All kinds of blue

 

It was below freezing when I got up early last Saturday morning at 6.30 for a hot chocolate. When I returned to bed, the sun was just rising after 7, the crows were calling and I snuggled under the duvet and blanket for an indulgent lie in. When I woke later, the back field was covered in a dusting of frost and the sun was out for the first time in what feels like forever. I had almost forgotten that the sky was blue, not a dingy, cold grey, with what has felt like unending rain.

As my long term aim is to be painting properly again, I have been sorting out my watercolour tubes, some of which I’ve had for over 30 years. I’ve been painting up new samples of what I have, so that I have a visual reference to help my poor memory. About 25 years ago, when I was painting regularly, I instinctively knew, through long practise, what to mix up for the exact colour I needed. Now I accept that I need to be able to see exactly what is in each tube. Which oddly is what made needle felting so accessible for me; I had all the wool colours to hand, in clear bags and it made it so much easier to create  exactly what I had in mind. Knowing how my ADHD affects me, this makes perfect sense; if it isn’t in front of my nose, I won’t remember it. 

The front room was bitterly cold, but I got the wood burner going and began a sheet of blues, to go with the greens I painted up the week before.

The morning music was provided by Midlake - one of my favourite bands, but who have been off limits for years. These two CDs were part of the musical backdrop to our move to Shropshire; Andy discovered them and we both loved them. They reminded me too vividly of that last, happier life. I have my therapist to thank for encouraging me to face things like this, and now I can dance around the room to ‘Roscoe’ with crying. Although I did cry the first time. Another thing reclaimed, and music which brings me such joy and inspiration. 

One of the blues I was sampling was a generous present from a kind friend, and it’s the most expensive paint I own; Sleeping Beauty Turquoise by Daniel Smith. It actually cost more than I spend per week on food. It is made from pure pigment, from a mine in Arizona, hence the price, and is the most perfect turquoise I have ever seen. 

I’d been trying (unsuccessfully) to capture this exact shade for a new hare decoration. As you can see here, in these two first drafts, it wasn’t working at all. 

It’s a little like Daniel Smiths’s Cobalt Turquoise, but is just a smidgen more subdued, with an exquisite, subtle dullness. I have yearned for this colour ever since discovering its existence and I feel very lucky to own my own tube of it now.

Although the fire made the room bearable, it was still cold enough that I was chilled through by the time I’d finished. Happily, I had a pot of bean and vegetable soup ready, with a new batch of bread rolls. Time for a hot water bottle, bed, and an afternoon nap. 

Painting the hedgerows

Mid-may and the verges are spattered with Queen Anne’s Lace and sundry other wild pretties, overlooked by copious clouds of foaming hawthorn, which we must not pick and never, ever bring into the house, for fear of bad luck.

Even the ancient, warty Wrekin is softened with the flush of new green growth.

I have aways loved the sight of a narrow country road cutting through the landscape and forging onwards to an invisible end, softly edged by tumbling greenery, blurring the hard edges so that the road, for all its visual dominance, never entirely wins. And here is my own tumbledown cottage, hiding behind the greenery. If you look carefully, further down the lane you can see the lilac tree by the gate of Jean-and-Brian-next-door, 

This is a motif that comes out in my own work again and again, as I reinterpret and simply the landscape around me, most recently in these miniature hills, an edition of two. It is also a firm control of the messy chaos of wool, taming the fibres into a solidly outlined  object.

And there is the contrast again, in this large still life I painted last Sunday, with the hard plaster wall being softened and almost overwhelmed by the exuberance of the paint, depicting Fumitory and Honesty spilling out and escaping the confines of the white ceramic jug.

Here is a return to my early painting days of thirty years ago. A letting go of control, a ‘let’s see what happens if I do this’ and being content with using just a few loose, broad brushstrokes to do the visual heavy lifting of the background.

I cannot express how exhilarated and exhausted I was, by the time I put my brush down and thought ‘that’s it’.

Birthdays and bears

Well, that's been a bit of a hefty blog break. Busy times. Sometime last month I had a birthday, and as some people may know, I am not a huge fan of birthdays. But there was a beautiful card from Joe, who also ordered a fabulous Clangers cake - and they spelled my name correctly, which is always nice! Yes, I adore the Clangers.

 

He bought me far too many presents, including some CDs of my favourite noisy bands, and a colouring book...which sadly I have not had time to play with yet.

Although I have made time to get on with my own painting.

Last weekend was my two day trip to Oxford, where I held my bear making workshop in the Willows, at Hill End Nature Centre, a truly delightful work space with lots of light and room.

 

I had nine attendees, four of whom were returns from previous workshops and it was lovely to see them again. It was a very busy, friendly session, and if you want an outside view, there is a lovely blog post about it on 'Tales from the Weekday Home'.

It is always nice to get to the end of the day and see the more-or-less finished results.

Apart from that, we have been trying to straighten things out at the cottage. I am still only half unpacked since moving in three and a half years ago.  It was all a bit too much with everything that happened subsequently, and I've been quite happy or rather, resigned, to live like this. But things are changing and this dumping room needed sorting. 

It's actually tidy compared to how it was. We've gone through boxes and boxes of stuff, put various things into lots for auction, charity and attic storage. Sometimes it was particularly painful, but it had to be done as life is starting to settle down and there is a lot more which needs sorting out. One can only live in carnage for so long.

 

Comfort

 I wonder if all the lovely people who left such kind messages and sent sweet emails about our dear little Mouse will ever know just what a blessing they were, in a very dark time? Thank you hardly seems adequate, but - thank you from the bottom of my heart. Being recently moved to a strange area, there were no 'real life' friends to turn to, so every word was balm and helped me feel a little less lonely.

Although our new, temporary home isn't handy for immediate foot wandering - a busy country road runs along the edge of the barn, and it shakes when lorries and tractors thunder by - we drive out as often as we can, to get a sense of place and familiarise ourselves with the area. 

I have always found woods to be especially soothing - the mere whiff of damp leaf mould does more for me than a scented candle. And there are always treasures to find - coral fungus, baby frogs and strange stumps littering the forest floor.

A close look reveals a tiny bracken frond emerging from the old, rotting roots of the mother place. 

With all the wet weather, fungi and toadstools are already emerging. These woods are mostly conifers, making the woods acidic; perfect for stink horns. There were dozens of them in the first 'egg' form, strangely metallic and translucent.

 

 Stink horns are one of my favourite fungi, despite their smell and if you don't know what they look like after the egg stage, I dedicated an entire blog post to them once. 

 

But if you prefer the larger things in life, then on the edge of the woods there is a vast view of Shropshire from Oliver's Point.

Driving out towards the border and views across to the beautiful  Berwyn Mountains in nearby Wales.

While mourning my favourite cat,  I have conquered my 'painting block' which has lasted for about two years. This is another comfort.  The familiarity of painting has always soothed me. And tomorrow, Tuesday,  we go to look at a very promising cottage - unless there is something really wrong with it, or someone else snaffles it, we are daring to hope. 

Paints and palettes.

I haven't really painted since taking up needle felting over two years ago. I was very, very tired of it; one of my earliest memories is of my dad going into a shop, leaving me on the pavement and emerging with a long, thin blue tin box, which he handed to me with a gruff ''there you are girl'. Or words to that effect. It was a box of Reeves artist's watercolours. I was about four years old.

(This is not the first one - I used that one up and he bought me this replacement on a later birthday)

He also gave me crayons, coloured pencils, let me play with his pastels as a treat and generally encouraged me to paint & draw without saying much, just giving me the tools. It was also a good way to keep the house peaceful, which was something he craved (not that I think I was a noisy child). When he died, I made a vow to become an artist for him, and stuck to that promise, even though I was only twelve and trying to keep that vow made life very difficult for me. It took me until fairly recently to realise I didn't really enjoy painting at all; I was just going through the motions.

So I was more than happy to give painting a break - I was bored and even resentful of it, and the only painting I've done since then has been for the odd commercial job. (Drawing however, I do love and never stop). But I was so pleased and surprised to have an enquiry from a needle felt customer as to whether I had any original artwork for sale. Yes, but only the two - 'Luna' and 'Little Clown'. And they bought them at once. Which was lovely, especially for my overdraft. This, combined with the enormous amount of painting I have to do for my two jobs, has brought me back round to the idea of painting again. But - my paints have been dying over the years. Look! The 'condemned' ones with red crosses on are the totally dried up tubes; I've had many of these since the early 1990's.

I went through them and realised I hadn't bought more than one or two tubes of new paint in a decade - the last time was back in 2005, just at the time I started this blog and tried out the (then)new 'Potter's Pink'. Not all of the dried up tubes needed replacing - colours like these pinks are so vibrant I only use them in tiny amounts, not for washes, so I can happily use the dry lumps they have become.

I took the plunge and spent some money. Not only paints, but all the paper I'll need for the final artworks (about 20 A2 sheets), and yet another ceramic palette (I can never have enough).

And another big roll of gummed strip; the sad little remnant there is all that is left of the previous large one, which was used up over five years. That is, I can tell you, a lot of work. I also had to replace my pencils which get used up within weeks at the moment.

This is my other box of paints; my gouaches and some of my new tubes. I bought everything from Jackson's Art online, who are my main suppliers; apart from their prices, I've never had anything but prompt and courteous service from them, and that's all you really want from a company. I indulged myself and bought several new colours from two brands I'd not heard of before.

Shin Han and Maimeri Blu both make affordable water colours, and Shin Han especially had some gorgeous sounding hues, some of which are opaque, a quality I like. There are all kinds of *rules* about water colour painting and I ignore them all. I mix gouache with watercolour, even though it splits. You just keep briskly mixing it together as you work and this often gives me lovely, strange colours. (One of the other *rules* is that you don't mix watercolours - you layer them. However my entire painting style rests on mixing and re-mixing - it works for me). I made a little colour sample to try out the colours I'd not used before. The Shin Han ones came out on top. I've kept this image large, so that if you're interested you can click on it and see what I mean. The 'Shell Pink' and 'Horizon Blue' are two shades that I'm always mixing up, so it's nice to have it ready to hand. I've always thought of the pink as sticking plaster colour. The Shin Han samples are on the left, the Maimeri Blue on the top left, three of them.

I don't think I'll be using the 'Lilac' much, (too purpley) but 'Davy's Grey and 'Horizon Blue' are keepers. The one error was stupidly buying 'Green Earth' from the Maimeri Blu range. Of course, it's what I know as 'Terre Verte'. This brand of paint is also quite gummy, which is typical of a cheaper tange. Not something I mind, but I know some people do. The 'Sandal Red' is basically a geranium shade, but a nice one. Here it is with Sennelier's Rose Dore (very red) and Winsor & Newton's Geranium Lake (pale) gouache. But still very tasty.

An opaque colour I used to use a lot for mixing is Daler Rowney's 'Nickel Titanate Yellow' . When I ran out I replaced it with a Winsor & Newton version, which really was not the same. It didn't have the chalky, lemony bite of the DR, so I'm glad to have it back.

Another colour I am very fussy over is sepia. It's something I don't use in my commercial work, as it dulls the vibrancy. My publisher once had a prospective book of mine rejected by clients because it was 'too brown'. However I always put a sepia wash in my personal work and it seems to be a selling point, giving it a nostalgic feel. Go figure, as my American friends say. I only have one sepia in my box that I like, and that is an ancient tube of Reeves in lead casing. It has the blackness which marks proper sepia...

...here is is on the right, compared to two others I have (Winsor & Newton Gouache and Old Holland) which are really just brown. Actually my favourite sepia is in the Cotman student range, but naturally I forgot to order that one.

I find it invaluable to keep a record of how I mix colours. This is a big sheet I made about 13 years ago, and I still use it today. Again, I've left it at big size., so you can click on it for more detail There are plenty of examples on it of how I've jumbled Nickel Titanate Yellow with other colours, to produce something I find interesting.

So when I hit my final deadline (please God) at the beginning of June, I might just start painting for pleasure again, now that I've had my little strop and a two year break. Sorry Dad and thanks again for the paint box.