THE GREENNESS OF GREEN 40x60cm Oil on Linen

I just love the colours in this and it was the green that kept me going.

In the Bhagavad Gita I had read '...I am the sapidity in water,...the light in the moon and the sun...... I am the agreeable odour in the earth and the brilliance in the fire,...the vitality in all beings....    And of the energetic I am the energy devoid of passion and attachment..'

Since this photo I've made a couple of adjustments and it's been put in the back room to dry and on to the next!

NEW PAINTING STAGE 6

I have gone further than this but don't have my camera at the moment. This is the juggling stage, which parts to paint whilst waiting for other parts to dry. I tried an old tube of black which I'd inherited from my mother but it was very sticky and unworkable and it didn't have a label and the tube looked like it was made from lead!

I've made a start on the yellow bowl and am finding it hard to see what the colours are so these are the under shadows. It's such a big shape I don't want it to over dominate. 
I'm working on the glaze of the blue pot and it's all trial and error. I'm still excited by it and still love the colours.

NEW OIL PAINTING FEB 2012

  
STAGES 1-5  

I think I would add more to this blogsite if I could figure out why sometimes I can move the images and other times not. So this is the best arrangement of the paintings at the mo..

I love the colours and that's what keeps me at it even though quite early on I thought 'OMG what a lot of work, will it get finished?'

As usual I have started out thinning the paint with turps but today when I worked on the blue pot I made up a medium of pure balsam turps and linseed oil and it was such a pleasure applying the paint on the canvas. I've had a problem finding the right red for the bright pink, the nearest was my favourite, Permenant Alizarin Crimson so i've ordered a Quinocridone Magenta and have high hopes that it will produce the pink I'm looking for. I'm not using Ultramarine for my blues, I'm using Winsor Blue Green shade and/or Winsor Blue Red Shade (I actually can't tell the difference I will 

have to look again!) and I'm making my blacks with blues and Burnt Umber.

I usually use Vandyke Brown which makes a blacker black but I'm seeing how it goes.There was a moment today when I felt I really connected but it's amazing what memories pop in the mind to interfere with the process. At one time I got really hot and bothered with resentful memories from the past but I felt that by focussing on the painting I diluted their strength so hopefully they've been re-filed carrying less emotive force. I was thinking of my old pal Biddy today too and felt a desire to reconnect with my Chichester friends. 

So it's not just about painting.  
There have been some inspirational programmes on tele about Hockney and Lucien Freud. My friend/student Eloner, reckons Freud was autistic and actually that would explain his extraordinary energy and ability to focus for such long periods. Hockney's ability to make such wonderful paintings from scenes I would would have difficulty with just illustrates how important looking is. As he said 'There are paintings everywhere'.

WATERCOLOURS -AUSTRALIA AND TASMANIA DEC 2011

LOVE COLOUR EXHIBITION COLDSTREAM JUNE 2011

THINKING AND REFLECTING

I was taking my turn, sitting in a gallery, waiting for customers, pondering and asking myself,

‘Why is it that when some people get really old, they calmly say in a matter of fact way, they’ve had enough’?

I thought, well I can understand in a way, but as I looked out of the window at the changing autumn colours I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of the beauty of nature. Then I remembered that although there are scenes in nature that can be visually stunning, there’s more to it than the physical form, and there’s no doubt that something is having an effect on the ‘heart’, the emotions, which creates the perception of beauty and with it the profound feeling of well-being.

But which comes first, the sight before us then the opening of the heart or the opening of the heart and the beauty before us. Is it both? Do memories of bliss experienced through any of the senses trigger the ability to open the heart? So if we see a food that was once blissful in the tasting, the memory triggers a willingness to experience that bliss again. If we’re using the sense of sight we think it’s what we see, if we listen we think it’s what we can hear, if we taste, we think it’s what we are eating etc. The feeling of pleasure/bliss/love appears to be ‘in’ and ‘require’ specific experiences, a multi-coloured sunset rather than a pile of rotting waste. But of course it doesn’t, because the bliss or love resulting through connecting with any of the senses is the same bliss/love and is only limited by our ideas of what we think will trigger the experience.

With a feeling of love for the beauty beyond the window I asked myself ‘Why limit it to what’s outside? If your heart has opened, keep it open and experience the room’. So remaining in that state, I ignored any critical ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’ mental commentary and looked at the walls, the door, the door frame, the floor etc. without judgement, and everything, form, colour and function seemed very quietly right and in a way beautiful and heartfelt. What was also interesting was that the feeling emanating from the forms seemed to be what I was experiencing in my own form so how could I ever be tired of that?

NEW PAINTING STAGE 7

This could be the final painting but as I've just taken another look at it  I know I'll make some final touches to the Aloe. I had it to this stage a few weeks ago and  I've started another painting. The bowls are quite glossy because of the paint medium I used as you can see from the photo. I still don't have a title for it. I initially wanted to show the overlapping of the bowls and the Aloe echoed it but but there is something of Mother in Law's tongue about this thrusting Aloe and the full rounded curves of the bowls contrast that. It also feels as though there's some kind of competition going on.