There's Nothing Like A Walk...

...to help the penny drop!

“Is this not a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise.” George Eliot

I drink my morning coffee bathed in the light of the Hunter’s Moon…

Early morning chores done, I glance again out of the window, and notice the soft mist enveloping the nearby trees. I grab my jacket, push my feet impatiently into my boots and head out. Overhead, the skies are a cloudless blue. Winter barley shimmers, heavy with dew, and cobwebs glisten; diamond necklaces strung along the hedgerows. Clinging to the earth, the mist hangs low, wrapping the sunrise in a blush of soft gold…

…bestowing a touch of magic on familiar sights.

                                                "What is the magic of an autumn day?
                                                        I do not know, I cannot say
                                                    But does a woodland set aglow
                                                   Not stir the longings of the soul?"

                                                                 Laura Jaworski

I make a mental note to commit such mornings to memory, a golden highlight to hang on to amidst the following days, with their grey, dour blanket of cloud, the relentless rain.

The sunflowers remain, heads bowed, swaying in the gentle breeze, bedraggled; they remind me of a crowd milling around, waiting…

As I walk on, the cacophony of crows grows louder, but, amongst the strident notes, a faint, more harmonious sound echoes; geese. I scour the skies, searching. In the distance, the familiar arrowhead ‘V’, heading south.

Delighting in the beauty of the morning, I shun my usual route, instead, walking on to the next hamlet and beyond, over the railway bridge, on and on…

I drink my morning coffee in the dark, peering out into the gloom. Early morning chores done, I glance again out of the window, and notice the neighbour’s trees being swallowed up by the encroaching fog. I grab my jacket, push my feet impatiently into my boots and head out. No blue skies radiate overhead. No blush gold sunrise. Instead, the tracks and rails lead to somewhere unseen, portals to other worlds.

Worlds where sounds are muffled; at times, an eerie silence descends.The air is heavy.

As I near the elder statesman, the horse chestnut tree, I hear the ‘drip, drip of the fog’…falling gently. In the copse, the sound is more pronounced; I like to think of it as ‘raindrops of fog’.

Dreary though the morning is, I’m still not ready to return home, so I carry on, down the lane, on and on…

"...I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I rarely think of myself as overly introspective; things are what they are. I recall a uni lecture, discussing ‘Why is a table a table?’ I wanted to shout out, ‘BECAUSE IT JUST IS!’

Similarly, I don’t tie myself in knots, overthinking my creative process - as can probably be seen in some of the work. I create intuitively, working with washes and marks. Inevitably, the random applications converge to form landscapes, however abstract.

It only struck me, as I was out walking, relishing the feelings of space and freedom that being outdoors induces, that those ‘feelings’ are what I try to capture on paper… Call it a ‘pop in the head’ moment. I wasn’t even consciously thinking about my art; more about how necessary it is for me to get out in nature, how it settles me. Go a couple of days without a good walk and I get all ‘angsty!’

You might think. ‘D’oh, well that was obvious!’ But to me, whenever people asked what my art was about, for some reason, I always struggled to explain it - I hadn’t married the two up! I told you I wasn’t a big thinker!

Whether it’s the coming winter, the dark nights, being confined indoors, the ‘what’ suddenly clarified; the fog lifted. And how freeing that is. Allowing myself the same rush of space and freedom on the paper, watching the washes dance across the surface, as I experience out in the landscape. Yes, it’s taken me a long while to reach this point - perhaps I should’ve thought more deeply. But I also know, that’s how I work. Experiencing, spending a long time in the landscapes, taking it all in, mulling it all over…giving myself time to let my mind wander…until it settles on what I want to capture, the emotions I want to express.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Studio vibes this week:

Three things to remember:

• Patience! Patience to let the ink/paint dry before going in with a mark that I want to be defined. Patience to let the work dry before moving it. Having only a small space, and wanting to get going on several sheets of paper at once, I have a tendency to move the paper - leading to runs and splodges where I don’t want them! I can’t tell you the number of pieces I’ve done this to!!

• Don’t mix gouache in the same palette as watercolour/ink!

• Wearing sweaters with big, droopy sleeves is not a good idea when painting…

  

Until next time, happy painting!