Two new paintings and a new project

Over the last few days I have completed two new paintings.

Firstly, the next painting in my flower still-life series. This is the Magnolia Stellata Leonard Messel which grows just outside my studio.

Flowers of April

Like the other paintings in the series, this is quite small, just 30cm square. My next flower picture is going to be bluebells and forget-me-nots, I think, both flowering down the garden at the moment.

The second recent painting is Footpath along the Ramparts. This path runs along the holloway of an Iron Age ‘ditch and bank’ type earth work, which runs southwards from Stanway Green, where I lived as a teenager. The painting is 45cm square, and is in acrylic and oil pastel.

Footpath along the Ramparts

I went for a long walk around this area a couple of weeks ago which resulted in a decision about my painting focus for the rest of this year.

You may remember that my big painting project this year was to have been A Year Round Abberton Reservoir.  And then the third lockdown started in January and I had to put it on hold.

Now that everything is easing up I thought I would go back to it, only to realise that I have completely lost interest in the whole idea! What I am interested in painting right now are the tracks and paths that I have been walking over the last year. My visits to Great Bromley and Little Bentley (where our quartet have been singing in the churches) have also shown me all sorts of interesting footpaths and lanes in that area to explore!

So my new, post-lockdown project is going to be Essex Paths and Bridleways. Although it may include a few country lanes, too! I finished the first painting, above, on Tuesday afternoon, posted it on Instagram on Tuesday evening and sold it on Wednesday morning – a good omen, I think!