I have a friend who is always photographing ancient ruins. The photos are almost always taken in glorious summer weather under a blue sky. It made me realise just how many of my paintings are done between Autumn and Spring with storm clouds threatening. Looking through my sketchbook recently, I came across a sequence of drawings of Baconsthorpe Castle, near Holt. The weather that week had been fair and according to the forecast it was meant to continue, but when I set out that morning things didn't look at all promising. A restless light, scudding clouds, the threat of rain - would it clear or would the weather close in? I couldn't decide. But one thing was certain - there's nothing like a bit of storm light to add drama to a landscape... Baconsthorpe Castle is a couple of miles or so east of Holt, down a bumpy, potholed farm track. As I clattered over the suspension-testing cattle grid, a break in the trees revealed what remained of the Castle's inner gatehouse, a brooding presence under a dark, crow-scattered sky. The Castle was built in the mid 1400s by the Heydon family and expanded over the next two centuries, funded largely by the thriving wool trade. By the mid 1600s its fortunes had fallen into reverse and the castle was partially dismantled and sold off for building materials. Today it is an extensive ruin, encompassing an inner and outer gatehouse, a system of tumbledown walls and towers, surrounded by a moat and bordered by a broad mere. This first visit was an exploration with camera and sketchbook. I spent a long time wandering among the ruins, taking in the atmosphere of the place. The gusting wind, the hoarse cawing of crows, and a back drop of storm-blasted and ivy clad trees all added to a feeling of haunted bleakness. Sketching the outer wall and moat during a break in the weather. I was interested in the row of gun slots and their reflections. Fortunately, the Civil War is long over, otherwise I would have been directly in the firing line! A few minutes after that photo was taken, the weather turned foul again, and the wind was coming in gusts. Those perfect reflections scattered into a thousand watery pieces, and I had to take refuge in the shelter of the gatehouse, to save my papers from being blown into the moat. The inner gatehouse and moat. One of the earliest parts of the building, it comprised two lodges either side of the entrance gate, with grand rooms and a chapel above. The remains of the left hand lodge offered some shelter for sketching with good views of the ruins. The remains of servant quarters. The gaping windows, stark against the light, still have their oak frames intact. For structural subjects like Baconsthorpe I favour either charcoal or Conté. On this occasion I used Conté, which creates a harder, blacker line than charcoal, and suited the starkness of the subject. Ruined tower and archway. The tower originally held a fulling tank where the coarse woollen materials, produced on site, were softened in a mixture of soapy water and stale urine. The water quality appears to have improved over the centuries and is now crystal clear and home to a healthy looking clump of reeds. A coot shot out in a startled panic as I approached, and took refuge in the neighbouring mere. Below: Baconsthorpe Castle across the mere. Much as I would have preferred to paint the subject on site, the weather deteriorated, making further work impractical. This watercolour was painted back in my studio using on-site sketches and photos. If you are planning a visit to Baconsthorpe Castle be warned - it is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a medieval sentry who stands at the top of the castle walls, dropping plum stones into the moat. He is said to be completely harmless, aimlessly killing time as he awaits an invasion of long vanished pike men. I certainly didn't see the spectral sentry during my visit, but I must say, as I wandered the site, I did have an eerie feeling of being watched from above. It was probably just the crows.
On the other hand, I wonder what really startled that coot... I've had a number of enquiries about 'Lottie', the miniature poodle that I featured on the blog back in 2017. Lottie is still very active, and I often meet her when out for a walk. She is invariably accompanied by her more senior companion 'Tolly', whose portrait I also drew some time ago. I am often asked how long it takes me to do a dog portrait, so this month I've reached into the archives for my working sketches that underpinned the finished portrait. ~ Lottie began life as an apricot poodle, but has gradually faded to white with a hint of apricot in the ears and muzzle. Her owners were keen to have her committed to paint before the apricot vanished altogether. First off, I like to meet and bond with the dog - Lottie lives locally, so we were able to spend time walking, chilling out together and playing her favourite poodle games. As she couldn't keep still for more than 5 seconds, I had to take lots of photographs and film clips to back up my sketches and colour notes, the final subject being worked in my studio. The preliminary drawings are done in charcoal on A4 copy paper. They are worked quite rapidly, capturing aspects of character and movement, and looking at angles quite different from the final pose, but which helps to give me information in the round. I use the side of the charcoal to block in the back ground, and the textural effect is created by the paper itself. I use fingers to smudge in the lighter grey tones. Lottie's ears equate to what in humans used to be known as 'big hair'. What was going on structurally underneath them was anybody's guess, so I did this drawing of her without ears. Don't be alarmed - here is a subsequent study with her ears back in place. I can confirm that this sequence of drawings was done without recourse to either surgery or superglue! Altogether I did around two dozen tonal studies of Lottie before starting the actual portrait. In addition to tone I need colour notes. Although photos are useful for back-up information, there is much that the camera will distort, including colour values. So my primary material has to come from direct observation. This colour swatch was made using the paper chosen for the portrait, and observing the warm/cool effects of both light and shade on the subject. You may just be able to see that some colours are ticked and others are crossed out, as I narrow down my selection. For the portrait, I chose a Fabriano Ingres 160gsm laid paper in a mid-toned warm grey. This provided both a foil for the white fur and the apricot ears, and an unobtrusive background for the subject. Having chosen the pose, I start with a tonal under-drawing. I prefer to use willow charcoal for this, as it will disappear into the subsequent layers of colour, whereas graphite would show through the finished piece. I work very lightly at this stage, ghosting in the tonal values, in order to retain most of the paper tooth for the pastel, and to avoid sullying the later application of colour. All the above gives you an insight into the preparation that underpins the finished work. The portrait itself is worked over a number of sessions, and when I reach the point where I've stood in front of the easel for half an hour, only to make one small, but crucial, mark, I know that's it. The finishing touch is in place. Here she is, finished. Although Lottie is almost white, there is very little white pastel in the portrait. White objects tend to appear warm in sunlight and cool in shadow, so the colours used were all very pale tones of ochre, blue-violet and pinkish greys. In context these pale hues create the appearance of white, whilst avoiding the flat, chalky look of pure white pigment. Having just been clipped, her coat resembled a very tight perm, and each of those curls had its own shadow, involving a lot of detailed work with attention to warm/cool pairings and texture. As for Lottie herself, by the end of the exercise, she was totally flaked out. Go to the Animal Portrait page for more examples of animal portraiture, and use the contact page to enquire about commissioning a portrait of your pooch.
Someone said to me the other day, 'I don't expect you do any painting in winter, what with it not being fit to get out?' Quite the contrary. Although we are still in the grip of winter, it is a time when I love to be out with sketchbook in hand. Whilst rain and snow will quickly ruin a watercolour, winter still provides many opportunities to work outside. It is a season when the whole landscape opens up, revealing subjects that the dense foliage of summer obscures. I love walking in woods, and when people ask me about painting trees, I always suggest to look at them in winter, when their skeletal structures are revealed. What caught my eye here was the central play of light filtering through the trees. I was also attracted by the combination of the sear grasses in the foreground and the blue greys beyond. Warm colours pull forward visually, and cool colours sit back, so this partnership tends to create a sense of distance. It may be the coldest time of year, but ironically, winter plays host to the warmest colours of the spectrum. My winter walks are enhanced by the sight of ochre grasses, the rusty hues of oak leaf litter and dead bracken, the copper spires of last year's rose bay willow herb, and the madder haze of distant birches. On some days, the whole landscape may be flushed with a pinkish light. The scene is visually warm, even though the temperature may be a little above freezing. Detail of a winter wood study from my watercolour sketchbook. The warm colours in the foreground are raw sienna, burnt sienna and brown madder alizarin. The birch bark, with its distinctive tiger stripes, has been given a soft sienna wash, a colour effect that seems to be especially noticeable after rain. The pencil work was added after the watercolour and while the wash was still wet. The effect is to make the pencil rather like a stylus, so instead of the usual grey pencil marks, the result is a darker tone of the underlying colour. Hence the blue edge alongside the birch trunk and the varicoloured marks superimposed over the sienna and madder washes in the foreground. I love using a pencil in this way, but I have to be certain before I draw the line, because drawing into wet pigment renders the pencil work indelible! If winter is really not the season for you, don’t despair - we are only at the beginning of February, but the trees are already coming into bud and it won’t be many weeks before they begin to burst into leaf. Then the warm earth colours of the winter wood will disappear, to be replaced by the bright yellow-greens of spring. This is what I enjoy about the changing seasons - with each turn, the landscape is constantly reinventing itself, and presenting new subjects to paint.
So grasp the nettle - wrap up warm, get out there and take a good look at the colours of winter, before they disappear for another year… It's always disappointing not to have had snow at Christmas, but I have to say I'm relieved – what with the broken foot, the last thing I need is to step outside, slip and slither onto my backside and end up trading the orthopaedic boot for a full body plaster. In the absence of the real thing, I've rootled through my portfolio and found this pastel of a boy in a big orange coat stumping through a swirl of snow. It would have been impractical to do this out of doors, as snow, like rain, can ruin a painting. When a snowflake falls onto paper, it is impossible to brush off, however crisp and crystalline it appears to be. It simply sticks there, and for an enchanted moment there it is, in all its perfect symmetry. Then another and another and another fall, all perfect and different. Then they melt into the surface of the painting and totally muck up what had promised to be a decent piece of work. Fortunately, a combination of observation, rapid field sketches and photographs gave me the information I needed to complete this subject in the studio. That isn't to say I regularly paint in the comfort of the great indoors on the basis of a few hurried 'snaps.' Far from it. Even when the weather makes it impossible to work out on location, there's nothing like getting out in the elements in order to soak up the atmosphere of a place. ~ Near my home there is a vast, windy field, with a track that cuts across the most open and windy part of it. A few years ago we had a tremendous amount of snow, which kept me indoors for some days. Finally, in a fit of cabin fever, I'd had enough, togged myself up, grabbed my hiking pole, and headed out across the Windy Field. I know the track well; it is impossible to get lost. But today was different. Part way across, the snow began falling; minutes later it was coming fast, and I was stumping along, head down, into a blinding white landscape. There was no sign of the track, and no other footprints ahead of me. The snow had erased all trace of my familiar world, and was making the landscape anew. That is, what I could see of it – visibility was down to about twenty feet. I felt like a pioneer, heading into the unknown... Further along, the track was blocked by a dune-shaped drift about three feet high. Not one for turning back, I clambered over it, only to sink up to my knees, the snow half-filling my boots. Oh well, 'in for a penny...' I ploughed on, head down, stockinged feet crunching on the snow inside my boots. I fought off the discomfort by thinking how, after this, my next snow painting would be filled with a great sense of being Out There... Coming back through the village, I met the only other person out that day, a weather-beaten man in his eighties. I was about to tell him of the three foot high drift I had conquered out in the wind-blasted field, when he cut in: 'If you think this is bad, you should have been here in the winter of '47. I was just a boy. The snow kept falling until it almost swallowed the house – the only way out was through an upstairs window!' He went on to tell me how there had been no electricity, no heating and the loo was in a shed at the bottom of the garden, 'with icicles hanging right over the privy, like sharks' teeth – you needed to get your business done quick before one of 'em broke off and poleaxed you! And getting back to the house, the snowflakes were as big as your hand!'
Although I thought this last comment a bit of an exaggeration, I shelved my story about conquering what now felt like a rather feeble three foot high drift. ~ All landscape paintings, whatever the season they depict, benefit from that sense of being 'out there'. Even if it's too wet, too windy, too cold, too whatever to actually paint on location, you can still tog yourself up and get out. The experience will find its way into your work, and you'll come home feeling invigorated and with a story to tell – although presumably not about snowflakes as big as your hand... My forays out and about with sketchbook and camera have been temporarily suspended by a freak accident which caused me to break a bone in my foot. One of my friends said it really would make a good blog and have everyone in stitches, but you will forgive me for not being quite ready to discern the funny side of it yet, and have shelved it for some point in the future. So this month I'm having another dig in the archives, and have found an apt piece involving loss of footing in pursuit of one's art... ~ Always on the look-out for photo-opportunities, I went to Overy Staithe with a couple of friends to show them a favourite painting spot on the Brancaster side of the Staithe. One of my companions was a keen photographer, and we planned to get some good location pictures for the website. The track that side of the staithe isn't suitable for my big easel and trolley, so I had brought my pochade box and rucksack. This was a subject I painted at the same site a couple of weeks previously, looking west. On that occasion the light had been somewhat grey, but today we had a vibrant blue sky, one of those days which, if it weren't for the crisp edge to the air, might pass for summer, and we had high hopes of getting some good photos. Unfortunately, our plans for a photoshoot were scotched because the friend with the camera had omitted to change lenses before setting out and only had his macro fitted. He decided there was no point in carrying it down the marsh track, and left it locked safely in the car. As things turned out it was a wise move... Having followed the track down onto the marsh, we found the path extremely muddy. My friends were reluctant to go any further, but I was unfazed. 'I've tackled muddier places than this,' I assured them, ' - follow me.' I led the way through the mud, but they hung back, still dubious. I cast around, trying to find an easier way for them, only to slip and land on my backside in the mire. This elicited the remark that if only the camera had been available, it would have made the perfect film, unfolding, as it had, in glorious slow-motion. Undeterred, and biting my lip against the escape of an apt retort, I struggled to my feet, found what seemed to be firmer ground just a couple of feet away, and directed my companions there. Gingerly, one of them slithered alongside me, only to find that the tussock I was standing on was an isolated piece of firm ground in the middle of a bog into which he was now sinking. In the next moment one shoe was sucked clean off his foot and he was down on all fours, trying to spread his weight. I tried to tell him that he was perfectly safe, it wasn't the kind of bog that actually sucks people under, and had he stayed upright he would only be ankle deep at the most. But it was a bit late for this, because he was now flat on his face doing the breastroke, and getting slathered. Meanwhile my other friend nearly lost her balance in a heart-stopping show of mud-skating, before she mercifully regained her footing. She wisely decided not to go any further and focussed on trying to retrieve the lost shoe which was well embedded in the mud - it eventually came up with a great sucking noise, full of black water and unwearable. With the shoe retrieved, we now had to extricate ourselves and get back to terra firma. Bad turned to worse, and every attempt we made to rescue each other ended in more of a communal mudbath. Overy mud smells distinctly of dead fish. And by the end of it so did we. We squelched back along the track to the car, an uncomfortable experience for the one who was obliged to tramp along the road wearing only one shoe and a soggy sock.
I tried to cheer my friends up by saying, 'Of course, one has to suffer for one's Art'. They were familiar with the saying, but couldn't quite understand why it had to extend to their suffering for my art. And if any mutual friends are reading this, I will only identify my companions as 'O_______' and 'R________' partly to protect their anonimity and partly because the '_______' bit describes the act of slipping into a quagmire better than any words, and I distinctly recall that 'Oh ______!' and 'Aaagh ______!' were the expletives used as the action unfolded. More results of my artistic suffering can be viewed on the Landscape and Marine pages Autumn is here, and with it has come a lot of weather. Forget the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The relentless rainstorms of recent weeks have wreaked havoc across the country, and it hasn't been a time for getting out with an easel and a big painting board. I learned that lesson long ago; there I was, up on an exposed seabank, while the wind buffetted the board and fought me for control of the brush. It ended with both paper and board being whipped into the air by an almighty gust and deposited in a nearby dyke. Whenever I've told that story I've been greeted by the mystified comment of, 'Why do it?' Well, had I been a mountaineer, the answer would probably be 'because it's there.' In the case of a Norfolk wind, it's everywhere at once. The fact is that the most dramatic subjects tend to appear in the worst of the weather. A blustery wind can bring fantastic skies, fast-moving clouds of brilliant white, pale gold and violet-grey, tumbling and racing across the blue. That is when I spend hours walking with sketchbook and camera and jotting down brief plein-air studies. Left: Cloud, Light and Storm-Tossed Birds. In this sky study, the paint was drying quickly, enabling me to superimpose translucent layers of cloud over the first wet-in-wet wash. I was walking along the sea bank at Overy Staithe when I saw a dramatic stormy subject that I just had to paint. The creek shone white under a glowering sky, and from foreground to horizon lay swathes of mingling greens and earth colours. It was a case of 'bung it down fast and pack up before the raincloud catches up with me'. I used a limited palette of French Ultramarine, Raw Sienna, Light Red, and Prussian Blue, working with a size 20 brush on an 1/8th Imperial sheet. For the benefit of non-painters, that's a very big brush on a very small piece of paper. 'Can't you just re-create it from a photo in the studio?' Well, sort of – but working out on site lends a sense of immediacy, of being there in the moment, that is not easy to reproduce in the comfort of 'The Great Indoors'. Right: Rain Blotches. Of course, there are some effects that are not all that desirable to create out of doors either – such as when a passing cloud decides to offload its surplus water directly onto a promising sky study. It's pot luck whether the rain spots create an interesting textural effect or a total write-off. Someone has suggested that it looks a bit like snow. All I can say is I would hate to be bombarded by snowflakes that big...
'Cloud, Light and Storm-tossed Birds', 'Threatening Sky at Overy Staithe' and 'Rain Blotches' were all painted in watercolour on Canson mi teintes paper. 'Have you ever painted in fog?' This was meant as a joke. So the enquirer was taken aback when I said, 'As a matter of fact, yes.' And rootling through my files I found a blog from the archives ... ~ It was the Autumn of 2016. We had recently enjoyed a spell of good weather with glorious blue skies and temperatures into the twenties, and with the equinox imminent I knew I had to make the most of things. So I arranged to go to Brancaster with friends, where we planned to get some sunny photographs to add to my website. Imagine our chagrin when we reached Brancaster to be greeted by a chilly sea fret. Undeterred, I grabbed my pochade box and painting stool, and we hiked along the beach to the creek which meanders its way into the 'seal pool'. The colony of common and grey seals has steadily built up in recent times, and now numbers in the teens. ~ The seals were enjoying themselves, diving and bobbing up again (seal watchers call it 'bottling') and enjoying a spot of fog-bathing on the opposite bank. I couldn't resist sketching them. ~ Then I set up my pochade box and paints. My friends were expecting to take a few photos while I posed briefly, brush in hand, and then pack up and head back to the comfort of the car. They didn't expect me to actually paint. After all, it was cold and there was hardly anything to see. What they didn't bargain for was that painters have a habit of seeing subjects in the most unpromising situations. Even fog. ~ Here I am, painting into a chilly sea-fret, while dressed for a heat wave in thin summer top and sun hat. I was attracted by the zig-zags of sand and water, the interplay of warm earths and cool greys, and those soft darks in the middle distance, which gave the subject some tonal punch. ~ Before setting out we had checked the tide tables – but as we were soon to discover, Time and Tide have a habit of stealing a march on you while you are otherwise engaged. I had finished the little pochade study and was now looking seawards, trying to discern sky from sea, and mesmerised by the echoing sound of water lapping the shore. Swishing some blue-greys off the palette, my brush was at work again, painting the incoming wavelets and the sheen on the sand. I was oblivious to the fact that the wavelets were getting stronger and the sheen was now pooling around my feet, until one of my companions pointed out that the tide had turned and the water was coming in fast. Shocked into action, I collapsed the easel smartish and we headed back along the beach. Strolling along a beach without a care in the world is one thing. Trying to get off it in a sea fret with the tide racing in and the sand dragging at your feet is another.
'Keep going – don't look back!' But of course we did look back, and were convinced that the sea, half lost in mist, was now on a higher plane than us, and we were soon to be engulfed by a wall of grey water. The thought spurred us on – heads down, sand sucking at our feet, we ploughed forward. Before we reached the head of the beach the water was swilling up against the sea defences. It was a question of timing a long-jump between waves or throwing caution to the wind and splashing through the surf. It made no difference either way, as we were already clammy from top to toe, thanks to the salt spray and sea fret. We splashed through it, kicking up white water. And then we were safe and heading for the car park, with the promise of hot chocolate from the beach café. Unfortunately, we were disappointed on the chocolate front. The café staff had long given up expecting anyone to be so stupid as to be out on the beach in a fog with the tide racing in, and they had pulled down the shutters and gone home. We went instead to the 'Jolly Sailors' at Brancaster Staithe, and thawed out over a delicious plate of mackerel goujons. And we gave thanks that we had survived the afternoon, even if the mackerel hadn't! ~ 'Rising Tide, Brancaster', was painted in Watercolour on quarter imperial 90lb Barcham Green rag paper. 'Seals fog-bathing' was drawn on sketching paper with a 2b pencil. Someone has asked if I have ever taken my paints abroad? The answer is, yes. I've painted in the Dordogne, and in Assissi and Florence, and some years ago I took my paints with me on a Nile cruise... 'Mud Brick Village and Ancient Tombs' was painted at one of the many places where we dropped anchor en-route from Aswan to Luxor. I was attracted by the washed out, dusty atmosphere and sense of timelessness of the place, and the image of the ancient tombs cut into the hillside, which now provided shelter for the living. ~ The painting was subsequently exhibited at the Mall Galleries, London, at the Annual show of the New English Art Club. Unfortunately, the painting didn't sell, so a couple of weeks later I made another trip to London to collect it. I then visited the National Gallery and deposited the painting with the cloakroom attendant, which left me free to wander the gallery without it appearing that I'd surreptitiously lifted a priceless artwork from the hallowed walls. I then went to Trafalgar Square to have my packed lunch, and do a bit of sketching. This is what a Landseer lion looks like, when you're attempting to wield a pencil in one hand and a cheese sandwich in the other. My work done, I set it down while I poured coffee. Presently, a shadow fell across the sketchbook. I heard the dull clunk of a coin and saw that 50p had been dropped in my lunch box. My first reaction was 'Hmm! Is that all my work is worth?' My next thought was 'If I can keep this up, I might get to earn my rail fare home!'
Sadly, I didn't. But I did go home with my painting under my arm, able to tell all my friends that not only had my work been displayed in the Mall Galleries, but that it had also been accepted by the National Gallery. I then enjoyed a few moments of adulation, before explaining that my brief loan of a painting to the National had been in exchange for a cloakroom ticket. On reflection, I'm pleased that 'Ancient Tombs' didn't find a buyer at the exhibition, because it now joins a selection of pieces that I have painted over the years, each of which holds a very special memory for me. And just in case you're wondering, yes, I still have that souvenir 50p. 'Mud Brick Village and Ancient Tombs' was drawn in charcoal and 2b pencil with watercolour wash, on a tinted Fabriano Ingres paper. 'Landseer's Lion' was sketched with charcoal pencil and a subtle smudge of cheddar... I love drawing pigs. I did this line and wash at a pig field in north Norfolk some time ago. The pigs and I were separated by an electric fence, and I stood there happily sketching and feeling quite safe, while the pigs wallowed in the mud a few feet away. Meetings with pigs have not always gone so smoothly. I will never forget the time I visited rural Nottinghamshire and took a walk with my nephew along the Southwell Trail, a former mineral line that cuts through some pleasant, rolling countryside. Presently, we saw what appeared to be a couple of large, overweight dogs, trotting along some way ahead. As we got closer and the animals moved into the open, we realised they weren't dogs at all, but pigs; a couple of Gloucester Old Spots had escaped from their field and taken themselves for a walk. We exchanged thoughts on how dangerous - or not - escaped pigs might be, and kept a respectable distance, just in case. Then we spotted a dog walker with a labrador. They were further up the track, beyond the pigs, and heading our way. Neither pigs nor dogs have brilliant eyesight, and if anything, I believe pigs are the more myopic, and their vision must be further hampered by those great ears that flop down over their faces. It wasn't until the dog was within a few yards of them that the pigs spotted it. There was a blood- curdling squeal, the pigs turned tail and suddenly a hefty helping of bacon on the trotter was bearing down on us. I had a rabbit-in-the-headlights moment, then made a dive for the embankment and took cover behind a tree. I didn't see where my nephew went. He's a six footer and well able to take care of himself. The pigs lumbered by, squealing murderously, with the labrador hard on their heels. When the dust had settled, I looked out from behind the tree to see my nephew standing in the middle of the path, grinning and unscathed. He professed surprise that I hadn't whipped out my pencil and sketched the pigs as they charged past. Under the circumstances, the best I could do was a back view of them, trotting away into the sunset… 'Pigs in Muck' was painted on canson mi teintes 90lb paper. 'Taking Themselves for a Walk' is a sketchbook study in pencil and watercolour on cartridge paper. If you are the proud owner of a prize winning Gloucester Old Spot or other breed of pig, and wish to have it commemorated in paint, please get in touch with me via the Contact page. Some time ago I was commissioned to do a charcoal drawing of a walnut tree which had to go under the tree surgeon's knife. The owners wanted a record of how the tree looked before its treatment. I was familiar with this tree, as I'd seen it change through every season, from the first reddish leaf buds of spring through the shady canopy of summer, to the autumn harvest, and the re-emergence of skeletal branches in winter. It was the winter form that the owners favoured, because it was then that the full character of the tree was revealed. And it certainly was a characterful tree. In some lights the numerous springy twigs gave it a dancing quality, in others it was gnarled and stolid. Against an evening sun its upper branches resembled the tracery of a stained glass window. Where it had been lopped once before, several whipping branches sprouted out at an angle that made the tree appear like an arboreal skater flinging itself into a wild spin. The owners were eager to point out its other features, such as the bizarre shapes that were secreted among the myriad branches. Could I see the tree sprite which was perched half way up on the right hand side? And now could I see the parrot, right next to it? They liked the idea of keeping the tree sprite, but could I lose the parrot? This was something of a challenge, because one of the tree sprite's arms also formed part of the parrot's beak. Once you've seen a picture within a tree you can't unsee it, and as I worked I found that further unwanted images kept appearing in the spaces between branches, in the complex interplay of twigs, and more annoyingly still, in my ever-mounting sketches. Wherever I positioned my easel, I found that one particular branch contrived to strike out at a contrary angle that threatened the harmony of the composition. As far as that branch was concerned I could happily have done the tree surgeon's job for him, but this was the branch in which much of the character and dancing quality of the tree could be found, so I had to find a way of resolving it without resorting to stealing in under cover of darkness with a hack saw. At last, after a number of visits and a sheaf of variations, I had a portrait of the tree with all its branches intact, minus any haunting shapes, and with all its complexity of character finally pinned down to the clients' satisfaction. Solid, but dancing. Brooding but huggable. Ancient but vigorous. The commission was framed and delivered. The clients stood back to view it. There was a silence deeper than within the heart of any forest. Finally, someone spoke. 'I can see our church.' 'Where?' I focussed on the spot where the finger was pointing. There, at the foot of the tree, among the smudged marks of the undergrowth, was the unmistakable image of our village church. How had I done that? I really didn't know. It was a fluke. A few dancing movements of the charcoal stick, and there it was. Not a parrot. Not a tree sprite. Our church. The more we looked the more the image of the church asserted itself. I offered to smudge it out, but no, they wanted to keep it. 'It could become your 'signature' piece, like the famous Mouse Man,' they suggested. 'You could get people queueing up to find the ghostly image of our church secreted somewhere in your paintings. You could hide it in the clouds, or the foliage, or in all that marsh you're fond of painting. It could be your very own Unique Selling Point.' 'Hmm,' was my non-committal reply. I always welcome suggestions from clients. Some I take on board, and others receive this non-committal, 'Hmm...' 'The Walnut Tree' was worked in charcoal on Canson mi teintes paper. Look carefully, and you may or may not discern the ghostly image of a church hidden within the undergrowth. I am not going to tell you where it is. If you have a walnut or any other favourite tree of your own that you would like recording for posterity, please get in touch with me via the Contact page.
I'm pleased to report that the operation on the tree was a success and it is once more thriving. A number of people have asked me about the banner of the watercolour sky on this and other pages. Did I just cut a swathe with a big brush to make a nice splashy banner? Well, no. The watercolour sky is a detail from 'Storm Light on The Wash'. Some years ago a painting friend said, 'You're always talking about The Wash, you talk about it more than any other place.' This was true, although half the time I talked about it I was actually thinking aloud about the laundry, but my friend had evidently not picked up on this. 'I'd like to come and paint some time.' I said, 'Fine, how about tomorrow?' 'You're joking - it's January - I'll freeze.' I phoned him again in February, March, April, May, June. The answer in each case was too icy, too windy, too wet, too cold, too hot. Finally in July, the weather was clement enough for him to risk going out with his paints. We drove down an old farm track, parked the car, and followed the footpath about half a mile, across a field and alongside a shallow lagoon. Progress was slow, because my friend had brought enough gear to vie with King John's famous baggage. He had come equipped with both oils and watercolours, a sheaf of papers and a carrier of painting boards, plus an easel on a trolley that threatened to overturn on every rut. Every few minutes we had to stop so he could have a breather. 'They say on a clear day you can see Boston Stump,' I said, to spur him along. 'How much further?' 'Just a few hundred yards.' The response was a barely muffled groan. The path led to a muddy causeway, which cut a slippery way across the lagoon, and having heaved his gear through the morass, we stopped so he could have another gasp, before making the final clamber up and onto the sea bank. And there, at last, stretching away to an almost endless distance, was the vast, haunting wilderness of The Wash. We stood in silence, surveying this great sweep of space where land and sea merge. The tide was out. The mud shone gold, pink and violet between phases of cloud and sunlight. In the middle distance was a sparkling slip of water, and on the horizon was the faint smudge of 'Boston Stump'. The whole space was a symphony of light and colour. I turned on my heel, taking it all in, the paintings already stacking up in my mind. My friend stood beside me, staring out, his mouth open. His heavy gear lay in two heaps at his feet. As we watched, a great flock of gulls rose up and wheeled round, their wings shining pale gold in the morning light. They came down again to settle on the mudflats, transforming the scene into a huge, shimmering presence of birds. 'Wow,' I thought, 'Wow....' I was still mentally 'wowing' and conjuring enough subjects to mount an exhibition, when my companion turned to me with an expression of dismay. What he said has stayed with me to this day: 'Well I can't see anything to paint, can you?' 'Storm Light on The Wash' was painted in watercolour on 140lb Arches paper.
When I was a child we had a boxer dog. It was a fine brindle, a big, rangy animal that my mother likened in build to a racehorse. And it did love to race - bounding around the place and forever knocking everything for six. Having messily consumed its daily meat ration, its favourite place for a siesta was in the kitchen, where it would stretch out in front of the Aga. These siestas often coincided with Mother's need to use the hob. The boxer, once comfortable, would refuse to budge, so she was obliged to stretch over it in order to reach the hotplate, often with a heavy weight, hernia-inducing stew pan. Last thing at night the dog was persuaded to leave the comfort of the kitchen and go into the garden for a last 'comfort break'. Usually this would take about five minutes, but occasionally, the dog would slip away into the night, and no amount of calling or bribing with biscuits would bring it back. It would return in its own good time, usually around midnight, and make its presence known by rattling the letterbox. What the dog got up to during the missing hours was anybody's guess. One day, a neighbouring farmer paid a visit. He followed up the usual brief pleasantries with, 'So is your boxer about?' 'Just having his siesta.' Father opened the kitchen door, to reveal the dog stretched out in the usual place. Mother was reaching over the sleeping form to toast bread. The dog's tongue was protruding slightly, in readiness to catch crumbs. The farmer gave the scene a terse nod. 'Thought you'd be interested in seeing this.' He reached into his coat, and pulled out a small bundle. It was a boxer puppy. 'Oh, how sweet!' said mother, abandoning the toast to fuss over the pup. 'I didn't know you bred boxers?' 'Neither did I till this arrived.' He cast an accusing look at our dog. 'It's mother's a collie.' 'Oh,' said one of the parents, I forget now which, just that this 'oh' was somewhat more deflated than the one that went with 'how sweet'. Comparisons were made between the pup and its suspected father. There was no denying the resemblance. The same dark, dour, and frankly, stupid face. It was an unmistakeable chip off the old block. 'So I thought you'd be interested in having pick of the litter.'
There was an exchange of doubtful glances between the parents. 'Don't you want to keep him yourself? A dog like that would be good around the farm.' The response was blunt. 'Boxers were at the back of the queue when the brains were given out, and that's a fact. So if it takes after that -' he gestured at the sleeping obstacle stretched out on the kitchen floor, '- it'll never make a sheepdog, will it?' All I remember at this point was the smell of toast burning... ~ 'Boxer' was worked in pastel on fine glass paper. 'Boxer Asleep' was drawn using a 4b pencil on A4 copy paper. Visit the Animal Portraits page to view a selection of dogs, cats and horses, together with information about commissioning a painting of your pet. Every picture tells a story, they say, and whenever I pitch an easel out in the open, I invariably attract someone who wants to watch. Frequently they tell me about how their grandfather exhibited with the RI, and how they had a go once, but couldn't find The Muse. I normally reply that The Muse is very evasive and demands a certain amount of artistic blood to be squeezed from a stone before she deigns to appear! Sometimes I have an encounter that, though brief, stays with me forever. The first time I set up an easel at Wells-next-the-Sea was one such occasion. I had spent the morning pastelling in Staithe Street, and, my subject finished, I did some lightning studies of figures as they strolled by. Presently, an old lady appeared, shuffling up the street, pushing a battered shopping trolley. While the old lady was still some way off, I began to sketch her - not with any view of doing a likeness, just to try and capture the way she moved, and how she paused from time to time to catch her breath, before shuffling on a bit further. Her coat, which must have fitted perfectly once, was now too big, so that she seemed to have shrunken into it like a wizened walnut within its shell. Her shoes were like boats, and looked in danger of tripping her up. As she drew closer I stopped sketching and just held my breath and watched, ready to dart forward and lend a helping hand if needed. Finally, she drew level with me, and wished me a 'Good maarnin'.' We exchanged a few words, but between my struggling to latch onto her broad Norfolk, and she being somewhat deaf, we didn't get beyond a few amiable nods and smiles We made our farewells, and as she turned away, my ear was at last sufficiently attuned to catch her parting comment. 'Don' yew go takin' a picture of me, tha' lens might break!' And off she went, pushing her wonky trolley up the street, the squeaking of its wheels still audible after she had disappeared into the crowd. Although I visited Wells many times thereafter, I never met her again, but she made such an impression on me that she has lived on in many a painting of street and market place. And here she is in this pastel of Staithe Street. This subject was worked on fine glass paper. With its multi-faceted texture it's good at bringing out the 'brights' in pastel. But its rough surface devours pastel sticks rapidly, and if you aren't careful it will also take the skin off your fingers! For that reason I very rarely use it, preferring papers such as Canson mi teintes or the softly flecked surface of Tiziano. 'Staithe Street, Wells' can be viewed in the Pastel Gallery under Landscape and Marine.
This blog has been up and running for seven years. Where that time went, I have no idea, but I thought the occasion should be marked. So this month I’ve gone back to the very first blog, 'On Titchwell Marsh', to give it an Anniversary showing. For some of you it may be the first time you’ve seen it. For others it will be a case of ‘seven years? You’re joking. It only seems like last month when I read this one.’ Others again will have totally forgotten it amid all the events and crises of the past few years. ‘On Titchwell Marsh’ was one of a number of pieces that came out of a day spent sketching and painting at the RSPB Titchwell nature reserve. It was painted on quarter-imperial Wookey Hole rough watercolour paper, using the size 10 round brush pictured below. Anyway, enough of the preamble. Here it is... ~ On Titchwell Marsh, 2016 I first painted at Titchwell Marsh in 1978, accompanied by the booming of a bittern hidden somewhere in the reeds. When I visited last month, it was the lonely piping of the oystercatcher that greeted me. It was one of those days when there were subjects everywhere, and I hardly knew where to start. Like a little bird trying to decide where to build its nest, I went from this spot to that and back again. I spent a lot of time just looking, taking it all in, mentally editing - mooching up and down, settling on 'angles'. Below me, the waders were doing their own mooching, probing the nutrient-rich mud with knitting pin beaks, and leaving a web of wandering trails behind them. At length, this is the subject I settled on, looking East across the brackish lagoon: People tend to write off mud as brown, but it really isn't. This mud reflected the silvery light, with a diaphanous shimmer of pinkish and violet greys. The swathes were incised by snaking ribbons of water. And that island of reeds in the middle distance - if there was a bittern secreted down there today, it was keeping 'mum'. The only movement down on the mud was the constant mooching of the waders. You'll notice I haven't painted them in. People do comment, 'You never paint the waders in, why?' Well, at this scale they'd be nothing but a peppering of full stops and commas. The light, the mud, the reed bed and the blue-green distance were enough for me. And that haunting call of the oystercatcher followed me home... ~ This and other paintings of Titchwell can be viewed on the Landscape and Marine page under 'Watercolours'. Before anyone queries the brush technique, I should just point out that the flight of birds in the upper left of the subject was not painted with a size 10, but with a rigger. Had I used a size 10 brush for those, they would have come out as clumping great forty-pounders. I know this for a fact, because the first time I attempted a flight of birds, using a size 10 brush, my tutor at the time looked over my shoulder and said, ‘Well, there’s a herd of clumping great forty-pounders, if ever I saw one…’
I’ve written before about the perils of setting up my easel on a footbridge overlooking a ford, and having my day’s work drenched by a passing vehicle. I recently played safe, and strolled with my pastels along the River Wensum, well away from any road. It didn’t take me long to find a subject and, looking up river and down river, I satisfied myself that here I could work to my heart’s content, free from interruption or mishap… There was an atmosphere of stillness and simplicity about this scene, with its grouping of skeletal trees and their near-perfect reflections. Some were in strong silhouette, others a fainter grey. Some stood straight, others leaned into each other, making a variety of negative shapes and spaces. As I observed a little more, I picked up on the subtle touches - the sear grasses at the water’s edge, the faint surface-rippling.
Having spent some time looking and ‘painting’ it in my mind’s eye, I set to work. The colours were all at the cooler end of the spectrum, so I selected a soft pinkish grey paper, which would lend a subtle, warm foil to the finished work. It was desperately cold, not an occasion to linger on detail, but the subject was simple and spare, and within a short time I had got down the bones and the all important sense of atmosphere. Even so, by the time I had finished, my finger ends felt ready to drop off, and I fumbled to secure the finished work into its folder. Eager as I was to get back in the warm, I had to take a last look at the landscape, before turning for home. It was such an enchanting scene, those winter trees and their reflections, all bathed in a silvery light. I breathed a sigh of happy satisfaction... I was so busy waxing lyrical, that I didn’t see the labrador trotting towards me, its owner some way behind. I was only alerted to their presence when the dog plunged into the river, to a yell of - ‘No! Out of there! - OUT!’ In its own time it came lumbering out again, doggy-grinning and heavy with the wet. The next thing it saw was me. ‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘No-o-o - !’ Too late. With a movement that began at the tip of its nose, flowed through its whole body and out through its tail, it shook itself for England. And I took the full impact. ‘Oh dear,’ said the owner, who had now caught up with the dog, ‘I’m sorry about that.’ ‘Not at all,’ I said, diplomatically. ‘Honestly, these are just my painting togs...’ Dogs are meant to have cold, wet noses, but, having come out of the river, this one had a surplus and was now wiping it on my pocket. The owner called the dog away and went off with a cheery, ‘Spring is just around the corner!’ Whereupon the dog bounded ahead and took another exhilarating plunge into the river. I couldn't help smiling at the sound of - ‘Oh not again!’ How glad I was that I’d finished my morning’s work and had it safely stowed in its folder before that exuberant doggy encounter. 'Silver Light on the Wensum' was worked in pastel on quarter Imperial Tiziano paper. |
Judith Key
Judith Key is a Norfolk based artist, working in watercolour and pastel. She has exhibited with the Society of Graphic Fine Artists and New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries, London. Her paintings are in collections worldwide. Categories
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