It’s such a strange time at the moment - we are again in ‘lockdown’ and I have been busy painting and not updating the website as I should have done.

The images above are three of my latest ones and I’m not sure of the names as yet. The blue and yellow one was created in September, whilst taking part in some advanced cold wax training by an artist called Sally Hirst. I have been using oils and cold wax medium for a couple of years now as my favoured media and had hoped to take an advanced course with Jerry McLaughlin in Europe (he and Rebecca Crowell wrote a marvellous book called ‘Cold Wax Medium, Techniques, Concepts and Conversations’ that I use as go to textbook) but with the Covid pandemic, he has been unable to deliver any workshops. Sally is a Norfolk based artist and had some interesting and useful information in her online course. The blue and yellow was the culmination of the 4 weeks work.

The other two pieces were started at the same time, but have gone through many transitions to get to where they are now complete. 

Prior to and during the course with Sally Hirst, these two were worked on and completed. I fell in love with the colours of the begonias in a big pot just by my patio doors. I watched the blooms develop from yellow to peach to scarlet and the way in which the leaves and blooms talked to each other was just delightful; I wanted to remember them after the summer was over. The blooms have gone now and the leaves are turning brown and will need to be cut back. I will be lucky if they return next year in such abundance.

A week ago, I started on a training programme of advanced oils and cold wax medium, with a Norfolk based artist called Sally Hirst. My aim was to learn more about my own work and see if there were any commonalities in my compositions. As I generally work in an intuitive way, without any visual reference point initially, my ideas and creative inspirations can become limited, especially now that Covid 19, has robbed us of the freedom to explore new places. 

As students of this training programme we were asked to set ourselves a project to work on during the course of the month long training. I am calling mine - ‘Opening Up and Paring Back’.

I wanted to look more closely at four of my own works and use vignettes from the works to dissect and recreate. I am not sure what the outcome will be, or even if it will be useful, but it will be a learning experience.

Above are 8 images that will form the basis of the project. They were in colour initially, but with the help of a Notanizer, I have made them into black and white images - light and dark.

Notan is a Japanese term which literally means “light dark harmony”. Artists use ”notan studies” to explore different arrangements of light and dark elements in a painting, without having the distraction of other elements like colour, texture and finer details. (This section taken from the Paint and Drawing Academy).

Hi Folks, just a bit of information, I heard today that I have been accepted for the annual Society of Women’s Artists Exhibition 2020. This is usually held in London, but, due to the Covid 19 situation, is online this year. The exhibition opens on 22nd September and closes on 30th December.  I entered four other pieces as well, see above, but only Arboreal Mists I was finally selected. 

Also not forgetting that the Torquay exhibition - English Riviera Summer Open - is still continuing until 28th September 2020. This exhibition in Fleet Walk Torquay, is also on the list of Devon Open Studios and operated under the banner of Artizan Gallery, Torquay. More information on the various websites.