Looking Down on the Garden

View from Katy's Room, pastel on paper, 16 x 16 cm

I was determined to fit a drawing into my day today and as I was getting dressed I realised I have never drawn from an upstairs window. It was 8:30 am and the shadows made sharp diagonals and that appealed to me.  There were reflections on the glass to contend with and I had to sit down to avoid the window frame obscuring my view… I always stand.  It felt complex as I worked but I tried to think about the rhythm of light and not to get too bogged down with naming things. 

Determined to make the most of The First Rose of Summer

The First Rose of Summer, pastel on paper 16x16cm

The garden has dominated my days since I've been back from Maine. I can't just leave the garden to fend for itself. It needs me, so I go and do the things that need doing now and for the future. Sometimes I go with a cranky spirit because there are other things that I want or need to do too. Everything jockeys for my time. The garden has a loud voice and it is so needy. The thing is, once I am there I am transported in the same way that I am when I draw, to shapes, colours and an inner monologue that I don't listen to. 

It's too easy to miss the garden because I'm so busy attending to it, so yesterday, in the middle of planting out a few more seedlings and planting a few more seeds then judging the Stowmarket Art Group Exhibition, I picked the first rose of the summer, one of the remarkable purple ones,  (Rhapsody in Blue).  I cut back most of the hellebores and made a little bouquet with those and a few other things that were abundant enough to take. 

The other thing I did yesterday was to prime a few 20 x 20 panels and begin this little drawing.  I had to quit drawing before I'd finished to judge the event and it was only working in places.  Today, after taking down my Dining on Plastic work from Craftco in Southwold, I came back to it. 

More roses are out today.  

Ripples of Inspiration

I'm reading Matisse Diebenkorn, published by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  There is an exhibition looking at the influence of Matisse on Diebenkorn and this is the book from that exhibition. I wish I could see the paintings in life, but as second best, I bought it for myself for my birthday.  

A few days ago I picked a bouquet of leaves to put in my new Opaline vase that I bought months ago at the Boule-In (Bildeston), and put in the 'Christmas closet'.  (Vases are one of my weaknesses, I can't say no to a beautiful vase…) The bouquet dried out in the kitchen but as it sat there I thought about what you do with just green, Today when everyone went out to Bury, I took the vase, picked some new leaves chose three different pieces of patterned blue fabric, and placed, removed, and moved objects that I found in the studio around on my set up: two boxes stacked on a chair with a board on top. I decided I needed a hellibore for height, for colour and for shape to finish off the composition. I looked at John Mcallister and thought about Matisse and Diebenkorn and waited to see what would happen on my 16 x 16 cm piece of paper that I had painted with some pale blue pastel ground I mixed.

I saw this a a preliminary drawing for something a bit bigger.  The next drawing is going to be rectangular and I will include more of the space, as that is what my three mentors would do.