walking with our dog take two

 So on our walk today Daisy offered her counsel ...

Walking with our dog

                                                              oil on canvas 169x120cms

There are a number of tips in the Guardian this week on how to be creative. My thanks.  Taking time out to walk the tracks with Daisy is akin to working whilst walking. Daisy is doing her thing: I am doing mine. Our paths cross. We both stand still a lot, just looking. Daisy has not got the hang of a camera and she might opine that neither have I but sometimes I find it useful to record something that I might later find useful. Sometimes, although the camera is in my pocket, it stays there unused on the walk. I rely on memory. Daisy on scent.  This painting is my memory at work. There is no photograph to aid this and it may well not stay as it is. The landscape is in flux and so is the painting.

 

                                             December garden. oil on canvas. 169x120cms

This is another of those paintings which have undergone numerous changes as I have tried

to get closer to the slightly claustrophobic nature of my workroom surroundings. The drawings which accompany this painting might show better the direction I want to pursue or they might send me off on a tangent. Getting to grips with drawing is essential. The focus is different but the drawings, like the paintings, never realise the image in my mind when I begin them. The same is true when I draw from life: I have an idea of how the drawing might progress but it always strays from the path and throws up new possibilities.

ink, oil, charcoal, chalk on paper. 69x39cms

                                                  ink, oil, charcoal, chalk on paper. 69x39cms

Starting afresh

garden at dusk. oil on canvas 120x120cms

There has been a hiatus with my blog and not of my choosing so I am trying to reboot it.

There are so many shifts of light on these winter days. Some of them bring memories of summer, some are curious allusions to a coming year. This painting spanned summer and winter evenings in its making.