Quotations

When I started to really study painting I enjoyed collecting quotations. I still do. Some of the following have their provenance, some do not. It is possible that some of them are my own, but mostly they are too wise or clever for them to have been mine...

I think it was Constable who said "He who is self taught has a fool for a Master."
When I read this, I decided to go to art classes rather than "re-invent the wheel" by my own efforts.

"The idea and the paper - what gets in the way?" I wish I know who said this....

"Painting is not very difficult when you don't know how. But when you know how, ah! Then it is a different matter."
This I can vouch for. Thank you Degas.

"Other birds will fly higher."
Nicely put, Nietsche.

Zen saying "Questioning is answering."

This latest "self portrait" is an amalgam of my own collage (done years ago) and a photo I took recently. I was trying to get to grips with various techniques in Paintshop Pro. It blew my brain, but I got there in the end.

There will be more quotes along the way.....by the way I read that the Dani People of Indonesia have words for only two colours, black and white. That must make life simple. How do they do it?

An Update at Last

Some Sources of Inspiration

It is many, many weeks since the last blog. Spring was supposed to be with us when I first started writing this entry, but although we were well into the month of May, (and it's now almost August as I load this), the heating would come on and a fire was welcome in the evenings, if I could be bothered to light it! The weather has been strange again this year, or is it like that every year?

I had been unwell. I painted a small picture, this one...... even I found it rather worrying.

Face 2

And another, that was supposed to be a jolly, bright sunset over the Esterel Mountains, and turned out to be this melancholy little thing. You know the phrase "Feeling blue"? Cause for reflection.

Sunset Over The Esterel

Many years ago I read either a book or an article that discussed how the body can send us “messages” about our health and its problems. One story in particular I found very interesting. This related to a young child who was suffering from symptoms which had resulted in him going to hospital. Nobody knew what was wrong with him and someone had the bright idea of giving the child some drawing materials. He drew a picture of himself with a bird flying down and its beak touching his head. It was found that he had a tumour on the brain.....

There were other incidents related with the same message. What we need is to be able to interpret our own messages, and to do that we need insight, which mostly seems to come after the event, called hindsight! In my experience one can also be creative with problems of an emotional nature. Here are a couple of examples:

I had a friend, well more an acquaintance, who had what are called “relationship” problems. When I told her that I found painting a useful way of working through difficult areas or periods of my life, she asked if I would show her how. I said I wasn't a trained art therapist but would be happy to show her what worked for me. (It could be dangerous to "mess" with a serious psychosis.)

Every piece of work she produced had the same underlying theme: there were three separate parts to it, and to me as silent observer, they didn't seem to relate to each other in a harmonious way. It turned out that she and her husband had a problem with her widowed mother, which caused innumerable rows and disagreements. I moved away to live elsewhere, but I later heard that she and her husband had parted company. She told me that seeing the paintings had given her an insight into her problems. From these beginnings painting became her serious hobby.

For me perhaps the most moving and emotional of these experiences have been in relation to my childhood. My darling mother was very loving and caring however she could be over protective, of me but not of my brother, once he was no longer a small child.

Mother was the eldest girl in a family of six children. Two brothers were older, and their sport was to bully and tease her.

She was in school, aged fourteen, when a message came that her mother had been taken ill. In shock she ran home, and never went back to school. Instead she was detailed to look after her two younger sisters and brother. She became in effect a mother to them as her own mother had taken to her bed, and even when recovered from what was some sort of a breakdown, from then on treated her eldest daughter, my mother, as an unpaid servant.

Many people would have become bitter and angry at such treatment, and might have taken it out on the “little ones”, which is what they then became to her. But the abiding love and deep respect between her and the three younger children continued till death.

Mother told me that at school she loved painting lessons and asked her mother for a paint box and other materials to be creative, however her request was ignored and to make it worse the longed for materials were purchased for her two little sisters.

In later life she joined an art class run by the local authority, (and here I am getting to the point of the tale,) but she never had the courage to paint anything original. She could copy a photo or the reproduction of an Old Master very well, she sculpted from models, embroidered and knitted exquisitely from patterns, cooked well and was admired for her “taste” in matters aesthetic. What stopped her when it came to being original in her work, with her many skills? Why did she feel inadequate in creating her own pictures and patterns?

One day, and she was an old lady by then, I at last persuaded her to try for something original, no matter how or what, and we sat down together to paint and I suggested she just make marks on a large sheet of paper. We used pastel chalks as they cover a surface quickly. When she had finished (working in silence, no comments from either of us) we sat and looked at the result. It appeared to show a girl sitting under a very large dark cloud which hovered just above her head. The image came from deep inside, unplanned and without thought. When she examined it she was surprised with its specificity and what she could divine from it.

Not long after that she created another picture, again using pastels. It was a simple subject, but it was original work, doodled out of her head, not a copy, and contrary to her past practices it was large and very colourful. She died some years ago, but I keep this picture and it means a great deal to me.

Mother's Picture

Art can heal deep wounds, and I would include other creative processes in the word Art. Perhaps the most useful aspect of painting in its widest sense is that words are not needed, nor any particular skills in representation, simply the ability to make marks with pigments.

There are many sources of inspiration. This is a painting by Jean-Baptiste Simon Chardin ( from Wikipedia Open Source). He seems to have been inspired by rather simple contemplative subjects, it is obvious though, that to be able to paint such things does requires a high degree of skill, even though it is still "marks with pigments".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Baptiste_Sim%C3%A9on_Chardin_029.jpg#filelinks

My father died when I was in my thirties. I didn't mourn him. It didn't touch me. He had left home (or been forced out, I don't know the circumstances) when I was 11. I came home from boarding school and was told “Your father has left and won't be coming home again.”

Bewilderement

I remember feeling bewilderment and intense anger which was immediately suppressed. Anyway, to get to the point... years later, maybe twenty years, I decided to paint a portrait of my father. Of course it wasn't in any way a physical likeness, more an idea. When I had finished it, and looked at what I had done I started to cry as though my heart was broken....which in a way it had been when I was told he had left and he would not be coming back. I wept for hours, and the anger and grief I had unknowingly bottled up drained away. He was forgiven (not, I am sure, that he intended any wrong) and I could love him again.

It was about this time that I moved from (inexpert) Botanical Illustration...

...to a much freer style and approach.

Freer

Much Freer

There have also been several occasions when my work has, unintended by me, given me messages in advance about physical conditions.... that, however, is another story. It almost moves into the realms of magic, and I need to think a lot more about it and the implications.

"Thus shall you regard all things - a flash of lightening in a summer sky, a bubble in a stream, a phantom and a dream." *


*Saying of the Buddha from Mountain Record of Zen Talks by John Daido Loori

GREAT EXCITEMENT @ …

… Hovel Copley-May. Thanks to the marvellous efforts of so many friends, and friends of friends, my effort for the www.eacartawards.org.uk reached the giddy heights of 7th place out of 2000. No one is more surprised than I, and I don't think I could have stood the strain of it going any higher. The papparazzi, the interviews for Hello mag etc, my dears, it would have been just TOO much!

The Evening Show was well attended and many people had already been and left when we arrived for the speeches and prize givings. It was very comforting to have family and friends around me.

There were about 100 works on display, some of them technically very accomplished. I reflected at one moment at how many hours must have been spent in total on producing the work. We humans are a strange bunch.

One of the great joys of the evening was to see London at night. It is simply stunning from both sides of the river, and St Paul's looks particularly beautiful as one crosses over to the north side on the Millenium Bridge.

The people organising it must have had an exhausting time, and thanks to them all. Still they managed to remain smiling and charming right to the end when, a week later I went to collect the, unsold (sniff), work.



Marg posted this pic of the artist looking rather pleased.

Botanic Painting

These botanic paintings may not be cutting edge "in-yer-face" art, however they take a great deal of skill (yes I know I am praising myself, but I remember how painstaking it was to try to master it. I was fortunate, I had a brilliant teacher.)

Synthesizing science and art, these special techniques can be learned and then all you need is careful observation, immense patience and the ability to work quickly so you can finish before the thing changes completely or dies!

With each successive one I did I marvelled more and more at the great beauty, the wondrous nuances of colour and form. Some flowers smell divine.... and others I have painted stank of rotting meat or faeces. They are hard to work on in an enclosed environment. Nature has a purpose though, for these smells, so objectionable to most of us, are divine to other creatures such as flies and beetles which are attracted by the odour, zoom in and fertilise the plant.



When I did this hyacinth the scent, so wonderful to begin with, became overwhelming. The orchid I show here is a cultivated one and it didn't really have any odour that I could detect. In the wild it must rely on its alluring shape and colour, resembling an insect, to attract pollinators.


When I worked on a Turk's cap lily seated amongst a riot of Mediterranean plant life on the Col d'Eze above Nice, I could see the sea far below, stretching to the horizon. A bee stung me, which put an end to that study!

I was even more put out when sketching a "talipot palm" (Corypha umbraculifera) in the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Florida. These amazing, large palms only flower once in their life. This lasts for several months, and by then the weight of the inflorescence is so great that the palm topples over and dies. The leaves can reach 5 metres in length and were used to thatch houses, and as umbrellas. Wine can even be made from this plant. The flowering of this particular palm was such a rare event that it was highly publicised in the Florida area. I went along with my sketch book eager to catch sight of this phenomenon.

I settled down, my feet were really close to the water's edge, the spectacular inflorescence with its millions (yes, really, several million!) of flowers in full view across the lake.

The picture below is not mine....I wish it was, but an old one which I got from good old Wikipedia commons, but this is how it looked.

My concentration on the drawing was intense, although I did notice a log floating in the water nearby. It seemed to be moving... slowly... smoothly... towards me.



I suddenly realised with a start that it was no log, but an alligator easing its way over to me, possibly friendly, but I decided not to wait and find out. I took off at high speed, with no time to perfect the drawing! Well that is a good excuse isn't it? This vintage picture is so lovely.

Good and Bad News

The Buddhists say you should greet good and bad news in the same way.

After a life time of getting good and bad news one can't be quite sure which is which as anyone who has had a disaster turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to them, will know.

This summer a nasty hornet sting which laid me low for a week may have saved me from electrocution by my iron! That's another story.

The recent good news (or, given the foregoing, is it?) was that, thanks to a kind friend who chivvied me into having a go, one of my pictures was chosen out of over 2000, to be shown an exhibition in London for the EAC Art Awards.

It is a collage of many paintings done, or rather partly done over a period of years, and never finished. Either the subject drooped and died, or I had to leave it for weeks and lost the thread, or made a silly mistake, which, with this sort of painting is difficult to correct, and I would therefore put it into a box and forget about it. (It is called filing.)

When 4 people close to me died within a few years of each other, for a time I rather lost the will to create new pictures, and of course there was a lot of boring administration to deal with.

When clearing out I came upon this box of stored, I mean filed, odds and ends and decided to get to work cutting them up, originally to have a stock of unused paper for sketching. Into one box went the nice clean pieces and into the other the cut out flowers and leaves. There were many different scales and colours, a real hodge podge.

Then the idea came to me to carefully trim them with a fine cutting knife and to put them together in some sort of order, and thus was "Floribunda" created. It took a very, very long time, and a great deal of patience. It was also immensely satisfying to re-cycle things that were apparently useless - something that gave one satisfaction.


Here it is, Floribunda:




Now I am going to hassle and hustle you and ask you to please vote for it on the EAC Art Awards website click on it, and scroll to the 2009, all pictures section.

http://eacartawards.org.uk

Floribunda is number 37 and I need ALL the votes I can get folks! I will let you know what happens, as I am going to the Opening on December 1st...how could I miss it? Thank you so much to all who have already cast a vote for me.

Not all starts get finished....

Not all starts get finished. By that is meant that one, I, often start a picture or a study and then somewhere along I get disturbed and never get back to finish.
Sketches are very useful. I used to sketch travelling in the car (no, not while I was driving although I have often been thinking about HOW I would paint something, particularly mixing a colour in my head, and then missed a turning, and ended up quite lost.)

As I am rather nervous of cattle I always stay outside the field. They can get very silly at times, just like us, and are also curious.



Moving water is a real challenge and endlessly fascinating. Below I am studying the ripples in a fast stream.



Here is one I did coming home late one evening, it was dusk, light was fading fast. I pulled into the side of the road and worked with whatever materials there were to hand, in this case pen and ink with some colour.



And here is one done on the beach. Even people at rest don't keep still for long, very infuriating, but good for practice of quick sketches.



Here is another working drawing, never finished.....late spring in the garden.



Although I do not work with photos as I find it difficult to extract what I want without copying the picture, I do like to take them, especially when I see something as charming as this tiny chapel set amongst the giant stalks of ripe corn. The leaves were rustling in the wind, and the farmer had very kindly cut a small path through the corn to the chapel.



There were many small birds, feasting on the insects droning in the heat, and on the seeds and on these berries hanging bright and shiny off the large plant, with shocking pink stalks. It was taller than I, but then I am quite small. I don't know what it is, does anyone else please?

Meltroot or Beelon?

Here is one of those incursions I mentioned. When I am painting I sometimes forget to eat, and when I remember I am already too hungry to wait long for something to pass the lips. Today I decided to tackle the melon that had been making my refrigerator smell (I wonder why melons are so pungent?) When I cut it open this is what I saw:



What is going on? Has a beetroot moved in? If so, is it a meltroot or a beelon? I would love to know. It crossed my mind that it might be a mould, but I cut the red bit out and ate it anyway – the melony bit – I didn't dare try the red part. That was a while ago and I am still here and do not appear to have grown horns or green hair.

So, back to painting. During the time I was preoccupied with the backcloth I was delighted to be asked to produce, at rather short notice, a painting of a house for a birthday present. The last time I was commissioned to do a painting of a house it was a rose covered cottage in Dorset, England. I was packing up to move house myself at the time and forgot to take a photo of the painting.

This time it was an old house being restored in the French countryside. It was the height of summer and sizzling hot. So in the mornings I tackled the backcloth for the theatre and in the afternoons I sat under a tree and boiled in the suffocating breeze and 40 degree temperature.

One afternoon when I arrived to work I left the boot (or trunk) of my car open to have access to my materials. I filled the water basin, wetted my paints and sat down to work. At that instant, behind me and close by, a combine harvester started up and blasted the car, myself, and all my carefully prepared materials with chaff!

People say: "How lucky you are to be able paint, it must be so relaxing."

NO. IT IS NOT!!!

Well, not as far as I am concerned anyway.

I managed to finish the work in time for the birthday. The recipient and commissioner were pleased, so I was pleased too.

Here is a small part of it. The cat never stayed in one place for long. All the animals – sheep, dog, cat, poultry – were continually moving; the dog (a sheep dog) in particular.



SUMMER TIME

At different times the cat, the dog, chickens and a small flock of sheep came to sit or wander by me. The collie was forever trying to herd the chickens, they would run off into the bushes squawking and the collie would settle down again keeping a watchful eye as the birds progressed out of the bushes to peck around....and then she would rush at them again! The sheep were very interested in my painting materials as an addition to their diet.

Apart from the intense heat it was a very pleasurable experience and a complete change from the mornings spent hunched over the enormous backcloth. I hope I get asked to do more like this.



Here is the dog and a chicken, running away from the dog.



The next blog will probably be about illustrations I was commissioned to do for a book – a salutary tale........to follow soon.