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.

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.

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.

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.

Kayaking under Scots Pines, oil on wood panel 50 x 50 x 5 cm.

A really chunky cradled panel, and the painting extends around the sides.

I have been playing around with a theme of kayaking from old family photos of my grandfather and my dad and his brothers on a North Norfolk beach in the 1930’s, combining it with the Findo Gask landscape, the day-moon and this rose pink and green colour combination. Getting more tropical though I think those are Scots pine trees … runny paint and reflections of all kinds.

Returning to Findo Gask, oil on plywood panel 30 x 30 cm. Day moons and kayaks and trees have been my happy place and I have been painting solidly.

Kayak in a Landscape, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm

Kayaking in the Lochan at Findo Gask After the Storm, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm

Day Moon and Kayak, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm.

Lots of watery reflection and the lochan growing bigger in this version.

You can see two really small paintings of this subject in the small paintings pages.