“It was like having a great big hug….!”
At the beginning of this year, 2021, I realised I needed more structure to my rhythm of working and had not ventured outside to draw for a while. I was flitting from one project to another with undirected creative energy. Considering I see the natural world as the foundation of everything I do, I could understand why I was becoming like a rabbit in headlights with so many different ideas buzzing around my head (a symptom of being a number 7 on the Enneagram if you’re interested!). It was time to anchor myself! Drawing outside, in situ, underpins most of my work and underpins me! The light, colours, shapes and atmosphere of the land and seascape are what energise and inspire me. So I decided to plan a small series of work based on one or two outdoor sessions. On the day I set out, towards the end of the daylight in January, I could already see the light changing - I love the dawn and dusk because this is where you see the changes before your eyes and it fills me with wonder. It’s like witnessing the turning of the earth and brings rise to all those feelings of connection with the planet and our universe. I found my spot, sat and spread out my boxes of pastels and the unevenly cut pieces of paper taken from a large drawing I had kept but didn’t like. My intention was to draw over these cut sections. The sky was a dusky, grey blue with hints of lilac and cobalt but as I completed one drawing after another everything became bathed in the warmth of a pink sunset, including me - It was like having a great big hug!
I was able to capture something of this in my memory but had used up most of the paper by the time the sky was in full glow. When I set about creating the paintings back in my studio a few days later, the first thing I did was mix a warm pink and painted the whole surface of the boards in it, so that it became the under layer of this series, giving it the warm glow I had seen that day. If you look at the work on my website, you can see the underpinning of this pink and how it brings warmth to the paintings. I have always found so much joy and security when I am outside in the natural world, as so many of us have and more so in this last year. I wanted these paintings to go some way to bring this warmth and comfort to wherever they find homes.
