March Smarch

Weather wise it's been a pretty rough month. Here in the Borders we have been lucky and missed the worst of the snow, but the last few days have been bitterly cold.

Signs of spring

Our outdoor activities have been somewhat curtailed, feels a bit like ground hog day. Looking back to March last year at the first post of my weather diary,temperatures couldn't be more contrasting...18 c then, -1c now!!

Gorse at Kyloe (end of February)

Kyloe 

Work in the studio has been steady. I seem to be fairly well motivated despite not having any real pressing deadlines. Strange for me but I suppose when you get to this stage in life making work becomes a need not a want.

Large Oil based on the coast

Detail

I've been finishing off a couple of large paintings. One linked to the coast (from visits made earlier in the year) and another to moorland in Northumberland.

Work in progress

Both paintings have not been without their problems and I feel somewhat defeated by the last one.

The trail and tree motifs I have been working with seemed so perfect in the small scale studies in oil, pencil and watercolour, thatI felt confident and ready to scale up. But once I hit the bigger scale both trail and trees had to be abandoned. Compositionally they just didn't work!

Small Oil

Small water colour

Always a lesson to be learned when scaling up. Things which appear perfect on a small scale don't necessarily translate successfully into the larger format. It's all double Dutch sometimes and best abandoned?

Quick oil sketch

Those pesky trees!

A bright day at Bowden, early March

An audience with the Bowden crowd

Early morning sunshine.... a rare sight this pass few weeks

Last week end

View from the studio this week

Meanwhile in between working on the larger paintings I've been planning out some plates for collograph prints....(my students have been inspiring me!)
 I've worked with this image in a variety of media, oil,water colour, mono printing so I thought, why not a collograph as well. If the prints are any good I'll post them up here next month.

Collograph plate sealed and ready for inking

Mono print 

The Easter holidays start next weekend. Hopefully the weather will improve and our plans to get up a few mountains will come to fruition. Everyone deserves to feel a bit of warmth from the sun on their faces, after all it is Spring!

Simple things......

It's  sometimes simple things that catch my attention. Almost like things unseen or just bypassed...walking and talking they could be so easily missed and forgotten.

That's why I carry a camera. It is such a useful tool.....it's like having a portal to an unregistered world. This is important to me as I am utterly incompetent at collating and organising materials in a sensible way. Building up a stock of imagery each time I venture out is a way of keeping a diary too.
It doesn't matter that I don't date and remember the exact day, what's important is that every time I'm out I feel like I'm seeing  things with a fresh eye, trying not to take anything for granted ever.

Of course this doesn't always work and you need times when you just switch off and be in the moment, but in the main it helps me to stay focused and think painting.

Oil on card-study for commission

Oil on card 

Beautiful Northumberland

Monoprint on tissue

Sunbeams over the Cheviots

It's been a mixed bag in the studio these last few weeks. I've been finishing off a couple of commissioned paintings whilst gearing up for new pieces. The sessions spent making small oils on card have been rewarding and again have broken up the making  process and fuelled two new big paintings which I'm still working on. It's a good way to work, these tiny paintings are not precious and whilst I'm not exactly churning them out they do come easy when they come! That I might add isn't very often and reminds me of a conversation about making work I often have with my sister....when she's  asked how long does it take you to make a drawing her reply is simple.. "all of my life"!

Oil on card...wishful pinks!

Pathway through the winter heather

Monoprint on tissue

Along with the small oils are the mono prints. I love making these. This time I've used a water based but fairly sticky ink and used thin tissue paper to work on. It picks up the marks  beautifully and I'm going to keep going with this for a while yet.Lots of improvement needed here!

Oil on card

Near Bamburgh

Oil & wax on canvas (work in progress)

Small study for larger oil

Finished commission heading to it's new home soon !
( See post 29 from my weather diary )

So keep keeping on...snow drops are out and poking around in the garden today I spied quite a lot of new growth under the dead leaves. Spring is just around the corner!

Oh and lastly John celebrates his 50th in fine bouldering form!

New Year, new blog....

New..everything is new! Not much sign of it at the moment but with each passing day the evenings draw out a little more, minute by minute. It's this small measurement of time that holds some promise of renewed energy and light that keeps me going at this dark time of year.

John enjoying the good conditions on new Years Day

Holly shadows

Sketchbook this week

One week seems to slip into another and to mark time it helps to do something worthwhile and feed those creative urges. Getting out into the landscape and the elements is definitely my way of doing this. In the last two weeks I've been focusing on small details in the landscape. The silhouetted shapes of foliage and shadowed areas within the larger frame are catching my interest.

Cheviots in the distance

Detail

Oil & wax on canvas

Finding ways round visual dilemmas and problems in painting is an ongoing task. Same old advice but worth remembering....just leaving the studio for a while and doing something else helps to put things into perspective. It's maybe not all that bad after all or it is! Either way it's best to get a little distance, painting certainly isn't an exact science and obvious solutions often only occur after a little time out.

Applying a bit more white when the underneath layer was dry helped to resolve the problems.

Colour in nature never ceases to  amaze me

Lovely lichen covered tree at Hepburn

Heather

Through the trees

It's tricky sometimes to concentrate on everything at once...when we're out bouldering it's been easier, no ropes or belaying to worry about. So I have been able to do a little drawing and a lot of photographing. I've mentioned this in my previous blog ....the process of osmosis. 

Places and locations stay in your memory helping to build up a library of information which you can draw on when back in the studio.

End of the week climbing fun

Home time

The way the landscape looks at this time of year is so beautiful at times. The late afternoon skies  are always changing and watching them closely it's wonderful to see how the fading light creates drama and intrigue everywhere you care to look.

On the way home 

Keeping it real!