Winter Exhibition at The Beaney

I spent the day last Sunday at The Beaney in Canterbury among the Winter Exhibition as an artist in residence.  It was good to spend some time looking at the exhibition and there is a lot of good work in the show.

The exhibition runs till January 18th 2015 and The Beaney,s website is here.  There's a good cafe in the museum /gallery and other rooms to visit  and a programme of events too.

Talking to some of the visitors was interesting, hearing which pieces they liked and pleased that some people mentioned my work too.

It can also be fun to just watch people in a gallery, how long they take to look around, what work draws them etc. Some people just came in for a minute, someone came in and said this is all modern and walked out, other people looked very carefully at every piece. Couples rarely agreed on which pieces they liked best and children were either bored or commenting on lots of work.

 There is a good mix of work in a variety of mediums, perhaps because I do not use some mediums like, glass and ceramics,  I am drawn to those sorts of work. Jeanette Cook's  Wintery Vale, is a glass piece that I really like and Aya Mouri's Canterbury plate with it's painted map and birds is lovely. Kate Baker's mosaic Starry Winter's Eve is also beautiful.

Other work includes prints,mixed media and photographs. Tracie Piesley's Ice Queen is quirky and iconic and Helen Beeken's Summer Sleeping has similar mythological themes as does Ghosts of the Winter Solstice by Cornwall Jones. Jill Holder's Winter's bones is a thought provoking work and a reminder in my mind of the power of winter.

 Ruth McDonald's concertina is another work I like very much, the black and white landscape with trees evoking the winter theme and the concertina book form giving different views of the landscape.

Winter birds, new paintings

I've been working on some new watercolours of birds. I've used traditional birds, a Robin, Blue Tit and a Wren.

The birds are all sitting within designs using foliage and fruits, inspired by Japanese design, ivy, mistletoe and pine branches.

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I wanted to use a lot of colour and also a sparkle with gold and silver touches, so the background is a blend of blues, pinks, purples, yellows and greens and mixed with the snow falling over the scene are some silver flakes.

The Four Seasons Winter Exhibition at the Hornbeam.

I have started putting up the second part of my Four seasons exhibitions at the Hornbeam this week. The Season being Winter this time.
There are two paintings downstairs," Snow Falls into Silence" and" Winters Morning Dawns Clear and Calm". These are acrylics of winter landscapes, the colouring has a touch of an imaginary world, snow flakes fall down and glitter highlights one piece.


Upstairs there is part of a series of photographs Into The Storm, from one part of my journey from London to Shropshire during the extreme winter weather we had, the weekend of the 17th December.
The photographs show the approach of an impending storm, where the clouds turn bruised and black. As the train goes into the storm, snow starts to fall and the landscape closes down eventually to white. As we pass on in the train we gradually emerge into sunshine, snow and blue skies.

It was something quite spectacular and riding in the train made me conscious of the power of the elements around me. The storm seems to have been some sort of premonition too, the great little railway I was travelling with, Wrexham and Shropshire, has just closed unfortunately.
It seems it is very difficult to compete with the likes of Virgin.

I will be putting up some larger photographs from the journey shortly to complete the exhibition which is on till the end of March.
The Hornbeam is open Wednesday to Saturday and serves drinks and great vegetarian food.
458 Hoe street E17 9AH Tel 0208 558 6880 Hornbeam's website here

Winter snow

Well we have had the most snow here in London for about 20 years apparently. Transport ground to a halt, schools closed along with many businesses. A great time to be out and about taking photographs if you could get anywhere.




My long time haunt, the local churchyard, was just the place to walk to and see the snow scene. The landscape or cityscape always looks so different under a blanket of snow and the light of course is very different. The trees looked particularly lovely, especially the yew and the conifers. A heavy snow storm came down as I was taking photos and short videos and I loved that sense of being in a snow globe.