The Art of Making Lists

I LOVE making lists. Sitting at the computer, picking out colours, fonts, upper or lower case, what size, how many columns (item to do, duration, expected completion date and DONE).  Oooh the options are endless.  I can very happily while away a whole day creating the perfect list to fulfil all my objectives for the next month. Then what happens, the list has become the objective and very little actually gets accomplished. So what to do?  The other day I reached 5 pm and realised that I hadn't actually accomplished anything at all. (Never mind that I had spent an hour entertaining a dear friend in the morning and gone into town in the afternoon for that favourite of all pastimes - the annual appointment with the accountant). I digress, back to my 5pm earlier in the week - the house was a mess there was so much screaming at me for attention I decided to work head down for an hour, pick a job, any job - do it, then pick another one.

In a little over an hour:
            I sorted two bags of clothes - one for the charity shop one to throw away
            Washed some seed trays
            cleaned my paint brushes from the day before
            Paid two overdue bills
            Put the Christmas china away
            Cleared the dinning table ready for mounting some pictures the next day
            emptied the dishwasher.

I am so glad I did not make a list. That hour spent charging around like a demented flea meant that when I was ready to get to work the next day there were no little voices telling me I should be doing something other than painting.  I will probably continue to create the most sumptuously artistic lists, but perhaps if a couple of days a week I just get on and DO, those lists wont be so long and may be more meaningful.

Clearing that list above has also meant that my head is ready for completing a blog post I started last weekend and never managed to finish - no photos and no idea where to take it. It was not an auspicious beginning to a week but looking back I seem to have made something of it.

Sunday - What to do when the pavement of life just comes and slaps you in the face (again). Slowly pick yourself up, stand as tall as you can (5ft 1in in stocking feet) and VERY VERY slowly inch forward, doing one thing at a time.

 Thus I am trying to continue my daily small (postcard size) pastels, completed 2 in the first five days of this bright New Year.

After weeks of flailing around and pretending to search, have finally found the painting I prepared last February for the annual snowdrop festival in Shaftesbury.  Yes it was awful, but have managed to rework it and found a frame to fit.

I began to organise the stack of drawings on my shelf and sort them for the CAKE exhibition in March and discovered a drawing done in prep for the snowdrop painting, it looked promising this time around so I have worked that up onto a small board (A4ish size) found a frame and now I may have 2 painting to submit late January.

I also discovered a small painting on canvas I started late last spring of our bluebell woods.  Have worked over that and I now have something to submit for Welcome 17.

Now it is Saturday. My bluebell painting is ready to deliver to SAC tomorrow and the snowdrops are both framed. I shall enjoy my trip over to Shaftesbury to deliver my bluebells and Amo House' Jurassic embroidery.  Coffee with friends - a lovely way to spend a Sunday lunchtime.

Mice, Men and Musing.

My plan for December was to paint/draw one small pastel each and every day. This was to be a new venture planning forward for the exhibition in Shaftesbury in March. I was very excited and buoyed up at the prospect of creating a large body of tiny gems. Then we received the bombshell news that my beloved has terminal cancer and at the time did not look as though he would make it through to the end of the year. Plans are always sent adrift by reality slapping you in the face.

The top row were completed at the end of November, which means between visits to hospital and days of feeling too low to climb out of the chair I have managed 9 out of 20.  One or two I am really pleased with, and will work towards framing them (mounts ordered today), the rest I think I will mount as a book. By attaching the mount to a larger piece of thin card I can punch holes in the backing sheet and put them in a file.

These are the ones I am most satisfied with and may qualify for full frames. I will look at them again after the mounts have arrived.

On another thread, Dorset Artists (a closed face book group I belong to) publishes an on line magazine to which a close friend (Andrea Jenkins) writes fairly regular articles. She asked me if I had a muse and would I write her a line or two about it. Here is the email I sent her:


Musings on a Muse.

Until you asked the question I hadn't much thought about having or not having a muse. Is there a goddess that watches over me and my work? - most definitely, but she is well aided on this earth by my beloved M. It is he who encouraged me to start painting again (with the promise that I could paint and he would cook and clean! It hasn't quite worked out that way, but I wouldn't have it any differently).

I think of the great painters of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the Impressionists, the Pre-Raphaelites and their muse/models and of Lucien Freud, whose models (I think his only real muse was male) were willing to spread their legs for the world to see. There has to be a bond of respect and trust between artist and muse.  It really is very special and not always meant for sharing which is why my only portrait of M is of his beautiful hands caressing his guitar.  Occasionally I see a particular turn of muscle of juxtaposition of plains and have an urge to draw/paint share, but these are precious moments and I hug them close.

As I read your questions Andrea I thought I had two muses. M and the landscape around where I live, but on thinking about it I realised that the landscape and the seasons are my inspiration, whilst my true muse is a facilitator. His actions and words encourage and support even when they are not directly concerned with my art.




I had hoped that the magazine would be published by now - but as always when dealing with artists time is a strange thing and I expect we will see the fall edition out next spring.

This is my portrait of M and one of my favourites - it hangs above his desk and we both see it all the time.

The magazine can be read at http://dorsetartists.com/2016/02/10/magazine-archives/

How an idea develops.

Each year the same or similar images break out of the natural world and force their attention on me. Screaming to be painted.  One of those recurring images is the delicate Japanese anemone that appears late summer and stays with us in the garden until November.  The contrast of the shell pink and luminous white against the dark and dank "past their best" greenery is wonderful, and as mine are in a corner that only gets the early morning sun and then is in quite dark shade for the rest of the day they are like beacons shining out. For the last several years I have attempted to paint them both in oil and in tempera, never successfully.

 I started with this really poor watercolour, the drawing was badly planned and the flower shape squeezed itself into the rectangular paper shape. I then tried to work (as you should in water colour) in layers of colour retaining the lovely soft lights and creating the dark negative shapes. Not one of my greatest efforts and the pinks kept getting muddy.

So I decided to backtrack and work on a simple charcoal drawing, only looking at the shapes and tones and not worrying about the actual colour. this simple charcoal drawing (about A3 size) tok me most of a day to complete.

I felt as though things were looking up and the next day tried my hand at water colour again.

 This is the first layer of pale green wash to settle where the main flowers and brightest lights would sit on the page. Sticking fairly close to the image on the charcoal drawing.

 Here I have added some of the pinks and lilacs so that I can see how the flower forms will develop. I feel as though I have to compromise on the actual flower colour as the paints I have do not exactly match the flower so concentrate on getting the right tone and warmth








I then began adding more colour to the background, very gently layer by layer. You can see at the top right corner I managed to get two cauliflower bursts when the paint dried overnight - I had overwetted the paper, causing it to wrinkle even though I work on glued blocks of paper that are supposed to stay flat.  Adding more dark layers covered the mistake, but I had to take care as the paper was in a very parlous state.

This is the final watercolour and I am rather pleased with it. Its the first time I have managed to successfully retain bright whites, keep the colours soft and create dark enough areas to show the contrast between foreground and background.

 I was so pleased with myself that the next day I worked a similar image up in pastels, adjusting the flower arrangement. I don't think the photo does it justice and will probably have to trim the right hand side away if I decide to mount and fame it.

Not a bad weeks work.

Take a breath...

Three days ago I bounced into my day all ready to start a new group of paintings.  Then I looked around - the easel was surrounded by 4 large 4ft x 2ft recently completed paintings, several smaller pieces,  and my palette was so coated in paint that the knives were sinking into it.

Upstairs there was more of the same. The watercolour table was buried under the detritus of my latest efforts, torn bits of paper, left over mixed paint glued to the glass surface, dried out pieces of kitchen paper that had been used for blotting, and countless pastel sticks







Even the computer table was shoulder deep in paper.

No place to work.




 I cant work if I am in a muddle, so I collected together the finished pieces done over the last 3 months and sorted them into groups and hung them in the outside studio.

Sorted all the waste paper out of my upstairs room - I can now see the computer table (its wood effect) and will be able to start work on the watercolours
Hmm quite pleased with myself. (end of day one).

I put the sealing ground onto the boards that I want to use next  (lovely magenta pink) and left them to dry in the barn.  Then I cleaned all the brushes, knives and palette. (end of day 2).

Day 3 - started work on the first of the new big paintings  - this is going to be based on the apocalyptic skies we have had during this autumn. Lovely dark clouds and the late afternoon sun squeaking through rent skies to throw its gold around.




Yes, I know this has a lot of pink, but we are only at the underpainting stage and the pink will add warmth to the yellows and blues and stop the finished image from being too cold.


Really excited about this, need to work through some more ideas in watercolour,  to see how the final colour layers will work.

Anyway with my now tidy work spaces, and the frames for the big oils have just arrived, I should be able to crack on for a couple more weeks.

A Pilgrimage.......

Georgia O'Keefe at the Tate. What a way to start the week.  First discovered her when I was a student in the late 60's, when the idea of a woman artist being successful and making it up there with the 'big boys' was absolutely mind blowing.  Saw photos of her flowers and only one or two landscapes, there was no internet and the only books we had were whatever the college librarian deemed suitable, so the big exhibition at the Tate was a dream come true.

It was really exciting to get up close and look at the detail and how she worked her images. I was surprised at how thinly the paint was applied, it almost had the appearance of watercolour. I had expected a more impasto, but this was so delicate . Beautiful drawings and the colour applied 'inside the lines',  no overlapping, but fabulous gradations that carried behind the foreground items. I do hope someone has saved/archived her drawings. There is another story to be told there.

I bought this card to send to my Mum, thought it would bring a smile to her day.

This is my favourite Georgia painting. This image haunted my dreams for months. Extremely clever lady.

(Both these images from the Tate web page)






That was a lovely day out with my friend Amanda House (see Blogspot View from our Hill). Finished off with a meal at Le Pain au Quotidien - Mmmmm.  Thank you John for chauffering us to and from the station.

From there the week went downhill. Our lovely facebook page, Dorset Artists, has had its first major upheaval. Someone asked in a PM about copyright, what a minefield. Suffice to say I hope it blows over if we don't keep mentioning it!

Have been working on my watercolours again.  Autumn is always a lovely time to experiment, the colours can be so vibrant (reds, yellows, oranges) or misty and interesting (smoky blues and greys).

I have been painting rosehips.  I love the slashes of crimson and cadmium red amongst the bright green leaves. From a distance they look like blood flecks against the foliage.

Then as the week has gone on  the yellow is creeping into the leaves and their shapes are changing, curling and withering. Do I sound obsessed yet?

A simple Plan Chest

I have always yearned for a plan chest. You know the kind of thing, a huge multi drawered behemoth of furniture just for holding paper.  I have never had the space or the funds to justify buying one but am really pleased with a project I undertook last month.


Some years ago I created a structure for hanging all my sons shirts. Nothing fancy, just an open fronted box high enough to hold a shirt on a hanger on a rail and wide enough to hang a curtain in front of the shirts.  The width was determined by the space between two other pieces, which also acted to hold the whole thing stable should my woodworking not be up to scratch!  Its made from the coated fibre board used in kitchens and held together by the plastic blocks also used in kitchens.

To make my paper holders I cut boards from the same stuff as the sides and when I ran out of that I used some MDF that was lying around. To support the shelves I fixed three plastic blocks on each side of the space for each shelf I needed.  By having a block support in the middle I can pull each shelf part way out to check the contents and then slide them back into place - just like drawers but much much easier to construct.




Maybe now that I can find my way through the different papers I will choose what I want to work on instead of using whatever the top sheet is!

A quiet week.

Woke up last Saturday morning in mid sentence with myself....." if the pictures would be better with white frames?"  Obviously thinking about the Boundaries 2 opening event set for the afternoon and whether my pictures would stand up for themselves next to the other 10 exhibitors.  Pondered all morning and asked Amo what she thought on the way there.  As I walked in the gallery the first words out of my mouth were "Sharon should the frames be white?" She responded with "We were discussing the same thing yesterday... and yes." Bleugh.

Bearing in mind that after months of concentrating on MY painting this is meant to be M's week and I am supposed to be cosseting him, this is how the rest of the week played out:

Sunday ordered new frames on tinternet using notes made during organising stuff for showing and started painting the 3 frames I had.  Made some chocolate chip cookies to try and earn some brownie points.

Hated Monday (4th July) a bad day in my calendar.  We always used to celebrate with a huge fourth of July party (thank you Walter) and also my sister's birthday (she would have been 62 this year).

Tuesday my frame pieces arrived nice and early, fixed them together and rushed off to have glass cut. Lovely Mike managed to turn them round in 45 minutes. Also spent some considerable time filling my new box with my pastels.


Wednesday set off good and early (for me) 9 a.m., to take new frames to L'Artishe in Swanage. No- one there - for good reasons - one of those emergencies that always occur when you don't have time for it, so came home a very unhappy bunny. Sixty miles and three hours wasted.





Thursday, set off much later after having phoned ahead to make sure someone was there.  My painted frames were perfect - yes the paintings did look better, BUT the new frames with glass were all too small.  AAAAGH. (I later discovered that I had ticked the wrong box I needed glass size not exact size). Went out and bought a saw to cut the back boards to the correct size, then had to cut each pastel drawing in its mount down by 1.5 cm all round. I finally finished at 4pm.  Hung everything and yes it does look better, but there really has to be an easier way.




Friday - morning - committed (haha) to hanging the local art exhibition in Tarrant Hinton Village Hall. Gilly Hesketh and I worked like stink for 2 hours and were quite pleased with ourselves. The exhibition is only on for two days but they had around 60 visitors in that time and raised quite a bit for local charities.



Friday - afternoon -severely exhausted, did not know what to do with myself and going back to bed was not an option. Set off across the yard planning to get out some tools and set to in the garden which has been sadly neglected this year, but instead of turning left into the garden shed somehow managed to turn right and into the barn where my prepared painting boards are stored. Lightbulb moment, I think I'll do a painting!!!!! I know there is one rattling round in that head of mine just waiting to come out

This was the board at the end of Friday - quite eye popping.








Saturday around a visit to Chettle village Fete






And Sunday  - the view out of my window, 6 foot tall cow parsley - I have never seen anything like
it, besides they should have finished flowering over a month ago.


Several other things happened during the week, but I think this is quite long enough.