Colour Sketches of the Sea

 

I have been working with the new art bars that Ruth bought recently and water soluble pencil crayons, to draw some seascapes.

Experimenting with different papers and in different sketch books I have been keeping in mind my theme of colours of the sea.

I have also been looking at the landscapes of Emil Nolde, such amazingly vibrant coloured works.

I will continue with some acrylic paintings  using Emil Node as inspiration as well as Turner.

Albert Herbert visionary painter

I've had a couple of images by Albert Herbert in my reference collection for some years, without knowing anything about him. Recently I have been looking him up and looking at some of his paintings online.I really respond to his work, which although has biblical themes generally, seems to have an openess and spiritual vibrancy that speaks of wider connections to spirit.
The gallery England and co that represented Albert Herbert has a short bibliography including this section.
"Herbert always used stories as a way of explaining his subjective feelings. His universal narratives were drawn from a myriad of diverse sources including Biblical stories and his own life and experiences. In the late 1950s he was drawn to learn about religion, seeing it as a way of revealing the inner world of the collective mind. In the 1980s he adopted the use of Biblical and theological subjects as a way of making his paintings less private. The surface meanings were often a mask for something else – used as metaphors, universal symbols or archetypes which could be interpreted in several different ways."
I thought I'd try to see some of his work as soon as I can.

New pastels and Cecil Collins

Last weekend was the second conference, Catharsis Transformation through the arts, dedicated to the work of the painter Cecil Collins, at St Ethelburgha's.
Apart from forgetting just how cold an old church can be in the middle of a very cold winter, it was another enjoyable experience. An old arts council film, The Eye of the Heart, was shown, ( such a shame it's not easy to get copies of such films) where Cecil Collins made some of his erudite remarks about painting, the nature of vision and the contemporary world.



Cecil Collins said we "do not have to understand in order to create, it is necessary to create in order to understand" He believed that "to be creative you need to be vulnerable" With a child's way of seeing and that "Art is an expression of life not an explanation of it"

Inspired by Cecil Collins work and following my Tree of Life painting,I did another couple of oil pastels. One similar to the Tree of Life and one focussing on the ground, the earth under the tree, and the light of the sun.