What an exquisite punishment it was; to be given possession of a place she loved more than any other in the world but that the past rendered out of bounds.
The Lake House, by Kate Morton.
The Easter weekend marked the start of the caravan season and another six month opportunity to spend time in Cornwall, the place on which most of my work to date has been based. A four-day weekend gave me the chance of a brief visit.
I always have grand plans about how I will work in the landscape painting plein air, but I am beginning to face reality, it’s not how I work; I can’t sit still long enough to paint. when I’m outdoors I like to be moving. I am predominantly a studio painter and it is source material I collect when I’m outdoors – either in the form of found objects, photos or observations.
There is an element of chance with what I find on the beach and cliffs. This weekend, whilst searching for fragments of mussel (no mean feat given the high spring tides and rough seas which turf up the sand; hide the lighter shells and make many coves inaccessible) I also noticed fragments of brightly coloured plastic along the tideline. I noticed this last year too – collecting them for the first time. The colours seem out of place. I know plastic in the seas is topical in the news, and whilst I am not an artist driven by political agendas, I cannot deny what I find around me.
Whilst out running/walking my phone with its camera and note making apps continue to be my greatest tool and this weekend I took lots of photos of surfaces (rocks, dry stone walls, lichen, pathways, sand) which I manipulated on the computer to create paler reference images. They are now pinned on my wall providing inspiration for some painted grounds.
Although I don’t paint representational sea/landscapes, I have noticed that the energy of my abstract marks/paintings seem to reflect it. The wild seas, rugged rocks, the moodiness of wind, rain and weather. Layered surfaces reflective of the natural erosion of sand, rock and water.
The next visit is planned for June….meanwhile I have painting to be getting on with!
Maria Harryman (Comstock) 