Just take the next step.

I watched a film last night, 'The Way Back', about the arduous trek out of Russia, through Mongolia, China, and Tibet into India by a group of escapees from a Siberian gulag. Most of them didn't make it. But along the way they all learnt a lot about themselves through the hardships they endured. In order to get through the ordeal, they just took the next step. Step, step, step.

By the time you read this I will be on my own trek, on a 3 week retreat. Not a sesshin with others, but on my own, in a tent, on an island. I don't know what I expect, nothing, I hope. I'm not looking for anything, just time on my own, making a little space inside.

I have packed and re-packed the bag, it's still too heavy, but there's not much else I can leave behind. I've un-cluttered my head, sent all the emails I need to, nothing to worry about,......Catchya in July.

Step, step, step, step, step,step.

The only way is Essex

All is quiet in the studio this week, I've had a truck load of other things to do. I did, however finish the large board,along with seagulls to go on the hoarding at Brightlingsea Marina. It hasn't been put up yet so am unable to show it in situ.

In 10 days I'm off on my travels. My large bag is organised ish with all the paraphernalia needed for almost a month away from home on a camping trip. I think this may well turn out to be an exercise in endurance and how to pare one's life down to the bare essentials! Anyway I'm well excited.

I've prepared 5 boards for my return, so that I can get cracking with all the ideas that I'm sure will be bubbling to the surface. Full of light and sounds and smells of the sea, I hope my paintings will reflect the experience.

As there is a lack of art work to show this week, I'll post some photos taken today as Tilly and I strolled the half a mile down to the river.

Contrary to popular belief Essex is a lovely place to live. The sunshine coast. Maybe Saaaff End is not quite so picturesque but there is certainly a beauty in the more bleak lanscape in the south of the county. Here we are in the 'North', in much revered 'Constable Country' I hate that title but I suppose it gives an idea of what to expect! 

Looking longingly over the river to Suffolk.

Behind, the steep incline up to the church and Hall, (where we lived many moons ago, and where no 2 child was born. We now live on the Farm just behind that) Norfolk eat your heart out. I'm pretty sure this is the highest point in Essex.....could be wrong though!

I think the black smudge is the blinkin horse fly that had followed me all the way down the hill.....What a lovely June day it is.....PS On closer inspection....it's a damsel fly !

I'll be back some time in July......toodle pip.

Tender

A couple of jobs needed doing today.....finish the small painting on wood I started the other day, and to start something on a 4'x 4' board, destined for Brightlingsea Marina. There is an expanse of hoarding there, needing covering. Local artists have been invited to do their stuff.

All done.

 It was difficult for me to decide what to paint on this large board. Other pictures already in situ are beautifully colourful and wide ranging subject matter. from a Mexican style desert view, bathing beauties and abstract flowers  I wanted to do something of a local theme but really wasn't too sure until I started. I have employed usual techniques using a mix of collage, house paint and acrylic.

 The boat and beach huts in the distance are newsprint and tissue.

 The colours are not showing up too well in the photo. The boat has a good dash of vivid green and yellow

Time flew. It took me about 5 hrs to get to this point. Had to stop as the colours were beginning to muddy up. So I've left it until tomorrow and will tackle it then with a fresh eye.

Hope I'll finish it this week and take it down at the weekend. PS. No prizes for noticing I used my photo of a Maltese tender as a model. The water is not such a vibrant turquoise in Brightlingsea !

I thought THIS was a wkd idea for part of the hoarding !

Thought for the day ! 

(from Buddhist offerings 365)

Busy Busy

Making a start on this Maltese doorway, painted on wood. I probably shouldn't show work until it's finished, but I quite like the ongoing process. The wood makes a lovely surface to work on, really grainy, especially for  a wooden door and stone walls. The colours are subdued like the dusty peeling green paint and sun washed stone. I loved the architecture in Malta and took endless photos of doors and balconies. A constant supply of inspiration. Oh to go back... a flat in Valletta would be just perfect!....dream... 

This small painting (approx 40x60cm) is to add to a couple of others, I hope will be chosen to hang in the Colchester Art Society show, at Layer Marney Tower . The show in July. Three works can be submitted and  all, some or none are selected!  We'll see.

I now have work hanging in The Treble Tile restaurant in West Bergholt, so get along and sample their fab food whilst perusing my paintings!

Great excitements,  Jardine Bistro in Wivenhoe have offered me a slot next year to show my work, in their stunning restaurant. It's such a great space for art work, and they have showcased some amazing artists, so I'm very excited. There is quite a lot of hanging space so I had better start work now !

Southend Festival is running a competition for artists, if you would like to vote for my work (or someone else's ) go to my Facebook page click on the link and 'LIKE' my painting. Thanks.

Willow The Wisp

This week I spent a day with Debbie Hall, a willow artist, having some one to one tuition in how to create willow sculptures.  Well, the basics really, it takes a long time to master the art of weaving willow well. I had first been inspired by Laura Ellen Bacon's work at the basketry exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. Wow I thought I must learn how to do that. Laura produces amazing, flowing organic shapes from the willow, stunning. Anyway, Debbie was a very patient teacher (and superb willow weaver) and managed to drum in some fundamental techniques in a short space of time.

These are just a few pieces dotted around her garden. More examples of her work can be seen on her website Salix Arts. I particularly like the fish, which were made using very branchy, branches! Parts of the coppiced willow that was too uneven to use in the more structured pieces. 

              

The willow in buckets of water to keep fresh, has been harvested to be used in 'living' willow structures. Things like garden arbours or 'growing' garden chairs. Normally for basketry and sculpture, the willow is harvested in the winter when the trees are dormant and the sap is not rising. This gives the finished sculpture lastability and it is more supple and easier to work.

So, here are fruits of my labours ! No...don't laugh... the intention was not to make a finished piece, but learn all  I could in the time, using the basics for developing a sculpture. Circles slotted inside each other can be made into globes, many globes can then be  lashed together. The start of  many structures. 

The next basic shape is a sort of a tower. this can be used to give height/length. The shape of it can be altered as you go along. So for example, I could  have given the tower a waist, stuck a globe on the top and already you have the makings of a simple figure. Or horizontally, it could be the start of an animal. All that is need then is to weave more and more withies in to the structure, until the desired effect is reached.

This (above) is a very useful knot for lashing pieces together and also has decorative qualities that can be utilized in the design.  Obviously a great deal more practise is need but I'm very excited about working on this. I went down to our lake this afternoon to cut some withies, just so that I can have something to work on, before I spend a lot of money on buying in bundles of willow! I hope that in the Autumn I will get round to planting up some different varieties for future harvesting. Looks like a long term project!

Grrrrrrr Bloody Grrrrrr

The washing machine has packed up and the last remaining knob on the cooker looks set to curl up it's toes. I walked into my studio, after a couple of weeks, with the intention of completing a painting. I hated the picture immediately. The place was a mess. Hmmmm. I sat and turned the pages of  THIS  to 4th May. Aaaaahhhh !

Sat for a while then painted over the picture with white paint. There is still a ghost of an image, but I feel a lot happier!

In other news. I'm off on a jaunt next month. A solitary retreat to an island. People keep asking me if I will be painting. I don't think I will. I don't want to get bogged down with painting what I see. I want to just be open to ideas........Balancing stones maybe, like THIS

Or This !

It's a start LOL.

An Easter Meditation

LISTENING

The sound of each foot connecting with the ground

13 bird songs

CROW DUCK BLACKBIRD ROBIN WOODPECKER

MAGPIE TIT FINCH PHEASANT PIGEON GOOSE WREN

JAY

the flap flopping of wellingtons against bare legs

Pondering Hoarding

Hoarding, we all hoard don't we? Physical stuff, the mountains of no longer used things we can't bare to throw away. What about all those 'ideas' and beliefs we hoard? All that mumbo jumbo that we hang onto for dear life, the baggage that we think defines us.
I have been pondering this notion of hoarding all week !

Mostly because it was my daughter's 21st birthday yesterday and I decided to give her, amongst other things,  a selection of jewellery that had been given to me on my 21st birthday. These items had been stashed away in a campaign box for at least 25 years, along with semi precious jewels my brother had brought back from India, ( I had long forgotten to have them made into something wearable)  a letter from my father when I was at school, a cigarette box of  cowry shells collected on a beach in Ireland. A photo booth pic of me with very short platinum blond hair, a Victorian mother of pearl cigarette holder and many other unlooked at trinkets. Daughter can sell them if she wants, to subsidise a trip to India, I don't need to hold onto them any more.

What about beliefs? preconceived ideas? do I need those any more? Does your mind look like our barn, full of clutter?
Buddhists feel that we should walk our path on this earth and when we leave...leave no trace. We are all so caught up in this idea that we should not be forgotten. Everyone wants to leave a mark....'don't forget me, I was important'....
Filling in the Census a few weeks ago, I pondered the religion question. What am I ? Christian?, Buddhist? I don't know. So I didn't put anything..... 'Now' ist, possibly, 'this moment' ist ....maybe !    The problem comes when the tag 'ist' or 'ism' is put onto a word.  It's suddenly weighted down with baggage, beliefs. Ideals. We become entangled with rules and regulations. Hmmm.

Anyway....my point is.... we do the same with art. We become entangled with our notions of what our art should look like. Frightened to stray far from the norm.
Not knowing is liberation.    Aaaaahh !

Practising what I preach

A sunny day in the studio, left handed painting !

Consciously streaming!

Another day, another workshop, sadly the last in this session of group days. Though I am available for extra days (min 2 people, see the side bar for details). Some really lovely expressive painting was produced today and again hugely varied.

Gilly, following the brief of layering, worked on this piece for a couple of hours. Ever increasing the complexity of texture and rhythm. The painting changed hugely over the time it was worked on, starting out as a still life, and ending up as an amazingly complex stream of consciousness. We are all unique filters through which experiences are processed, and it's a pleasure to witness this!

Vivienne experimented with texture by working into wet paint.

...and Pauline produced a lovely composition, incorporating newsprint and Chinese characters, adding interest. The paper had been primed using ordinary house emulsion, this gave a really interesting grainy base for the charcoal. Which goes to show even the cheapest of materials can be used to great effect.

Spring Workshops

 The last couple of weekends have been taken up with workshops, in both Unlocking Creativity and Mixed Media. What a lot of fun I have had ! I love the variations in peoples work. Given the same brief, it's amazing how everyone comes up with a different end result. It has nothing to do with artistic talent but more to do with an artistic handwriting. Some came in with long held preconceptions about how their art should look, and actually found that using their non dominant hand to draw, created some wonderfully free work.

 I have a final Unlocking Creativity day next week, with one place remaining. If you are interested in joining us, see the link on the side bar for details.

Mixed Media day was spent experimenting with inkjet transfers (some were more successful than others! It's a trial and error process when using different surfaces) and building layers on a canvas using collage, pen, tissue and finally paint. It's very much a serendipity process, where happy accidents rule!

I will have another session of workshops later in the year, but if you would like to do one sooner, and there is a minimum of two people attending, I'm pretty flexible.