This one is for me, place to muse, share ideas and interesting images.
As I drank my tea sitting in the lovely early morning sunlight on the disheveled autumnal front garden the light was so beautiful that I decided to take our my pastels and sketch. Trying to be free and pastels are a great help with that, I love using them.
There is a value in keeping a painting you think is finished hanging around the studio where you can see it because it will talk to you sometimes screaming until you pickup a brush and correct the offending area. This painting was such a one. It didn’t look right and had a sort of empty space in the middle. I had tried to keep the area with the golden marjoram in the centre clear but just ended up with a hole so I decided to extend the white umbels using oil pastels instead of paint. I won’t work on it again however loud it tries to make itself heard I have had enough it.
Oil on Block canvas 80x80cm
This last couple of weeks I have started painting again. It all dried up during the stress of the covid outbreak with all its accompaniments leaving my studio littered with several unfinished works. I have now reduced that to one which is very large. This painting of part of our garden was the first to be attacked and now after several sessions seems to be finished. Summer Garden, oil on cotton box canvas 80x80cm.
I see in my last post I said was coming out of hibernation but that was a bit premature as we entered more months of lockdown. Now two vaccination shots and a lot of Winter later life is gradually taking on a semblance of normality though still very different from before Covid. Stuff I planted in my garden last year survived the unusual cold (for South England) in February, an April that had morning frosts nearly every day, plenty of sun but cold winds and no rain at all for the whole month. Everything was late and now after lots of rain everything is making up for lost time and is growing like mad. My front garden is like a jungle and and as I went in to do deadheading I joked ‘If I’m not back in half an hour send in a search party.’
Here are a few shots of this time.
Will Skakespeare penned these words long ago but during this lockdown they have proved very up to date. I found myself crowded out of my online supermarket shopping facility. Everyone else piled in and there were no slots left for me. I don’t drive and my husband is in the very vulnerable category so had to look for alternatives. My cupbord was well stocked with most dry goods but fresh green produce was as probem as even the companies delivering veg boxes were inundated.
So, what to do? My solution was to order a raised bed kit and vegetable seeds which were also in short supply. When the seeds came I started them on the window sill and waited for the bed and compost to arrive.
This post is a diary of my gardening adventure.
Eventually my raised bed and compost arrived, and it was filled lettuce plants kindly donated by a neighbour.
As the weather warmed I planted out the things on my window sill which were in danger of taking over the kitchen. I also used up every large pot I had.
The rocket and rainbow swiss chard in the old fish box began to grow and the bed started to look quite green. I invested in a netted cover for the bed to keep off of our resident wood pigeons with the added benefit that it also kept the local cats off what would be a desirable poo patch.
The bed was so successful in providing us with salad greens and as it seemed lockdown was going to be a long job I ordered two more raised beds.
So now there were three and to even things up I ordered a fourth to make a nice potager as well as planting a small purple artichoke in a pot against the wall and moving my bay tree into the centre of the beds.
I could go on but I don’t want to bore you further. I am very pleased but have to report that the weather is foul now with several days of wind but the greens seem to be surviving.This little escapde has provived us with fresh greens, peas, beans and some squash. I look forward to the autumn and winter greens I am planning to plant.
Well hello 2020, so far Australia seems to be on fire, south Africa in the grip of drought and famine, Jakarta is flooded, Harry and Megan have resigned and we are told by those who are really paying attention (unfortunately not the ones who should be) that we have ten years to get our act together or we are doomed to fry drown or starve before the end of the century if not before.
In the light of all that I thought I would share some of the good things that have happened for me last year starting with my lovely Garden.
This painting in oils which is 70×70 cm on box canvas started as a wild sketch but as I worked on it in my studio I was afraid of losing the wildness. I find most paintings end up as a compromise between what one sets out to do and what one is able to do. I’m sure I could go on working on it but feel to do so would end up with what I call knitting where all freedom has been lost, not that I have anything against kitting, just not in a painting. No doubt I will see things that need tweaking as it hangs around my studio though.
Today I returned to this painting started plein aire in my garden about a week ago. Went at it with paint sticks in the first session but used a more careful approach this time. I didn’t want to lose the freedom though so tried to to keep it loose whilst giving some structure to the plants.. I worked all day until the wet paint prevented my from continuing. I used alkyd oil paints which dry overnight so it should be ready to work on again tomorrow.
My garden is a peaceful therapeutic haven where I can sit with a coffee early in the morning to watch the bees wake up and get ready for another day. I miss it in the winter but try to go out as long as I can until its too cold to sit out. Through the dull months the memory those bright buzzing mornings carries me through the times when my studio is really too cold to think of heating economically without destroying the planet.
Having decided the moment was passed for a painting in acrylic I started over a year ago I primed over it reducing it to pristine whiteness. I carried it out into the garden along with easel and oil paint sticks and let myself loose on it covering the whole canvas in one session. I really enjoyed the freedom of working direct onto the canvas with the sticks and thinner. Just what I needed to kick start my flagging creativity. I will have to wait until its dry now before I can finish it off.
ateliernewsdotcom 