Two Paths, One Journey: New Original Paintings and Collages
I'm delighted to share the paintings and collages I've been working on over the last few weeks. They're now finished, varnished and listed in my website shop. Inspired by the long hot summer we've experienced in the UK this year, these new works aim to bring joy, light and warmth.
My painting journey began four years ago, following a long artistic career as a printmaker specialising in etching and monotype. When I look back at my early attempts with paint, I'm amazed by how far I've come and how much confidence I've gained, not only in the process and materials but also in my style and visual expression. There's more to come, I know it!
I'm looking forward to making new discoveries and extending the size and scope of my work. It's immensely liberating to explore new ways of working with different materials while still retaining the thread of inspiration that comes from the landscape and natural world.
What sparked these first two paintings was the process itself, along with an idea about light and translucency. I wrote about the earlier stages of these pieces in Growing by Degrees, where I described the process in detail.
A sense of light and the translucency of flowers were my touchstones for Shining Through. Every summer, we have hundreds of poppies flowering in our garden and allotment. Their short-lived, fragile beauty is poignant at any time, but in the low evening light, with the sun shining through them, the colours are transcendently lovely. They remind me of stained glass, but softer and more delicate, with all the little creases and overlapping petals revealed.
For a long time, I've struggled to portray this translucency in acrylic paint. Finally, with this piece, I achieved something that approximated the essence of the subject rather than a literal rendition of it. I began with quite abstract marks, then introduced a simple horizontal division to suggest light reflecting off water. Gradually, I worked towards the foreground poppies, which are made from collaged, painted tissue paper, an appropriate choice, I think, for the tissue-like properties of poppy petals.
It was important to me that some of the bright colours I laid down at the outset should be retained throughout the process. You can see the different stages in the video below. I didn't always work from left to right; that's simply the way the video transitions between the still photographs I took at the end of each day! Would you like to see me at work painting next time? Let me know in the comments below.
Heatwave began with the same bright colours and some abstract mark-making before gradually developing into this lakeside view. Reeds beside water are a favourite subject of mine, but here I've introduced some invented flower forms to bring colour and interest to the composition.
The title and subject really clicked into place when I was walking around a lake in the height of the summer heat. It was so hot that walking was almost unbearable, yet the foliage and flowers around the lake were drinking in the cool water and maintaining their freshness in contrast to the parched grass all around. There must be some metaphorical wisdom in that! Let me know if you can tease out the meaning.
The video below shows the step-by-step process of creating this piece. Both paintings are A1 size, on wood panel, and can be displayed with or without a frame. Click the images to see more views, framing options and prices.
After a day of painting, I use the leftover paint to make collage papers, with the intention of incorporating them into future paintings. I've accumulated large piles of these papers, and I love shuffling through them, picking out delicious colour combinations. Somehow, though, they never seem quite right for a painting.
Then, one day, without much thought or preamble, I began cutting them up and assembling the pieces into these little collages on wood panels. I wrote more about this process in Waste Not Want Not. Following that blog post, I had quite a lot of interest in the collages, and one of my subscribers purchased Improvisations in Blue and Orange as a complete set.
These pieces were made with a light heart, playing with shapes and colours in a childlike way, while drawing on the visual judgement and compositional understanding that come with experience. There are references to landscape, garden features and plant forms. There's also a connection to Matisse's paper cut-outs, which have been a strong artistic influence on me, particularly his book Jazz which I saw for myself in the V&A library.
When I was a little girl, perhaps as young as four, I would borrow my Mum's large scissors and sit under my Dad's desk, cutting tiny shapes from magazines and coloured papers I'd found in his waste-paper basket. I'd then put them into little boxes. I was really quite intense about this activity; my Mum often recalled it, along with the horror she felt at such a small child using such large, sharp scissors! But I disdained children's scissors, which didn't cut properly! With these collages, I feel I'm reconnecting with that childhood artistic passion, which has been a touchstone throughout my life.
Improvisations in Red and Grey is available as a set of nine. For now, I'd prefer to keep the panels together. Perhaps in the future, if they haven't sold as a set, I'll offer them individually. Or maybe I'll make some more that aren't intended to be sets. I've bought about 50 more small wood panels, so I'd better get on using them!
Although the collages and colourful contemporary flower paintings might seem quite different from one another, there are many connections between them: colour, composition, subject matter and the challenges of working in new ways.
I'm excited about my next painting project and will share my work in progress here on the blog. Please do subscribe if you'd like to follow my progress, be among the first to see new work, and have the opportunity to purchase pieces as they become available. You can use the sign-up form below, at the top of this page, or in the pop-up window.
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