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Inspired by the trip to Harris in the Outer Hebrides (scroll down from here) I have been making small collages (20cm x 4cm) and I can't stop! I am planning to have an exhibition of 25. Here are 5 of them. (The photos not as pin sharp as I would like, sorry..)  Gloaming, Hebrides  Ancient Hebrides  Hebridean Croft  Outer Isles  Ancient Lands
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 There is still time to see the Battersea Affordable Art Fair if you live within striking distance of London!  Sales are brisk and there's a good atmosphere, and lots to see and enjoy....  Andrew (in blue shirt) and Penny (facing the camera) from Tighnabruaich Gallery will make you welcome - do mention my name! My paintings are the deep blue one behind Andrew and the pale blue one and the two red ones in the first photo - though there may be different ones tomorrow.. Fit to travel - Yay! (Thank you for your kind comments.) Weather forecast awful. Packing from my Travel Light lists (see here) plus umbrella. Back in a week..  I've been enjoying experimenting with painting frames with the marvellous Annie Sloan paints which come in wonderful colours.  I know I have said in the past that there is enough distress in the world without deliberately distressing furniture and paint frames, but I'm liking this effect! (I should have lit the candle to enhance it).  Letting some of the gold shine through.... The oil painting is titled The Pink Calls to The Yellow The door is open, the weather is beautiful, the people delightful, and the work is selling. I'm one very happy artist. If you live near enough do visit! See www.cowalopenstudios.co.uk  If I haven't posted under Simply Paint for a long time, that's because I haven't been doing much painting. I've spent most of this lovely summer in the garden (too much of it perhaps in that hammock) but it is time to get into the studio as Cowal Open Studios is just a month away. My studio is this small annexe to the house. It used to be a wash-house and coal-house. The gable end was so damaged it had to be replaced so we took the opportunity to put in a big window. The light and the views are lovely - the loch to one side and the forest to the other, the garden all around. Back to work then....  Winter Bites  The House Was Far Out At Sea All Night Two new small (A5) watercolour paintings ready to go to an exhibition which opens at the end of the month at Roger Billcilffe Gallery in Glasgow. The title of the second is from a line in the poem Wind by Ted Hughes. I am lowering my prices this year - sales have slowed down in most of the art market (I'm not buying either!) and I want to keep my paintings affordable for more people. These are £155 unframed. (Similar work in previous years was £185). What do you think about the prices of original art? Are they too high? It is a glorious sunny morning and I'm off to the Boathouse (see here) for COS - Cowal Open Studios weekend (see here). If you are near enough I hope you will come. So much to see! I'm about to fill the car with everything but the kitchen sink - travelling light is not an option today! More later.... Later: I stopped to take this photgraph on the way to Caol Ruadh today. I think I may have one of the loveliest commutes in the country....   'Soft Light. Coriander.' The photographs I've taken of the coriander were taken on bright sunny days, but the painting was begun on a day of soft diffuse light and the flowers seemed to float in the air... Oh, and irresistable is the 17C way of spelling irresistible (knew it didn't look right yesterday!)  I'm so enjoying working in The Boathouse at Caol Ruadh, surrounded by flowers which I've been bringing from the garden at home..  cornflowers and dill in a cornflower blue pot which I found in a charity shop..  More blues in a big lime green jug - I just keep adding more and more - any day now it will all collapse! I can see a new series of paintings - Flowers in The Boathouse....  Irresistable. Enough to keep me very busy for some time. Check out the blog on Caol Ruadh's website here I'm loving being artist in residence at the Scottish Sculpture Park! www.scottishsculpturepark.com Here are some of the paintings currently on show: 
Lumina 1
Dreams of Floating
About Meadows
High Summer
The Blue Sighs Over The Turquoise
 We had a great weekend at the Scottish Sculpture Park. Lots of visitors and some sales too....and my show is extended for another week.  Tighnabruaich Gallery are using the space in The Boathouse....  which is currently being restored,  though it's rather attractive in its rough state too I think... 
Here are three of the small watercolour paintings I took to Roger Billcliffe Gallery in Glasgow yesterday, and the new banner is how the weather was looking as I was leaving home! It snowed some more throughout the day, and the moonlight on the mountains as I came home was so beautiful - inspiring more paintings.... From left to right they are Here Comes The Snow, Moonlight on Cold Water, and The Big Freeze. Price £185.    Please click on the images to enlarge.
The exhibition 'Postcards 2012' begins on Saturday 4th February, and you are invited to the private view from 11am - 2pm if you are anywhere near enough to come! Enquiries and information : www.billcliffegallery.com 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?      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 photo of the delphiniums in front of the painting looks like a painting itself....must find a new canvas..  ' 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  ....the busier I get, the messier I get..  Sanity! Now I can find the tube of paint I need... 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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