Remind me Where is your Happy Place?
I love working from home, so here are some shots of my happy place today, as I prepare to take cards and small watercolours to a craft fair in Blairmore Village Hall tomorrow - last visit this season to the restored pier of the lovely Waverley - we do take care of some things I guess, the pier, the Waverley and the village hall are kept for us all by people who really care....
Remind me Where is your Happy Place?
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In these small watercolours I aim to keep the work to the simplest possible composition.
Knowing when to stop is one of the secrets of success with any painting, but perhaps especially with watercolour. I don't want one element too many. I challenge myself to see just how simple I can get, and still have an interesting painting! (Hope you agree they are interesting....) ' The Blue Hums To The Yellow ' Yesterday I took four paintings to the Roger Billcliffe Gallery in Glasgow for their summer show - prints from Peacock Printmakers, Aberdeen and Advanced Graphics, London, paintings, sculpture, ceramics and jewellery....if you live near enough I hope you'll take a look. Opens 2 July, closes end of August. Private views (you are invited!) Friday 1 July 6pm - 8pm and Saturday 2 july 11am - 1pm www.billcliffegallery.com I have been busy finishing, photographing, framing, and listing sizes, titles and prices for these new (all but the last one)paintings to be delivered to Juno Gallery on Friday. I've also been writing an 'artist's statement'.. I quite enjoy the challenge of putting words to the images....
'In these oil paintings I am exploring colour, and in particular the interaction of one colour with another within the painting . My recent work has been described as both 'optimistic' and 'poetic' - I hope you will agree! My starting point is the effect you get at dusk, that luminous quality of light on the garden, particularly in high summer when my garden is bursting with colourful flowers. Known as the Puskinje effect, the garden looks as though it is lit from within. Bonnard called it 'l'heure bleu'. I want to capture and evoke the magic of it, or the 'enchanted moments of heightened perception' to borrow a phrase from Kenneth Clark.' For more information see www.fredawaldapfel.squarespace.com and www.junogallery.com . I'm celebrating,with flowers and a new painting, while reflecting on a year of blogging about trying to live more simply. It's hard to be simple in a complex world, with so many things competing for one's attention. I'm taking a little blog holiday while I decide just how I am going to navigate my painting path. Tonight at dinner I will raise a glass to you all and thank you for listening. Slangevar! I find that if I start the day in the studio, the other things have to fit in, and somehow do. But if I say 'I'll get this done first and then paint', the 'then' has a way of not happening.
I don't know quite why this should be, though I've written at some length on my arty blog about the processes of getting down to painting. (www.fredawaldapfel.squarespace.com ) I think I need to re-read what I've written. Excuse me while I go over there myself...... Starting the day with a drawing of a palm tree, accepting that there will be imbalance and that a certain ruthlessness is necessary, and finding that if you take 'down time' things just come - creativity is a fascinating thing - thank you all for sharing! Yes, it's as I thought. I've got seriously sidetracked. I've been feeling restless, (and a bit irritable) and saying to myself 'Well, I always feel like this just before spring arrives'. But the fact is I'm not painting enough.
This morning I got up, put the heater on in the studio, washed and dressed, put on some coffee and my painting jacket, and cleared the clutter from the studio. Positioned as it is, just inside the back door, it tends to get cluttered up with boots and shoes, things to go to the shed (you've seen the inside of my shed!), logs, bird food, magazines to be passed on, things to be recycled.... Cleared it all. Cleaned the worktable. Put out a fresh palette, stretched a fresh piece of paper. Calm. Order. Quiet. Discipline. As Julia said, 'Life just got simpler.' How hard it is to live simply!
I'm having to re-think my life (again) as I'm not finding - make that 'taking' - enough time to paint. Painting is the reason I came to this part of the world, and built a studio, and I believe that my best painting was done at a time when I reduced all other commitments and concentrated on just staying home and painting. Now I'm involved in committees, book groups, teaching drawing, writing two blogs, redesigning the garden, redecorating the house, writing the novel, trying to exercise, see family and friends and travel - 8 trips of one kind or another planned for this year! And paint. A beautiful life! I'm so fortunate to do so many things I love. But I have definitely lost sight of the motto that served me so well for so long - PAINT FIRST. Back to basics it is. Are you good at prioritising, at finding a balance? |
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May 2024
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