Author Archives: Jane Wheeler

DAHLIAS AFTER YAYOI

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil over acrylic on collaged canvas, 80 x 60 cm

This is inspired by a photograph of the famous Japanese artist of the dots and pumpkins, Yayoi Kusama, when she was ten, almost hiding behind a bunch of four of the most enormous dahlias, as big as her head. I saw it a couple of weeks ago on  a poetry workshop and as I was already working with dahlias, making a painting referencing that was a must.

First I made some fountain pen drawings

Then I drew onto an acrylic plate with a sharp point to make a dry-point print. I have made an artists proof without a press just to see what would work. I will be taking a few of these to the print studio in Dundee to make better prints soon.

 

DAHLIAS ON MY KITCHEN TABLE

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil over acrylic and collage on collaged canvas, 70 x 80 x 4 cm.

While working on ideas for including a self-portrait in these dahlia paintings, this one stopped in its tracks and said “no more!” I made a cut out collage for the chair back, and I think that then made itself an object in the painting in an abstract way, which required a much less fussy painting.

DAHLIAS WITH ENGLAND’S GREEN

Posted by Jane Wheeler

oil over acrylic on collaged canvas, 60 x 80 cm

Another poetry book, Zaffar Kunial’s England’s Green, and a roebuck antler to the left of the dahlias. There’s a dark rudbeckia and two coreopsis flowers too.

I have been drawing these kitchen still lives with a fountain pen,

and a watercolour for this one too, in an A4 sketchbook.

THE SPIRIT LEVEL

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil over acrylic on collaged canvas, 60 x 80 cm

The book on the table is a Seamus Heaney collection, The Spirit Level, in which is his beautiful poem, Postscript, with the swans. Above the dahlias and the other side of the room is the kitchen counter and the windowsill. This is the first year I have had dahlias in the garden here in Scotland, and they are magnificent, always tempting to cut for indoors, and then needful of being painted. Through September, and now October, I have been been painting them and making drypoint prints.

GARLIE BANK IN THE GREAT FLOODS

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil on collaged canvas, 80 x 60 cm.

A imaginary great river/ sea level rise flood in the future. Probably not so imaginary.

Above Garlie bank on the Hill of Tarvit was the scene of the treaty between Mary of Guise ( that’s Mary Queen of Scots’ mother, she was very tall and wore armour, and was regent while her daughter was brought up at the French Royal Court, she was Queen of Scotland from 1538 until 1542) and the Lords of the Congregation in 1559.

A great inundation would inconvenience a lot of our little town of Cupar. The river Eden regularly floods the old water meadows and the park in town in a wet winter. The Ladyburn joins it in the park, and the confluence is the origin of the name Cupar, which is Pictish.

HORSE BATHING UNDER GARLIE BANK

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil on gessoed panel, 2026, 20.2 x 15 cm  and framed 24.5 x 20 cm

This is painted from memory and imagination. Garlie bank is the steep hillside above Cupar with several clumps of trees on it that remind one of Paul Nash paintings. It leads to the Hill of Tarvit. In the bit of flat valley upstream of the town, the river Eden meanders and floods in wet winters.  Wild horses love to play and roll in water holes and shallow rivers.

 

These small cradled panels sit very nicely in tray frames made of wood and painted with house emulsion.

 

IS BEAUTY GOOD

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil on collaged canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Title a complete steal from a book I bought around the time I was finishing this, by Rosalind Belben. Note no question mark. I like the idea of beauty as opposed to goodness. is my painting beautiful? Is my painting good? The title is provocative.

And another snake, symbolic of so many things.

THE SURFACE OF A SLATE-GREY LAKE

Posted by Jane Wheeler

Oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm

The title is from Seamus Heaney’s poem Postscript.

“The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,”

I am not sure if my swans are earthed lightning, but swans always blow my heart open. On the Loch of Lindores where I used to walk once a month after picking up my dog’s food, there is a flock of swans which light up the reflections of hill and sky.