Fields North of Newmarket, March in the grip of winter

Fields North of Newmarket, March in the grip of winter

8 x 10 ins, ins, landscape, Pastel on Strathmore Paper, winter

An over-cast day offers so little in the way of inspiration, contrast or colour. The undulation of these low hills always catches my eye though, as we fly past in the car homeward bound. I want this to be part of a series of pastels. I want it to convey the hard-scrabbles bits of snow left clinging to the corduroy plough lines. The colours needed juicing up, especially since a great distance sweeps so far back in space. A little chalk mark becomes 25 acres! Focal point in the composition worried me as I set out- but then I looked closely and discovered a horse hidden in the bush. She looks a little cold, bored and lonely... how we pine for spring’s arrival at this time of year!

Cat shades

Draw every day...it sounds so simple...but. This is my girl- an inspiration from Pinterest. The halo effect is what I’m after.

Bye Dad, I love you

The photo of Dad was taken about 20 years ago... he liked nature and the land, and shared it with us, peppered by anecdotes from his lifetime there, like where they used to boil maple sugar, watching thunderstorms and identifying trees with pet names. He and my uncle created this pond by drag-lining a large bowl into the soil of a marshy valley, and we grew up swimming and skating on it, and barbecuing down there after a hot day. The dog was two years old and my daughter not much older than that. I love the energy of the dog moving away from us as if he spotted an adventure around the corner. The second version was completed just after Dad passed, last March of 2018. Red and orange underpainting really helped the colours. Softer chalk built up in layers gives the edges more softness and subtlety. I wanted it to have that frosty, misty appearance the photo has, but with the colours richer and more alive. People who know me recognize the pond as a happy place with memories of friendship and fun. Thanks, Dad.

Across the Pond, Pastel on paper, 8 X 10 cold-pressed Strathmore

March, 2019

Pastel of an old photo

I worried about the placement of the figures as the composition needed to be off-centre. Photos can have their focal point dead-centre and it works, but that won't necessarily be true for a painting. I used a Derwent scale tool to get it from the photo, which I had framed years ago.

Funny how a little photo can be so out of focus and lacking in detail, but be so loaded in meaning that my mind fills it all in spontaneously, on sight. Still I squint at it from time to time. It's as if I could enter that photo and go on this adventure with them!

The pastels I'm using don't feel soft enough at times... and maybe the underpainting was too keyed-in to the surface colours. I think I can do better with this one.

An old photo

We won a pocket film camera in a lottery but before long things went digital. The photo was taken on a cold day when my daughter was three. Grandad and our dog are with her. It looked like an adventure. The photo has an eerie, misty glow, probably the cold on the lense that day. This lousy photo that I love so much would make a nice pastel.

Mount Pleasant

A friend and I painted "en plain air" in mid-afternoon. Magnificent trees were turning fall colours, and though the day was not sunny enough, the landscaped offered deep spaces framed by the branches. A passer-by wants the paintings, as they commemorate the place and a person they care for.