Feeling a little bit green...

I'll bet there's at least 50 shades....

Greetings friends! It’s been a while….

Happy New Year and all that. I’m getting over a lovely bout of seasonal flu and quite impressive barking cough, which has left me feeling somewhat green around the gills since Christmas, but am on the mend and determined to get the ball rolling with 2025! Lets do this thing!

Last Year…Moths, tiny houses, a bit of painting, more moths…..

I did intend to do a yearly round up of 2024, but my brain is currently swamped with putting together a real life presentation and talk about my work, with the wonderful Anya Beaumont, taking place at Chippenham Museum on the 18th Jan - it’s free, so book some tickets and pop along if you’re in that part of the world…I’m pretending it’s all going to be fine, I’m not nervous and I really really won’t sound like an absolute idiot or freeze or cry. (Can you sense that I’m not a natural public speaker?)

So instead…I’m going to take you on a virtual tour of some of the exhibitions I visited later last year and early this year (culture doesn’t stop when you’re feeling rubbish you know…)

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael - Royal Academy London

Oh, this one was a beaut! Three of the big guns all together in a stunning show. Now, we all know that the Renaissance was quite the pinnacle of Western art 500 odd years ago, (albeit in a white, male-dominated world). Now, it is the pinnacle of many a museum gift shop, tote bag, postcard, weird figurine…it can be a bit overblown and exhausting…but that doesn’t diminish the impact of seeing some of the really good stuff.

It’s incredible to think these drawings have survived 500 years of humanity and all the things we throw at the world. Every single gorgeous mark that the artist made is visible…it’s humbling - it makes me want to draw, and never draw again, because I’ll never make anything as perfect, but I have to try…so, here we go with my highlights:

Thanks Michelangelo. You drew some great bums. A LOT of great bums….(seriously though…a lot)

Pages from Leo & Mikey’s sketchbooks. Note the goofy angel, the perfect renaissance mouth, and the little thumbnails (which actually make me feel much better about my own sketchbooks)

Our pal Michelangelo again - Master of a profile. Those noses! I spent quite some time in front of this gem.

So…I know those drawings are all in ink, but I do have magic Renaissance pencils (aka Sanguine)

I consider this is my finest drawing to date. It’s quite perfect, I think you’ll agree. The perfect subject matter has quite a lot to do with it, I suspect. I’ll keep drawing and endeavour to get this good again. Go get yourself a sanguine conté pencil…you will not be disappointed. (Pencils and application may vary, I cannot guarantee results)

Michelangelo again (I’m beginning to think there was a bit of favouritism going on here)…

As the wife of a stone sculptor, it is my moral obligation to extoll the virtues of this fine medium. This piece might be unfinished, but the maker’s marks really do make it fascinating. How those figures emerge from solid stone to become animated and alive, just speaks to the incredible power of art and the skill of the maker. I literally have no clue how to sculpt like this. It seems like alchemy to me.

Lets round up with Raphael. A jewel of a painting.

But THAT frame, oh my! For those who know my work, you know that I’m partial to an elaborate frame (hand-knitted frame, anyone?) and I am definitely going to deep-dive into my framing process in a future post…but this one is GOALS!

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers - National Gallery, London

What can I say about this, except I was lucky enough to visit it twice, and if I had the means I’d move in for a week and still not have seen enough!

Van Gogh, or rather the Commercial Monster known as Van Gogh TM, is so ridiculously ubiquitous now (more so than your statue of David figurines) and you can’t turn a corner in a museum gift shop without tripping over a tote bag, fake vase, silk scarf or socks with sunflowers on them.

But stripping all this nonsense back (and yes, I’ve worn socks with Frida Kahlo’s face on, so I’m acutely aware of my hypocrisy) and you’ve got the actual art, (which is inextricably linked to the legend) and that’s what I’m here for!

So lets get started:

I really really love his drawings.

I love the directness of the ink. I love seeing and imagining every mark he made on the page. The texture! The energy! If I was a landscape artist, I would aspire to this…

These close up photos will never do justice to them…you can’t beat seeing a painting in the flesh…and wow, are these fleshy! So. Much. Paint.

They are quite something to spend time with. How many greens can get get into one painting? Well, all of them if you’re Van Gogh. They are such sensory paintings - considering in his painting career, he produced around 900 paintings and 1100 drawings, averaging one a day, many of them en plein air, alla prima (get me and my technical terms - painted on location wet-on-wet) - there is such an energy, a vivaciousness to his painting. There is so much life and love in his work. Many of his paintings at the time were of the gardens of St-Remy, the hospital he was living at the time - he immersed himself in nature, finding light and colour wherever he went - bottom right is an incredible study of undergrowth. Forget a vast landscape - this is where the good stuff is, underneath your feet - just look at Dürer’s Great Piece of Turf.

Now, I’m no Van Gogh, so forgive the side by side comparison here. But in case it’s not clear - mine is on the right. Dead bird, see.

I’m loving my greens at the moment. Its not a colour I’ve used much in my work to date. I’ve always been drawn to people, not places, although it is becoming more of a feature in my painting of late. Although I’ll never be as generous in my paint application as dear Vincent, I am coming to appreciate that my paintings need to look painted. Marks, splatters, scratches, brushstrokes, drips and blobs all make up that unique expression of the artist making the work. I love paint.

Yeah, OK, I might have delusions of grandeur here….Sunflowers - whose is whose?

There is such a pathos in painting a cut flower. These are my versions of his lesser known sunflowers. His vase collections were made less with pathos, but symbolised gratitude and friendship.

So there we have it. Vincent. One of the only artists who I’ll tolerate signing a painting on the front.

I wanted to tell you about my visit to see Paula Rego & Goya at the Holburne in Bath, but I’m saving that treat for another post.

Thanks as always for making it to the end…wish we luck with my talk - I’ll no doubt let you know how it goes, and if I get heckled by the audience…speak soon!