30/03/2011

Southwold Reprise

It was almost 2 months between taking the photos in Southwold and starting to paint my new paintings. It doesn't usually take me that Long to photoshop a few photos, in fact now as I write this I have no idea why it took so long, I can only assume that paperwork and admin got in the way as it continues to try to do.

Oh well, no matter! When I started the new paintings I was working fairly obsessively on them. Granted the resurgence of the cold weather and the ever present distracting paperwork continued to sap my time and enthusiasm, yet I found myself looking forward to the point in the week when I could get on with them.

I finished them a few months back in early January I thought it time to update you all on their progress. Well actually I wanted to do that months ago but the finished paintings proved very had to photograph accurately and I wanted to show you them as they grew. While painting I was uploading occasional images to Twitpic and tweeting about them.

As it stands there is no particular place they are going to when I get done. And I will admit it seems really strange to be blogging about paintings that have no specific project behind them. As most of 2010's paintings were very much project led. However Southwold has kind of taken over my practice, with many drawings already completed, 2 more paintings on the go and prints being made based on the drawings.
Below first: Greetings from Southwold





and Walberswick Ferry



 

 


20/03/2011

Spring has sprung

Or at least I think it has. Where I go for my weekly walks I see very few signs that spring has arrived. The largest is probably the return of the geese and while I've seen the crocuses come and go the pond seems slow to become green. However the sun is feeling stronger and the smell of spring was almost in the air the last Saturday I went out.

Week 13 - 12th February 2011
Spring may come slow to the pond but I know it well enough to know that while I don't see the snowdrops and daffs that festoon other places (places I walked around last year), there will be hordes of bluebells soon enough.

Also the biggest change, while I can't say shows for sure the return of spring, is a welcome return of sunny days. After weeks of winter and Saturdays full of dull cloud, now I have had many Saturdays with at least partial sunshine.

Week 14 - 18th Feb 2011
This is proving to be an issue currently, however. I love the sun but it seems that it is making taking my photos difficult, since for the time being I have to take my images directly into the sun. Either I get blue sky and silhouetted landscape or I get bright white sky and slightly darker than it should be landscape.
Week 15 - 25th February 2011

I knew when I started that I might have this issue but hopefully when full spring/summer comes along the sun will be overhead enough not to intrude as much. I'm afraid that I picked one of my favourite views rather than one that will always photograph fairly accurately. Maybe this just shows that to attempt to get an objective truth of a place you have to be completely objective picking your subject. But surely this would negate the other aspects of a place/view, your love of it and the emotion that it inspires, without this does it cease to be art?
Week 16 - 5th March 2011

Meanwhile enjoy a selection of the latest few weeks photos. 

Week 17 -  12th March 2011