Category: This Week

I didn’t go outside much this week because the conditions were far too icy, but did put my Yaktax onto my wellies (think: snow chains for shoes) to put food out for the birds. We get robins, sparrows, green finches, chaff finches, tiny coal and blue tits, plus starlings and magpies. The latter we also call flying penguins because of something the in-house art critic once said.

I watch them from my studio, the kitchen, our bedroom, and one day will put pencil to paper and make a drawing of their flitting about rather than drawing it in my head only. Swoop in onto the top, jump down onto the seed tray, hop and hold on the fatball feeder, everyone scattering as some danger is perceived. A drawing about movement and interaction. Perhaps different colours for the various species.

To get to the birdfeeder I had to step over some pebbles that edge the grass, covered in a layer of frost. Without the greens in the grass, it looks quite different, more like tinsel.

I hadn’t really make a nest in a wire basket to keep some of the smaller pebbles warm.

This is frost on the back of an outdoor chair, reminding me of barbed wire spikes on the top of a wall. Look also at the spiky shadow on the table cloth.

A few moments from my week, starting with the high tide at Banff.

That’s Macduff looking postcard-picturesque in the distance. I took a number of photos, but in this one the waves in the foreground have created a triangle that echoes the triangle of blue in the sky, with the triangular slice of land as a counterpoint. It’ll probably feel contrived if I put this in a painting, but for second I took the photo it was ‘real’. The angles of the waves at this point can get quite chaotic as they’re influenced by the sea walls to the left and river to the right of where I’m standing.

I’ve been looking at drawings by Egon Schiele again, and having a go at my version of the ones where he’d used minimal line, with the hands drawn but not arms, leaving the viewer to ‘see’ the ‘missing bits’. This drawing is the one I like the most, of the in-house art critic sitting in his chair in my studio.

I moved the bright and cheerful flowers my friend Lisbeth sent me onto my studio table and started a mixed media piece. When I got to this point, and saw that what was supposed to be magenta was rather dull, I took another look at the bottle of what I thought was magenta watercolour, and noticed I’d changed the label to say “magenta + potter’s pink”. I then remembered I’d done this after reading that potter’s pink will make a mixture granulating without shifting the colour too much as it’s a weak colour, but guess it was a bit much. Lesson learn: make the label clearer!

Studio cat wasn’t impressed by the work-in-progress. (It was dry at this point!) I’ve since added some unadulterated magenta to it, but it’s still very much a W.I.P.

The now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t children’s book on the table is “Enormous Smallness“, on the poet E.E. Cummings. I was intrigued by how his life’s story and poems would be conveyed in an illustrated book. Read: interview with the illustrator Kris Di Giacomo.

Studio cat’s advice was, as ever, to sleep on it.

A few joyful moments from my week.

I spent most of the week south of the border, at Higham Hall in the English Lake District, leading my “Expressive Scottish-scapes” mixed media workshop. Once again it was a rewarding week, with great results from everyone. My thanks to all participants for your hard work and enthusiasm, and to all the staff at Higham.

This time I was in room 24 overlooking the courtyard, which may not be ensuite but its bathroom has the hottest shower I’ve ever encountered at Higham. I shouldn’t mention it also has a double bed, reasonable wifi and cellphone signal because then you’ll all be requesting this room.

The studio is in the old stables off the courtyard behind the hall. With my workshop being limited to 10 people (or occasionally 11 if there’s a request to ‘plus one’) there’s room for everyone to spread out.

My workshop is a mixture of activities to explore my approach to painting — layers being a core concept — and favourite colours, mixed with time to paint your own choices with my input. So many inspiring results! One of my favourites was a Talisker Bay piece which wasn’t entirely successful at the end the very first activity but that through the week became more colourful and layered through accidental colour additions and bits of demonstrating/trying materials, ending up with all sorts of interesting mark making.

Heading home was a constant reminder of the colour changes of autumn. I don’t usually include figures in my paintings or photos, but this one gives scale to the oak.

Back in my studio I made a big note to put at the top of my Higham notes that you-know-who-you-are requested I do a session on concertina sketchbooks in next November’s workshop. My next task is to unpack, but what’s the rush?