If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be?
Ducks do not spend their whole lives on the ground.Sometimes, in life, you just have to spread your wings and not give one.Flying Ducks are a beautiful sight.
Last night some freshly composed witches songs were out, out for the first time on the edge of Dartmoor.
A friend, Sian Jamison, has, inspired by a book, written a collection of music inspired by stories of Welsh witches. Inspired by her music I have started to paint contemporary images of women who live amongst us and who would in previous times have been considered ‘other’. Non-conformist, clever, opinionated, feminists. Women who change, support, and shape their communites without the entitlement or bravado of the masculine style of community engagement. My witches, unlike Sian’s are not quite ready to be out,out. Since starting this project I realise that you cannot rush a contemporary witch. She or they will take their own sweet time to emege from the music.
I am not a natural figure painter but for the last couple of years I have painted storms as people, Some benign and some absolutely with malign intent.Swimmers of all shapes and sizes and mermaids with more on their minds than attracting or engaging the matelots gaze or lascivious thoughts.Now I am reimagining witches. Not particularly, or at all as mythical or historical figures, and not as they are traditionally portrayed. My witches don’t wear black, my mermaids can be fierce, my storm bringers are unpredictable. They live the same lives as anyone else in the first half of the 21st century. Three of the witch pictures are ready to appear in the blog. I believe they are finished but until this project is complete I can never be sure.
Bog Witch. You can’t burn a Bog Witch.
Bella Fawr with little Betty.
Shape Shifting witches. Cat to woman/woman to cat.
In part it is easier to reimagine Welsh witches because unlike other places Wales did not persecute witches. They were seen as a benign and essential part of the community. Only causing trouble if provoked or disrespected.
My witches live amongst us, doing the school run, shopping in supermarkets, going on nights out.
They will have been amongst us last night on the edge of the moor.
What’s something you’ve done that your past self would be proud of?
I have never been to Foggintor Quarry before. But I have sat on the rocks of Foggintor Quarry for most of my life and there has often been photographic evidence of me doing it. As a toddler feeding pigeons and as an overnight reveller during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. A couple of New Years Eves
Now if this sounds like nothing that my past self would be proud of . I am inclined to agree, but the part of me that really loves a quirky fact feels a little bit excited to have visited the quarry that birthed Nelsons Column. The more or less central spot of London in Trafalgar Square. So wherever you are in the world the distance between your home and London would be measured to a monument built from rock from Foggintor Quarry.
10 years ago my son, Sam and I posing posing in front of Nelsons Column at Christmas time. Both completely unaware that we were posing in front of rock from a quarry that we could see from our Cornish home. As I stood at the quarry today it was possible to see the town we used to live in. Our ruverside home would be somewhere below the arrow.
We used to look out of the east facing windows on really wintery days hoping to see snow on the higher parts of Dartmoor. Sleds and snow shoes would be hastily thrown into the car. Madness to think that we were almost certainly looking straight at Foggintor. Sometimes of course it was actually obscured by fog!
The quarry had its own school. This is all that remains.
Just imagine being educated somewhere quite so bleak.
below Foggintor Facts
A Friday Bob worthy of the front page of a glossy magazine. Water temp 16.1-16.9 degrees. Air temp 15 degrees, unthinkable really for October. You might wonder why we need a swim area.
We have big competition for our space in the bay.
And we have beautiful competition for our space in the bay.There would be a hefty fine if we were ever caught swimming beyond the Buoys. But during almost every swim something big or powerful sails close by. We absolutely know why the buoys are there.
Marianne also knows that the yellow really sets of her autumnal tan and Sailor Stripe rash vest. She is in every way a model Bobber.
Here she is setting off with her Agent, Photographer, Security and publicist. Straight out to the buoy , the first picture was perfect and her team were able to relax, chatter and swim together, really enjoying the moment. Bobbing at its beautiful best.Blogging nonsense at its finest.
I have been pondering the meaning of community today. I am not sure I could make a list of the communities I am involved in. Someone would be certain to point out one I had forgotten.
The artist community in real life and on line is an easy one to identify, although this year I have skipped joining in with Inktober. An informal group that responds to daily prompts to draw, paint and sketch using ink.
During October I am certainly using inks but not responding to someone elses prompting. Yesterday I realised that this October , for me,has become Pinktober. For an entirely random reason.
While I was in France I managed to buy a bright pink Bic fine tip pen. Traditionally watercolour paintings can be enhanced with pen and ink. Usually but not always black. I prefer Sepia but a set of five bright colours really set me thinking and so two pictures this week have been embellished with pink and I love it.
Not that I can belatedly join the 2026 Inktober community as none of their prompts could inspire a seascape or a random collection of three mussel shells, a cracked pebble and an Oyster shell.
Maybe I could talk my way onto 28 th October using ‘Trophy’ as these shells were happy trophies brought home by a grandchild. Or indeed October 31st ‘Flex’ because to paint the collection of shells I flexed a little to turn over the mussels to reveal their beautiful blue sides and the pebble to show the crack. I also flexed my mind a little bit to overlay the watercolour painting with the original photograph of the collection from the beach. The serendipity of doing this works brilliantly in this instance . Giving the hybrid print of this painting more abstraction and artistic heft. So flex on the 31st of October this one will be.
Another of my communities will provide ‘Trophy’ on the 28th of October. One of my local community WhatsApp groups advertised free Quince, generously left for anyone to collect.
I love quince and these are really quite a trophy. They will be my fruity muses sometime soon and after a painting is done they will be cooked to make Quince syrup and Membillo a gorgeous rose coloured jelly to eat with cheese and ham throughout the winter. The Quince may well join the Inktober community. Better late than never. They will also be enhanced by pink ink. In my own solitary community ‘ Pinktober’ of just me and my pink Bic
What does it mean to be a good person?
There must be many versions of what it means to be a good person. Way beyond my level of pondering. I think a good person needs a percentage of a bad person. The tension of bad in a good person provides texture and tenacity, creates balance and perspective. Too much goodness can be pappy, flimsy…. dull.
With no bad how can you even gauge goodness.
This water colour sketch works because the pristine white pebble is both cracked and reflects the colours that surround it.
Remove the crack and something vital is lost to the overall vibrancy of the image.
The image becomes pleasing but with less of something intangible.
A good person with no bad is the same . Pleasing of course, but with no tension to frame and enhance the good.
I think Autumn has properly arrived, I have cooked a crumble.It was either an accident or serendipity.
This fabulous collection of beach findings caught my eye in the sharp shafts of sunlight that are indicative of this time of year. They were collected in the summer by one of three granddaughters and stored in the studio which they also use as a playroom. I found it when I had to change the position of the blinds in the room. Just 3 mussel shells an oyster shell and a cracked pebble. But the composition is so lovely I will just return it to the windowsill where it had been placed for safety
An unplanned autumnal arty moment.
The actual autumn project was a still life of a coffee pot with a plain white coffee cup. The coffee in question, Ethiopian Sidamo is new to me and I am quite obsessed by the flavour of it
As part of my still life painting plans, I posed the flavours that I get from rhe coffee. Which we bought in France two weeks ago.
Milk chocolate, Orange and cherries.
The cherries were the inspiration for the crumble. Which is a slightly curious pairing,.Apple and Cherry crumble anyone?
My plans for today.
Domestic Admin
Prep/planning for a still life representing the flavour of Sidamo Coffee.
Walks with Lola
A painting started
What have I actually achieved ?.
Domestic Admin
Prep planning for a still life representing the flavour of Sidamo Coffee.
Walks with Lola
An unusual crumble.
No painting. And now two to do instead of the original one.
Breakfasts are very predictable in this house on a Monday. Here we are eating pre-breakfast in the book corner ( left over weekend croissants) while the eggs scramble. But all is not as it seems @theoldmortuary. Breakfast was served early in the yard!
There is a passing resemblance to scrambled egg but we tend not to perch on our breakfast whilst eating.
Not even on the worst days of table manners
A late blog for a Sunday . We had a birthday party to attend and an overnight stay for the birthday girl.We are all over the excitement now so time for quiet contemplation of old images featuring words used in previous blogs.
Every morning on my way to do Jury Service I passed this street sign. No need ever for jury service if everyone adherered to this simple request.
Natural comedy.
A question of Letterpress.
Something for a Sunday . ( I know I used the last two images yesterday but good text is always worth repeating.) And I am on the flip side of a sugar high.
The End
Every picture tells a story. Yesterday any pretence that Summer was still with us slipped away. An autumnal greige day with rain and grunginess, marked that a line has finally been crossed. Another line that was crossed, was the image storage provided by my blog hosts. Time for me to take some immediate action. 10 years of images to go through, clearing out duplicates and images that had been stored, but never used. A job much more pleasant than clearing out the garage, that had held a five year archive of 18 years of my arty, but no longer relevant stuff. But clearing the garage taught me that arty clear ups are a good thing. A digital clear up involved no dirt, no trips to the tip and no spiders. Just an hour or so with a cup of coffee and some digestive biscuits, and some lovely memories, not all of them the smiley sort of memories, some were sad as memories can be. But life is a blend of happy and sad which every sentient being has to navigate. Going through the pictures was a record of where I have been, which has put me on the path of where I am now, and ultimately where I am heading off to. Although that of course is somewhat unknown and I like that about life. One picture I retrieved does accurately reflect the end point of all of our journeys.
Clearing out the garage was such a good thing. My whole creative life feels lighter without all the stuff that was, at times, essential to getting a Fine Art degree as a mature student. Sometimes I just go in,look at the empty space, and enjoy the almost nothingness of it. It also attracts envious gentleman callers who would do all sorts of things in there if they had the opportunity.
Nobody is going to stroll into my more spacious digital archive and have fantasies about sprockets, lathes and vices. But I know there is now ample space for more pondering illustration and that feels good.
Sunday’s blog will be a trip through the cleared out archive in no particular order. But if a picture of a pre-paid grave ( not mine) is a low point, then the sign outside a Chicago Church is surely a brightener for a Saturday morning.
