Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2025!

Hello, I’m back! After not using my blog for the last 18 months, this year I shall be using it regularly – probably once a week – to document my new Twelve Months painting project.

If you’ve followed my work for long you will remember that I have previously completed three Twelve Months painting projects. In 2016 I did Twelve Months in an Essex Wood; in 2020 Twelve Months in an Essex Field; and in 2022 Twelve Months on an Essex Island.

This year I am going to be working on Twelve Months on an Essex Country Estate. The estate in question is Markshall near Coggeshall in North East Essex, just a few miles west of Colchester. The Hall itself was demolished in the 1960s, but the estate that remains has a large walled formal garden, a huge lake, an arboretum, and acres of natural woodland.

I went for a ‘recce’ visit with some friends before Christmas and I was more than convinced that there is plenty to keep me busy for the year. Here are a few of the photos I took that day, to give you an idea of the place.

The lake is full of huge carp which we were able to feed – free fish food is given out in the ticket office! – and we had a lovely time wandering around the lake, the arboretum and the edge of the woodland areas. As my friends had their dog with them we were not allowed in the formal garden, but I have been in there on previous visits, so I know how lovely it is sloping down to the shore of the lake, with beautiful old brick walls and gateways.

My plan for the year goes like this – this is what I aim to achieve by December.

• 12 acrylic paintings 40cm square, of different parts of the garden, one from each month
• 12 pastel pencil drawings about 24cm square of ‘Pickings’ from the estate, one from each month. If you remember my ‘Snippings’ drawings from the Essex Field, and ‘Findings’ drawings from the beach on the Essex Island. Obviously I can’t ‘pick’ from plants, but I am really meaning ‘pick up’ – so think leaves, twigs, feathers, fir-cones, etc. Anything which will present an opportunity to draw natural objects in detail.
• 12 small ‘Flowering’ paintings, in either soft pastel, or gouache of individual flowering plants, one from each month. I will choose something in the gardens, and either work en plein air, or draw and take photos to paint back in the studio.
• I will make notes each month of everything I notice, that I see or hear, changes in the gardens, in the trees, birds, insects and other wildlife.
• I will experiment using a Gelli printing plate to make mono prints of the gardens or individual plants.

At the end of the year, as well as all the original paintings, I will have the material to make a fourth Twelve Months book, to make two new sets of coasters, two new tea towels, and a calendar for 2027.

That’s the plan!

I am excited to get started in a couple of weeks, and have already started gathering art materials that I will need. I am also going to be researching the interesting history of Markshall – or Marks Hall as it was previously know. I already know that it has two interesting links with my own family, one through my father, and one long ago in the 1600s!

I plan on giving you an update here, every week, so check back regularly if you are interested to see what I’ve been up to!