Acrylic, gold mica flakes, paper, on canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 cm.
From walking at Edenmouth, on Kinshaldy beach, in and out the shallows at low tide.
My eyes rusted and lost/containing seawater/and my hair full of saltmarsh. /I ask for its touch, brimming/its voices and reasons
Acrylic, charcoal, water soluble crayon, linen on canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 cm
part of a series about Kinshaldy beach and the Eden estuary.
I had planned to paint over all of the first layer with its strong lines and paint runs. but stopped as I became aware that the charcoal lines done from my sketchbook notes were actually doing really interesting things with the under layers. As always, the fact that this has a piece of raw linen wrapped edge to edge across it, makes something special happen.
Acrylic, paper, linen, oil pastel, charcoal, soluble graphite on two canvases, diptych. 2022. 80 x 120 cm.
“I’ve torn my scarf into shreds; I’m all wrapped up in a blanket.
I took off my finery of pearls and coral, and strung a garland of wildwood flowers.
With my tears, I watered the creeper of love that I planted;
Now the creeper has grown spread all over, and borne the fruit of bliss.” (Meera Bai)
This is a painting that was a puzzle for months, until I stuck the large pieces of linen onto it, which freed me up to fit it into this series, give it a subject and a reason to be finished.
Acrylic, paper, charcoal on linen, 2022, 61 x 61 cm.
This painting came after a birthday walk in the Trossachs, amongst birch woods and hilly sitka plantations, above the river Garbh Uisge, meaning Rough Water. Walking through the birches I got my pocket sketch book out and drew madly which made me feel a bit dizzy. Here there is a feeling of looming hills and promontories, and birch trunks and the river full of rocks.
In the Hills refers to the wish of the painter to be up in the wild places, in the heather and the trees, walking and finding themselves.
Acrylic, pastel and linen on a box canvas, 80 x 70 x 4 cm. 2022.
Not so many layers on this one, as the raw linen does such wonderful things. I left quite a bit of it showing. A light touch compared to so many of my paintings which are deeply layered.
Acrylic, charcoal and paper on cradled panel, 76 x 76 x 2 cm, 2022.
I’d been writing a poem in an online workshop that ended up being about the watermill on the river Tas, in the village I lived in as a child. We used to catch minnows and sticklebacks in the gravel shallows of the leat, and paddle through the culvert tunnels. The mill waterwheels had gone, but the river went down through the tail race in a scary fast oily way, through the metal bars, and under the wooden building of the mill. From inside you could see the water, and the road through the loose boards. This painting references all that, with words carved into the paint.
acrylic and marble dust on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2019
Acrylic on board, 45 x 60 cm, 2020
acrylic and marble dust on canvas, 50 x 70 cm, 2019.