Midsummer Night

The shortest night has just passed, but here is the night sky on Midsummer’s Eve, June 21st

First I made two pieces of paper from cotton fibres, then I applied the background colours with lots of washes and, towards the end, some spattering and splashing of colours. I also brushed in blue pigments such as cobalt. Next, the constellations were drawn in ink in a roughly correct position. Quite difficult! I exaggerated their shapes – they have such romantic names. Dragon, Swan, Serpent…. Then I added silver leaf to the planets, the sky’s margins and as tiny speckles of light.

Finally I assembled the whole thing, protected the colours and the silver leaf with fixative spray (so it won’t tarnish) and mounted it. Only a frame needed.

I hope this explains how time-consuming such a piece of work can be to make! There is a lot of making involved as well as painting. I am about to embark on a really large night sky piece: a truly exciting project to mark a special date. More details soon.

part of larger Night Sky painting

And this is my first post on the new-look website – comments and feedback welcomed.

Contact me via my Facebook artist page

Not taking part in the Brighton Festival Artists Open House this year has given me a bit of space to catch up with myself and make plans. So hard to think ahead when you’re rushing for deadlines.

All being well some of my work will be at the Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead later this week, though I don’t know which pieces. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing art-related projects in the barn at Sussex Prairies, where I had a season-long solo exhibition last year. It’s a relaxing place to be at any time of year. The drifts and swirls of planting in the garden are only just coming to life with mists of colour rather than the vivid blaze of high summer.

I’m planning a two-artist exhibition in the autumn with the talented plein air artist Gail Tait. Our work goes together well, though it’s very different – that probably goes for us too! More details soon.

And I’m entering for a few open competitions and awards – a precursor to hunting out some new gallery opportunities. When you move regions it takes a while to get the hang of how things work, but now it’s time to look forwards, and embrace change.

And this will probably be my last post here before major changes in the look and organisation of this website. One of my Sussex prairies projects involved making a large concertina book about the gardens and the things that go on in them. To make you smile, here are some shots of my cat pulling a fast one over me and settling herself comfortably on the drying pages.