I recently went to Norfolk for my annual session working in Michael Horn’s studio; but I had lost my mojo, painted like a drain and left early, the first time the magic of Michael and his studio has not worked. I wont even show here my working studies from there.

Nevertheless, I returned to my own studio strangely invigorated and have been putting in the hours painting again. Here are four paintings recently worked on; none is yet finished.

The first is a brand new abstract, a landscape I think, but all depends on which way you look at it. One viewer in the studio said it reminded him of the coloured pieces in a stained-glass window. We’ll see how it now develops:

 

The second is figurative, an ‘ice-scape’, based on one of Barbara Rae’s photographs from her recent forays to the Arctic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never seen an iceberg, which perhaps contributes to the current botch-up of the thing on the left. But I have meanwhile been to see the Rae exhibition in London and am inspired (see blog of 21st July).

 

 

Then we have a couple of megalithic paintings. The first is figurative, based on a photograph of Callanish stone circles on Lewis in the Hebrides (been there). Since posting it, and after much thought and discussion with others over more than a week, I have decided that, for better or worse, it is in fact finished.

 

 

The second in contrast is entirely imaginary, a collage assembled around the ideas of the lintel as seen at Stonehenge, and the hexagonal standing stone as seen at Avebury:

But I now wonder whether it is best to forget all that and view the image laid at right angles to its left:

Viewed that way, and forgetting its megalithic origins, it becomes more a challenge in abstract composition. Perhaps it could benefit from a little colour?: let’s see how it goes.

It will be interesting, at least to me, to see how, if at all, these develop; but at least I’m painting again.

 

Revised text and design 20 July 2019