Inter-tidal

I’m still unsure of how much to work into a painting once the first layers are there, the balance is very fragile and I’m thinking that this one needs slightly more work. It normally takes a while to ‘see’ the painting just produced. I managed to lighten ‘island’ again, 

A summer storm

Island

now that summer is passing the blues of the sea have changed from a light turquoise to cobalt shades. . I notice that pieces of washed up debris have smoothed over with those colours reflected in them..even a piece of eroded plastic takes on the quality of a shell..
a new phase of paintings may reflect these cobalts..

back to the sea, I look forward to the Autumn atmosphere, already the wind is driving a cooler climate and the breeze slightly howls at night over the rooftops

A novel by Joanne Harris , Coastliners is providing inspiration before starting to paint in the morning..it take’s me a while to get into the zone of it all and it helps to be reading stories of the sea,  particularly the atmosphere of islands off the Brittany coast as she describes.

Wales and Brittany have similarities of climate and language with the Breton connection.

Here is sea land,  the start of a new work . As can be seen here,  I sketch with thinnish paint and get the first layer of movement onto the canvas, then add layers afterwards to bring it together..it’ll go through many changes which is interesting to me because it reminds me of when I’m by the the atmospheric changes of the coast which occur in a short space of time..

Sealand 1

and 2

‘Island ‘ has also been developed more, but I’ll probably lighten it again..it’s gone a bit dark now..

winter in July, the weather is very erratic..

there was a dazzling ‘double star’ in the night sky a few weeks ago associated with Venus and Jupiter.. I’ve included this in a painting which was also otter bank..

producing art work takes extraordinary amounts of time, not only the physicality of it but the conceptual thought and planning to really achieve anything like the paintings I have in my minds eye to finish. While other work distracts and the general chaos of life which can feel like an impending landslide at times, I have to stay in the studio when possible and fully focus more deeply now for whole days.

Spent the first productive morning finishing these while listening to Janaceks piece on radio three ‘Over-grown path’ , the radio acts as a kind of barrier to the outside world and is in the background of most studio days , it creates a sort of zone where the traffic noise, peoples raised voices and roadworks outside, normally slightly imposing become subdued by music.

The island painting shown below came from a visit to Portmeirion on the coast, a truly inter-tidal experience with the unusual Italianate architecture and the beautiful dense coastal forest , the island sprang out of the desire to walk the coast path after  being around the early summer visitors in the centre of the village. I had a coffee which I shared with a Robin.

I found a good art shop later in Porthmadog town, the woman who helped with paint decisions was extraordinarily helpful and produced various colour charts and contact numbers with regard to ordering single tubes where needed. I use water based oils because I like the fluidity of the paint, acrylic tends to dry so quickly I can’t use the same technique for layering while the first layer is still slightly damp. these are the new results.

fragments

island , on the way to more complete

island sketch

afloat, in progress

Jupiter and Venus

I have it in my diary..Thursday..good weather..

A charming and welcome coffee break provided by this old Citroen van

having started some larger canvases I’m able to use the fluid washes of the paint layers to create a base for building on. The fine mist of some of the paint dispersal allows for sea abstractions

the layers of paint also present forms to work with such as islands and natural objects within the sea/landscape