A Blaze of Bouquets

Pattern of Three

My mother is generous with her flowers and gives me free reign to pull out objects to draw. Left alone in the house, I wander around imagining what new arrangements could say. This year the colours in Jan's garden are imprinted on my palette and in the last days of being here I wanted to translate them in some way, distanced from their fiery border. My first bouquets were brought over by my friend and our neighbour, Sam King.

Sam's Flowers

I must admit to thinking more consciously about compostion, or at least 'naming' the composition more after the NEAC courses I have taken. Yesterday I approached my drawings in a slightly different way. Mostly it was me trying not to take out all my pastels in order to begin, a time saving way to start. When I liked the results the first time, each time I drew (yesterday) I used the approach.

I began by using my derwent pastel pencils to put down a few of the exact shapes of colour in proportion in the space as I saw them. I did not make a series of marks around the page, honing in as I made sense of the space. I also stuck to my box of sennelier pastels which are unbelievably brilliant but big and clunky, shunning my little paper boxes (aranged by colour) which are a mix of pastels from my life. 

Bob's Complementary Flowers

I guess you might say years of looking at the garden has made me a colourist. Thanks mom. What a summer of inspiration! I must also admit to be being a little excited to get back to my studio to see how there drawings evolve into the next thing, though!

Last Pieces of the Landscape of Holiday

Fish Flower Launch

There are rituals in a place where you've been spending months of the summer for fifty years.  There are objects you see that make time tumble back.  There are new things that quickly become home. 

We sit on the porches at different times of day, watching island life, reading our books, eating our lunch, toasting each other, kibitzing. So when I got to the final pages of Holiday Home, I went to the porch.  But my porch was an amalgamation, a summary, a romanticized view. It could never be the way I composed it, and I did compose it so I saw it that way, stacking footstools on stools to raise the horizon to incorporate the sea, hanging rugs on fences, placing flowers high.

Flowers Kantha China

From Porch to Pier

Towards the end of the book I began to turn to the more complex aspects of my view… Most years Patrick builds something that becomes a feature of the garden.  His structures grow out of the landscape.  

Driftwood Garden and Chair

And as I closed one book I was able to work into another.  Yesterday as we walked around the beach the red flag and the rocks made me pause long enough to get something down. Inspired by words on the page, I drew the porch at night and a few days ago on another windy walk, with wind that wanted to lift my chair into the air, the white caps, clouds scuttling by and white rocks beyond Preble stopped me in my tracks.

Low Tide and Red Flag

Night Paddock

Wind and Whitecaps

Exploring light and colour in the Holiday House

Cocktail Hour

I learned from an artist friend when I was young and impressionable that looking for inspiration in the everyday was a way of being with the world.  The intrigue of shapes and colours side by side would keep my occupied, (confused) and curious enough to last me a lifetime. This project, contained within the space that is familiar, known and drawn often is proving that even when I think I know something or there is nothing left to draw, there is always more. And taking on the night light has enlarged things in a different, enchanting direction. Four pages left…

Artificial Light on Table

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Flowers After Rain

Echinacea and Day Lilies

Lights on with Full Moon

Reading in barn (Toothache)

Night light on Barn and Shed 

While Listening to Rachel

Not Quite Lights Out

The limitless possibilities of the Holiday House

After Dinner Bouquets

With my goal of three pages a day, I am ready to begin p 213 today.  I have made 22 drawings so far; that gives you an idea of how many pages I remove and glue together to make my altered sketchbooks.

My daily schedule has been packed so it has been usual to have one or two drawings to make after dinner. As I am in love with night light, this has been a welcome constraint.  Katy has leant me her head torch and the quality of light changes with this.  I have experimented in low lit places.  Light is thrown on objects differently as above (After Dinner Bouquets) and below, (Molly's Birthday Bouquets).

Before Dinner Structures

Sometimes, sandwiching a drawing between events means the light fades before I have finished…

Buddha and Birdbath

I carry objects to new places to create new worlds that are familiar but which don't actually exist.

Green Garden with Pink

Light Through Tree 8pm

Molly's Birthday Bouquets

Nightlight Over Trees

Petunias on Porch

Sunflower and Shade

Fog and Foam

I have three altered sketchbooks with me in Maine.  Holiday House is what I am focussing on but if I go beyond the curtilage of the barn and the house I get out my Maine Landscape book.  At Preble Beach the fog rolled across the view.  I am itching to complete the last four pages of 'Bouquets' while here in bouquet heaven.

The images in Holiday House are 15 x 10.5 cm while Fog and Foam is 15 x 14.5 and sits on a bigger page.

6:30 Am Barn Door

What I noticed yesterday as I made four drawings (in between working at the fair and celebrating Katy and Jim's twentieth anniversary) was how different it feels to draw the bright summer sunlight and the flat light of the fog rolling in. The satisfaction of creating the feeling of light versus the joy of the colour and shape are really at the heart of why I like to draw and doing both at the same time, outside in a little book is a thrilling conundrum.

Astilbe and Path

Millstone Planter

I tend to avoid the complexity of abundant flowers when I choose a space to draw, but in this case those flowers define the space and finding a way to suggest the way they make me feel seems urgent. 

Red Barn and Boat

Uncle Chuck's Garden Now

No doubt as I commit myself to page after page, there will be some weaker drawings but I hope that even those will pin down what makes this holiday house what it is.

Squirrel and Bird

Holiday House

Pillows and Box Garden

While still in my studio in England, I created a new altered sketchbook. It's a beautiful thick book entitled 'Holiday House'. I tried putting beeswax on the cover and shined it up and I think it looks splendid! I am in the process of filling this new altered sketchbook from cover to cover.  My goal is to complete it while here.  There are about 30 remaining pages to draw on. 

My mornings begin by preparing the pages, I have already gessoed the pages once; I tape the edges and choose a background acrylic ink to blend with the pastel ground. I use a hairdryer to dry it quickly and find my space.

The barn is dark (even in daylight) so I needed to drag a light over to see the colours I was using as I looked out the window. In the garden I have used an umbrella to avoid glare on the pages and at night I used a head torch. The light faded fast and it was hard to find the edges … the mosquitoes were out too!

I would love to use this book as a way to find a residency somewhere. Can you think of a beautiful place where I could spend a week or two finding and recording what makes it special and memorable?

Morning Octagon

Nightlight from Apple Tree

Cypress Box and Hostas

Ferns and Fence

Jan Looking Garden

Happy Dark Leaved Dahlia

Happy Dark Leaved Dahlia, pastel on altered book page

When it's really busy I play a game with myself where I am absolutely focused getting things done and fritter away time in equal measure. Picking flowers isn't exactly essential, but can I refrain from doing it? There is this dahlia that Marshall's seeds refers to as 'Dark Leaved Dahlia - Happy Yellow Red Bicolour'.  

Patrick and I agree that it sticks out like a sore thumb in the garden and I think I will dig it up in the autumn but I couldn't help resist picking it for my bouquet. It's that thing where you need to love the thing you hate. Even in my little altered sketchbooks, titles are important to me. Obviously when I saw what Marshalls said about it I needed to name my little drawing after it.  And I was happy, putting aside the mountain of chores, to think in colour.