An Inspiring Start to The Year

 

This was going to be my January blog, but I'm a bit slow in posting.  I almost managed it!  

However, I've been quite busy (that's my excuse).

I wanted to have an experimental month in January.  Did I do this?  Well....I started off with good intentions but it was very, very cold in the studio and this sapped my resolve.  And then...before I embarked on any real work, I had a trip over to Inverness to see and hear Barbara Rae (recently made a Dame).  I've always liked her work, but I thought I had stupidly missed her exhibition.  However, my friend Susan (Bridge Art Collective colleague) gave me a lift over and we went to meet her and listen to her lovely impromptu talk. She talked about how she paints in places familiar to her – mainly the Lammermuirs, County Mayo in Ireland and Spain – and she returns again and again to these same places. I found this interesting as it chimes with the words of Matisse (if I remember correctly) who talked about walking and painting the same place over and over again in order to get to the essence of a place. Because Barbara paints in these distinct places, her palette changes to reflect the location, and you can discern this in her work. She also explained her processes, and how she makes monotypes to help her focus on the essentials of a scene and work out a composition. I could go on.  As my friend Jacqueline said, Barbara is generous with her insights.  A lot of us who went along to Inverness Museum and Art Gallery found the afternoon inspirational.

So, having been inspired, when I got back into the (cold) studio, I decided to make a few more monotypes before I did anything else– here are a couple.

And then, it was back to my desire to do some experimenting.  I made some (rabbitskin) size first of all.  Then, to some of it, I added chalk, then pigment. To another dollop of size, I added ash from my woodburning stove, then chalk and pigment. The wood ash made me reflect on the awful fires in California - how devastating! Climate change continues (what a surprise)!  

Anyway, the woodash mix gave me a very uneven, granular medium which I painted onto paper making a textured surface.  I then painted on this surface with acrylics. Taking the Barbara Rae approach, I should have used my monotypes as a springboard for a composition or two, but when I looked in my sketchbooks, all I could see were Hillponds.So that was what I started....

Looking at this photo now, I feel that it gives a misleading impression of the actuality.  What was emerging was too messy, too colourful (Fuar Tholl was too pinky!) and it wasn't working for me.  Should I have carried on?  I don't know now....but, well, I did!  

First of all I tried painting another version of this....a slightly different size of paper, and no texture.  Just acrylic and a bit of medium.  I thought the colours had a bit more subtlety that my textured version, and the middleground was less shouty.  So it gave me guidance for what to do next.

 

I've been at it for the rest of the month, backwards and forwards, sandpaper, craft knives, paint. And this is where I got to.  I am happier with this, with its focus on the mossy mounds in the foreground (and those colourful mounds drew me in in the first place), but, well .... it's different from my first pass.

Of course, January was a beautiful month for snow and ice. It was a huge distraction - I was always going out for a bit of a walk in the snow.  Eventually...when the forecast predicted that it was about to disappear....I thought that I must go out NOW and do a few sketches - but snow is so difficult!

 

First just down on the shore (one of several).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then round at Loch an Loin (one of several). 

It was so beautiful at Loch an Loin - the beauty of it just made me cry! - so I went on to do this painting....

 Have I managed to capture it?  Who knows. And now the snow has gone, even almost gone from the tops, so I'll be back to colourful landscapes this month...maybe!