Favourite things

Matryoshka blue vase

I have been working on a series of flower paintings.  I feel so happy with a vase of flowers set up in front of me in the studio, especially during the dark gloomy days of winter.  I came across some very pretty michelmas daisy-type flowers in my local supermarket, and they had a strange dusty antique quality about them, and created the challenge that I was looking for.  I find working from life stops me from becoming too formulaic in the way I paint, as the permutations are endless when it comes to form and colour, as every leaf and petal presents a new challenge visually. 

Matryoshka daisies

 My paternal grandmother had a lovely flower painting above her fireplace, painted by one of her artist friends(loveday), I inherited it and it was probably one of the first examples of a portrait of flowers that I would have seen as a child. 

loveday flower painting

 I have always loved Dutch still life paintings with their intense observation giving nature centre stage.  I think I re-visited my preconceptions of a vase of flowers when watching a programme on the TV on van Gogh I realized how large and daring some of his sunflower paintings were.  They were certainly standing up on their own in all their glory, unapologetic and beautiful.  As a student my favourite flower painting was Vuillard‘s mantelpiece painting, a busy divine painting about nothing and everything, a time-snatched incidental composition, but so beautiful and spiritual, like a prayer.

Vuillard The Mantelpiece

  There is nothing more complete than painting an inconsequential vase of randomly picked daisies from the garden, it is so simple yet for me defines everything that is important in this world. However Duncan Grant’s Parrot Tulips are far from spiritual they are of this world rich and earthy, exotic and sensual the velvet cloth they stand on is tactile and warm and the whole composition for me is perfection, vibrant and masterful, it was exhibited at the Camden Town exhibition in London 1909.  

Duncan Grant parrot tulips

  
My theme this year is Matryoshka which means Russian Doll, as I am looking at Russian textiles and culture for inspiration, and  these recent flower paintings  will be at the Brussells Affordable Art Fair with The Doorway Gallery this February 2014.

Dream or Sleep that is the question!

Here are some pages taken from my working sketch book, just to give you an idea of how I go about conceiving the idea of a painting and how that manifests itself into the finished article.

I adore Picasso’s’ The Dream’, his patterning in this painting, is so jazzy and energetic, in opposition to the passivity of the sleeping figure. This suggests to me that all that latent energy behind that sleeping face, has found expression in the decorative elements of the composition. A clever visual device to illustrate something so complex as a dream.

From my sketches  you can see that I was trying to compose my own’ Dream’ composition, with a format  similar to Picasso’s.  But I couldn’t quite work out how I was going to make the background dominate  the figure in the chair, that would suggest  a more Dream-like element. So it kept feeling like a ‘Sleep’ theme which to me is very different and not what I was setting out to achieve.    Then I was talking to a friend who was telling me about her planned day’s vacation after months of exhausting work, that had left her very frayed at the edges.  She was planning to book into a hotel for a day (on her own of course) and  spend the day in bed with all her favorite books around her; tea and meals to be eaten in bed and no one to disturb her; just the pure luxury of’ time out’ for one day. Once this vision got into my head it took over my original idea for formatting my composition, and instead, it evolved into a bird’s eye view of a figure on a bed with her chosen objects around her.   I drew and painted a  full size sketch for the finished painting which I forgot to photograph and has since been over-painted with a new idea for a new painting, but this would have looked very much like the painting itself.

I hope this to goes someway to help understand how I go about energizing and motivating myself into the painting process.   I think it goes to show that this process is sometimes only just that; just a means to an end; rather than an essential part of the finished product.

Now my only problem left, is what to call this finished painting, as I want to call it 'Dream' but somehow it's still suggesting 'Sleep' to me!! 

122x122cm oil on canvas

December Spotlight-Mitsouko and Rouge








Mitsouko and Rouge  oil on canvas  92x76cm

This painting which I still have at home( as I am always making small adjustments here and there), seems to be an occurring theme of mine.  A female figure looking in a mirror at her dressing table.  It’s just something that hits a note of recognition and empathy within me, and spending some time thinking about its source; of course I do know its origins.  I think we all have role models and heros as young children; adults in our lives that influence us, both negatively and positively.  I feel that we are all very selective in what we want to extrapolate from experiences, and I have certainly done that in my life.  I used to watch captivated as my gran would” put on her face” every morning in front of her 3 sided dressing table mirror, with her silver backed hair brushes, pots of rouge and face powder.  Dabs of foundation were applied with a formulaic dexterity; pouting to receive the strong application of colour which she then carefully toned down by positioning a tissue between her rubied lips.  She used to let us sit there for a while( or maybe I just sneaked back when she was otherwise occupied, selective memory again), excitedly opening perfumed pots and using the fairy tale hair brushes.  But what a shock to look in that 3-sided mirror, and to gaze at the strange side profile that was undeniably me, but not a me I had seen before, such visual adventures and discoveries that have imprinted and remained with me still.

Another very influential women of my past was an aunt, she was so bohemian and cool.  Her house smelt of rush matting, garlicy continental cooking and Guerlain’s Mitsouko perfume.   I re-lived these childhood memories of visiting my cousin’s house, by buying a bottle of this perfume about 15 years ago.  And it completely delivered on every count, I so love this perfume.  Mitsouko and Rouge is a tribute painting to all those strong actualized women that somehow managed to create their own very personal imprint by changing the atmosphere around them, simply by celebrating and delighting in their womanhood. 

 Dressing Table  92x76cm oil on canvas Alizarin exhibition 2006