and about half of North Uist covered with water.

I took some art materials with me and a few little bags to put collected objects into. I had hoped to draw outside everyday as a record of what I had seen, heard and experienced, but it was windy ….. very windy. Paper, paint, pens and pencils became unwieldy in the high winds which were the tail end of a hurricane and so I had to give up that idea. Instead I collected objects from the walk each day and then when I got back to our cottage I spent a bit of time reflecting on the walk. What stuck in my mind? Was it a happening, or an experience, a process, or even just a colour?

Each day I recorded my memory visually on a small piece of folded watercolour paper and then wrote, as simply as I could, some words to describe the experience. I put the collected objects in the bag alongside the folded book and filled seven little bag altogether. One bag was from my experiences on Lindisfarne  (visited on the way up to Scotland) and the other six bags were for one day spent on Berneray. Each bag holds one remarkable memory taken from a whole days worth of memories – one fragment of a day’s experiences.

I will post one ‘bag’ a day for the next week and today’s two fragments come from Lindisfarne.

Fragment 1

And now the causeway,

emerging from fast receding waters.

Puddled.

Flashed with light.

I stop and scan with awe

this place that minutes before was inaccessible.

Slick mud.

Still caressed by an ebbing tide.

 

A curlew rises. Calling.

Upwards and away from this mutable place.

Fragment 2

Along the beach,

eyes down on slippery, tide-bared stones.

 

I pick up a lace of seaweed

and a piece of sea worn slate.

 

An eerie windcall rises from across the flats.

Looking up to qualify

I see dark movement in the distance.

Seals hauled out on dry sand.

 

A plaintive, drawn-out chorus

that describes this liminal space.

 

Blue is ….

I was at the beach on Saturday. These were my thoughts:

 

Warm

A south westerly breeze

brings

a slight chill to the air.

 

Sunny

Blue sky

Blue sea

Thin wispy clouds

cirrus

blow in fragile strands

diagonally across the sky.

 

Fall streaks that foretell

a change in the weather.

Far away

towards the horizon

the blue sky lightens.

 

Below

deep water

deep blue.

Blue is

scattered light.

Short waves

at the end of the rainbow

that disperse

into the air

and into the water.

You can’t touch

this blue

because it isn’t really there.

 

This will be a concertina book – watercolour on one side and words on the other. It will be bound with blue cloth. I’ll show it to you when it’s finished.