New Year – New Plans
Firstly, may I wish you all a happy and healthy new year!
Well, my 2022 painting project is almost done. I just need to finish the very last painting, and then I can start putting the Twelve Months on an Essex Island book together.
I have some exciting plans for the coming year, which I hope you will enjoy sharing as the year goes on.
My BIG project is a painting AND writing one. As some of you may know I have traced my Pudney family history, and it’s ‘off-shoots’ back to the early 1700s, and prior to that, fairly certainly back to Tudor times. They have all lived in North Essex, mostly in a twenty mile radius of Colchester, in many different villages. I intend to paint all these different places, choosing a representative view of each, and put the images of the paintings with the stories of all the people together into a book. I’m sure this will take more than a year! This is probably a two year project, and will involve a lot of research, maps and exploring!
Alongside this, I am going to do a painting project on Rural Buildings . I rarely paint buildings, so I am keen to get better at them. This will focus on barns, mills, farmhouses, pubs, maybe some churches, too. Some of these pictures will be in soft pastel.
We also have three Anglian Arts Project exhibitions planned for 2023. In May we will be at the Craft House, Woodbridge, from 24-30 May; at Little Bentley Church Hall again from 16-18 June; and at the Sentinel Gallery Wivenhoe again from 12-17 September.
There is a possibility that I may be involved in another exhibition in July as well, and I will be having my usual Christmas Open Studios in November. I also have work exhibited at the Buckenham Galleries in Southwold all the time, and have been approached recently by another gallery wishing to show my work – more news on that when I’ve been to visit them.
Lots to look forward to! 
PAINT 7 Seven: winter Solstice
My seventh and last group of lettering art pieces will be released tomorrow, Wednesday, 21st December, which is the Winter Solstice. This is the moment in the year when we in the northern hemisphere are tilted furthest from the sun, giving us the shortest hours of daylight, and the longest night.
This time my choice of quotation from e e cummings was “o the star-hushed silence’ – thinking about the long dark nights at this season of the year.
The colours associated with the Winter Solstice in the Celtic tradition are red, green and gold. I used the red and gold, but couldn’t fit the green into my plan!
This is what I used.
So, red, yellow, gold and silver in Sennelier oil pastel, and Carbon Black and Indanthrene Blue acrylic paint.
First I used the oil pastel to cover the cradled gesso panels. I used the colours quite randomly, but made sure I had a solid covering with no gaps. I left the panels for a couple of weeks to dry off, as oil pastel is quite sticky when it is first used.
When the surface no longer felt tacky I coated over the oil pastel with the acrylic paint, beginning at the top with Carbon Black, and gradually introducing the Indanthrene Blue and reducing the Carbon Black as I worked my way down.
I allowed this to partially dry, and then took the paint off to form the letter shapes in little shimmering scratchy marks using the sharp cut corner of an old bank card – a very useful tool! – so that the ‘star’ colours beneath were revealed.
The pieces are framed in simple white wood tray frames and are strung on the back for hanging – although they will also stand up on a shelf if you choose.
The gesso panel is 15cm (6inches) square, and measures 18cm square in the frame.
This has been a fun different project through this year. I still have at least one of each of the seven releases, if you have been waiting to see them all before you choose! You can find all seven on the PAINT 7 page – see menu bar above.
It will soon be time for me to announce my painting projects for 2023, which I will do on 1st January, although if you subscribe to my newsletter you will be able to read all about them on New Year’s Eve.
Go to the home page and scroll down to the bottom of the page to subscribe; it is free, and I usually send out one newsletter a month, on the last day of each month. And you can unsubscribe at any time of course!
PAINT 7 Autumn Equinox
My sixth group of lettering arts pieces will be released tomorrow, 21st September, for the Autumn Equinox.
This time my choice of quotation from e e cummings was “the skies are wild with leaves that dance.
The colours associated with the Autumn Equinox are brown, orange, red, yellow, gold and green – so lots to choose from! I selected these acrylic paints to work with –
So I had Light red, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Vandyke Brown, Violet Oxide ( rather oddly named as it is a deep reddish brown) and Iridescent Bright Gold, plus a green acrylic ink pen.
I designed a layout for the works, with a strong diagonal stress to suggest the leaves whirling in the wind.
Next I painted all seven of my little gesso panels with gold, and used some small leaf shaped lino cuts to print leaf patterns on the gold background.
You can see in the bottom right image above how the gold gleams when it catches the light.
Here are the little lino cuts –
Once the paint was dry I traced down the lettering design, and went over it using the green acrylic ink pen.
This is the result!
I framed them, as usual, in a simple white wood tray frame which will stand up by itself –
– although it is also strung on the back for hanging.
There are seven near identification paintings, but they are all originals with small differences.
See my PAINT 7 page above for more details.
