New works in mixed media

I have been working on some new pieces using print and paint and collage. In a way I like to work sometimes, I put the ink and paint on with no thought in mind, using brushes and rollers. Then look at the colours and forms and find the faces or figures in them.

In this series there emerged all sorts of figures, birds, strange creatures and faces. I used pencil or pen to just highlight the forms.

The brain is wired to see faces, so they often come first,  it seems almost miraculous when looking, finding other figures arising when moments before it was just a mass of colours. It is a particular way of looking, relaxed and not forced in any way, allowing the eye to travel across the page, and not all forms arise straight away.

These particular pieces have a folk tale sense to me. I will be continuing to work this way for a while.

New paintings and E17 Art Trail.

I've still been busy working on some more paintings for the next couple of exhibitions and getting things ready for the E17 Art Trail.
My paintings, Stones Guard the Mysteries of Earth, above and Night of Mysteries below, both include standing stones. In the painting above, the colour of the harvest and corn came first in the work, evolving into swirling cornfields reflecting the patterns of the wind. As I was contemplating this new landscape it seemed to include the idea of a stone circle. Stones that definately bore symbols of the Goddess and ancient ritual and seemed to protect the land and the entrance to the underworld. The deer still resting at the start of a new day brought a sense of calm and balance with her and the whole painting came alive for me with a sense of beauty and completeness.

In Night of Mysteries, the landscape took on the tones of a night sky illuminated by a full moon that also arrived early in the painting. I was feeling a sense of mystery evolving with a strangely more alive sense and resonance to the standing stones. The stones are marked with symbols and have taken on some of the colours from the night sky. Stylized and symbolic trees stand on the horizon and a stag is running across the land looking back over his shoulder; as if also recognising the strong presence of the stones. I was left thinking do they really walk at night?

Dawn Fires page with exhibition details here

Two other small paintings are work in progress and I am pleased so far to be touching a weath of symbolic and mystical themes that are bringing together a lot of my strands of work.

On a completely different note I am continuing with the year long Street Photography Project, which will be continuing in some form after the year has end

ed. Project info here.

I have entered one of my photographs, Protest on the Streets, in at The Mill, info here, as part of the E17 Art Trail. E17 link here

I am also helping on the drawing event in the Vestry House Museum gardens on 3rd September 11-3pm.

Art Grows on Trees is also happening again this year and will have even more art works offered for free on each Saturday of the art trail. Sat 3rd and 10th of September on the lime trees next to Walthamstow bus station from 9.30 am. info here

Higate Village and David Hollington

I picked up my photograph from Lauderdale House and found a really great exhibition of work there by David Hollington. His site here. I was intrigued by the mixture of Hindu and Christian/British symbolism and landscape and drawn to the delightful energy and expressions of the animals and birds in the painting.

It's always great to find another artist tackling the subjects of spirituality, myth and symbolism and combining traditions or cultures. I wanted to find out who he was and what had lead to these paintings. On David's site there is a good description of how his passion for Indian and Hindu art, culture and religion developed and I thought the quality he mentioned of devotion, is something that is conveyed in the work
.

While I was there I walked up into Highgate village and took some photographs. The only problem being the constant traffic, I could see how lovely a place it must have been without all the cars and vans constantly driving through.

There was an artist working in bright colours with his easel set up on the pavement, outside a traditional tea room. Only one or two people spared a glance his way. Maybe he was a common sight there.

Cecil Collins, new pastel and visitor to the bird feeder.

On Tuesday I was delighted to see a documentary film about Cecil Collins, it was shown as part of the Temenos programme. I have appreciated Cecil Collins work for a long time, his visionary sensibility, use of symbol and colour. I did not know that much about him however. This year is his centenary, so there are a number of events lined up, which is great.

I was interested in some of the ways he worked, sometimes planning his paintings in his head apparently, turning over the picture in his mind over some time. The danger in this way of working, that of having done too much and then no longer being interested in actually producing the painting. Collins wanted that moment of surprise when he looked at his finished work.
Another way he worked was to take some colour and allow himself to work with that colour intuitively, the forms arising as if taking birth.

For Collins his work is concerned with the transformation of consciousness. Life he saw is surrounded by mystery, "we are asked to collaborate with mystery" I bought a lovely book of his work, Cecil Collins, Meditations, Poems, Pages from a Sketchbook, by Brian Keeble and Elizabeth Collins.I've also been working on some new pastels, one here of the Buddha, they are a bit more difficult to scan in even sprayed with fixative the surface is delicate. I need a few more skills in taking good photos of my art work.

Looking out of the kitchen window last week, I saw something on the bird feeder, a funny looking bird I thought, on closer inspection it proved to be a mouse who stayed long enough for me to get a camera