“….In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures. “ Lines from Faith Healing by Philip Larkin –
‘Gone’ Charcoals and watercolour on Arches paper. 13″ X 13″ In loneliness there is also some joy – autumn darkens. Buson (1776) Over the past weeks, as a result of the exhibition TREE at Beaux Arts in London, I have been asked several times if there is a ‘Japanese influence’ to my work. Sadly, I... Read more »
One morning last week a friend called to say he had found a stoat in the lane. He said it must have been hit by a car but was unmarked and would I like it to draw? Waiting for him to turn up with the creature, I noticed that I knew nothing about stoats and had... Read more »
In 2010 I took a break from my usual painting practise to make a series of very small still-lives. My yoga teacher had been talking about the nature of ‘practise’ – not getting too attached to good and bad, just practising, modestly and consistently and every day. Non-attachment was an idea I was familiar with... Read more »
“The ash tree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. I heard the sound and, looking out and seeing it maimed, there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more.” So wrote Gerald Manley Hopkins in around... Read more »
This is an experiment. A small drawing in charcoal and watercolour photographed every twenty minutes or so throughout the process of drawing. I’ve been reading a little book on Japanese aesthetics by Donald Richie and came across the term Hosomi – an emotional delicacy, a determination to slight not even the most trivial, to understand... Read more »
Snowdrops, and alder twigs in a Japanese tea cup. The finished drawing I began on Ash Wednesday, a day that for various reasons always has me meditating on death and renewal. It seemed more than appropriate – significant to work in pure charcoal; that simplest of materials derived from very slowly burning the small, otherwise... Read more »
A drawing begun on Ash Wednesday. Day 7. Medium – charcoal. Paper – Arches 350gsm HP. Radio 4 and Birdsong
A drawing begun on Ash Wednesday. Day 5. Medium – charcoal. Paper – Arches 350gsm HP. Music – Chopin Nocturne no. 2 in D flat major. Op 27