Finding the balance in shifting light

From Deck to Barn, pastel on paper 6 x 6"

On a sunny day, midday, the light paints lines across the grass as quickly as you can note them in pastel, and then they shift. 

The way I work is to get an overall impression across the page and then to measure the betweenness over and over until the whole thing feels right. That shifting light is a real challenge. And which moment to try to freeze time is always the trick. I read somewhere that you could tell the weather by Constable's skies.  My time and light is not nearly as exact and I am really interested in the colours and the shapes, not recording things accurately so much. My time is a shifting time. 

Today I enjoyed the loose way I was seeing things.  Before I began I decided to foreshorten the lawn as a compromise to composition.  Perhaps letting go of the reality helped. I chose 7-8 colours and didn't add anything even though I longed for more diversity of green.  Limiting helped me today.
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Under the Apple Tree 6 x 6" pastel on paper

I'm back in Maine, enjoying the riot of colour around me: the backdrop of the sea and the plants. Today I picked a bouquet from my mother's September garden, fashioned a table under the apple tree and sorted out the chaos of colour I had arranged.

Dahlia an Blue Hydrangea 6 x 6" pastel on paper

When I arrived I stood with my back to the left of the oven, delighting in the plants on the island and the light pouring in through the kitchen window.

Light on Livingroom Floor 6 x 6" pastel on paper

On another day it was the light on the wood floor and the kantha's hung over the folding screen that stopped me in my tracks.

The Art of Acadia

I was very excited to receive my copy of The Art of Acadia yesterday and have barely had time to peruse it, let alone read if from cover to cover, but I can't wait to do that! Carl and David Little have put together their map of artists who have brought Acadia (Maine) to life over the years and they included me and one of my drawings!

What happens with an idea

During Open Studios I had the pleasure of welcoming lots of people with different interests and tastes.  My work is varied, but in my mind it is all related, and open studios gives people the chance to see how each piece relates to another piece and to see what inspires me.

Talking about my work in this context helps people who may not relate to one aspect of it to understand things differently. The above 'tinned view' is an idea I am working on for a mail art project I have begun. I am a mail artist and send mail art out widely, internationally.  Mail art means that I get lots of wacky and often beautiful ideas all the time in the form of post. I am always pushing myself to find a different voice to send in the mail. The tinned view is the result of my Inspired by Becker project which you can learn more about here: http://ibbas.co.uk.  My previous post shows some of the first experiments in monotype  I'm working on for their annual exhibit.

I love making colour notes as I walk and these tinned views are acrylic on paper, something new for me.

I explained to the person who bought the fused plastic collage above about my process, how all those views informed this fused plastic collage.  I talked about how the gesture and the symbols meant something to me as I made them, moved them, composed them committed to them.  The title: Seaglass of Fields helped her to understand the piece and how I came to make it.

I often work across media, using an idea in a different way, or as inspiration for the next thing.  In my mail art I call these versions.  The Fused plastic collage with stitching and paint below is called Moated View, relating to my house and the shapes I see daily.

There are two new exhibitons coming up where I'll be showing some of this work.  Maybe you'll want to come along?