In 2013 I discovered the joys of pushing a bit of paint around. I’m not so good & I do it not enough…but I like it!
I moved back to Dorset in 2013. It was a wonderful & strange period: a return to the past; an attempt at time travel; only partially unsuccessful! I painted Lyme Bay (rather too heavy handedly in watercolour! It was, perhaps, the wrong medium – or, at least I used it as a novice would; fearlessly & without much application knowledge… beginners’ luck, I suppose; always a great way to work; unfettered by supposed/imposed restrictions & the only disciplines involved being the freedom of time & energy & imagination – . Looking back now, I can see that I was making some headway toward… something! A very rewarding time. I returned to Croydon in 2014.
The Rock Point pub, Lyme Regis 2013. Watercolour & pencil. Very heavy handed & viewed from quite an impossible angle I realise now – unless I was in the surf!
ABSTRACT 2014
BAY 7 (Full Moon) 2014. I love the blue here. Again, always, this is looking east toward a vague Golden Cap & Portland.
It Came In… (postcard 1/3) 2013
When I Sleep… (postcard 2/3) 2013
Hollow Legs (postcard 3/3) 2013
BAY 2 (detail) 2013
BAY 3 2013.
BAY 3 (detail) 2013. Night scene, looking east toward Golden Cap
BAY 5 (2013). Looking east, as ever toward Golden Cap! This is an early morning, pre-dawn scene. The colours & light suggest sometime around autumn 2013.
BAY 1 (detail) 2013. This is from a larger piece (the first, I think) on arriving back in Lyme Regis, summer 2013. My friend, Nick Booth, presented me with a half palette of Winsor & Newton watercolours before I left south London that summer: a great gift! There was (& perhaps still is) a wonderful artists’ suppliers shop on Silver Street in Lyme & I treated myself to a rather large piece of heavy Fabriano paper & set to work! There is something surreal or alien discovered still here. I worked without any ‘painterly’ knowledge & was just experimenting. I can see now that I enjoyed the immediacy of quite ‘loose’ work & was unafraid to use various methods (scraping away at the surf with a card edge or some such?). I am very fond of this piece. It seems to capture something of the magic of new adventures.
