Cockroaches in Kendal

Just been told my painting 'Rocky & Ruth, Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches' has been accepted for Open Up North, an exhibition at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.
This painting has come a long way.

In 2006 I spent just over 3 months in Madagascar, volunteering on various arty projects for NGO Azafady, and the Botanical Gardens in the capital city, Antananarivo. My biggest project involved creating and painting models of large scale extinct species, a kind of diorama, for kids. My studio was a little school house next to the Azafady headquarters in Fort Dauphin. I made friends with some of the staff, especially Lala, an amazing conservationist and wildlife expert. Lala was an invaluable source of information. For example, he could identify Bad scorpions and Good ones (mocking me for panicking after discovering the latter on my pillow). He waded through swamps with me looking for bull frogs, explained afterwards why it was a particularly bad idea to go for a wee in the rainforest (leaping heat seeking leeches), took me and a couple of friends out on a pirogue looking for crocodiles, in vain, until we got out and saw a large one that had been lurking underneath our leaky vessel...

Anyway, it was Lala who after hearing me complain that I missed my cat, presented me with two giant hissing cockroaches in a shoebox. I kept Ruth and Rocky, fed them banana, and sketched them. They didn't really offer much in the way of cuteness value, but Rocky at least made hissing noises if you touched him. Unfortunately, he escaped after only a week and I realised that actually, I only like giant cockroaches if I know exactly where they are. Rocky turned up eventually, clinging to the underside of the chair in my room. Having decided enough was enough, I tried to remove him, but didn't realise just how strong a cockroach can be... it really took some effort to prise him off. I'm fairly ashamed to say I then lobbed him in the bushes.

When I left Fort Dauphin, I smuggled out the old bit of hardboard I'd been using as a palette. Obtaining the paint for use in my various projects had been a bit of an ordeal. I had some colours flown out with gap year volunteers, but the rest was Malagasy, hand mixed out of noxious substances up a dodgy looking alleyway in Tana. Having little Malagasy or French, I struggled to explain precise colour preferences, and seemed to end up with an awful lot of brown. Over the weeks, my palette became quite interesting, with crazed blobs of colour. The day before I left I painted one last coat of my 'favourite' homemade brown paint, and chucked a handful of sandy soil onto it. By this point it almost certainly constituted a bio hazard. However, it arrived home safely, and I then painted a portrait of Rocky and Ruth onto it, so that I can remember my 'little' pet cockroaches forever.

Rocky and Ruth will be on display at the Open Up North exhibition venues from Sat 1st Oct- Mon 10th Nov.

Lune Valley

Went out walking and drawing yesterday with my friend Owen and obligatory pack of dogs along the Lune from Halton. We sat above the flooded river, wearing sunglasses, raincoats, and wellies (and in my case, suncream). But strong sunlight and heavy rain at the same time does make everything look bright, sparkly and dramatic, and the clouds were exceptionally good. I drew this using watercolour pencils and I used the raindrops to smudge it a bit. We both ignored the most obvious things in the view; a massively flooded river, and 4 large and irritating dogs.

Springtime in Eskdale

This is the painting I mentioned in my last blog entry, 'Springtime in Eskdale' by James McIntosh Patrick. Image courtesy of Liverpool Museums.

Life drawing - September

These are the two pieces that I'm most happy with from last Saturday's life drawing. I'm really working on not overworking paintings at the moment! and here I think I managed to retain some element of spontaneity. I've always preferred sketches to finished drawings, and drawing to painting, yet I love colour so much. So I suppose drawing in paint is my best option.

Today I visited the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. It's really good and I want to go back for longer next time as I only had an hour. I was so happy to find a McIntosh Patrick painting that I hadn't seen before, of Eskdale. James McIntosh Patrick, born in Dundee in 1907, was one of the best known and loved Scottish landscape painters of the last century. His paintings are perhaps nostalgic, but I think they are also timeless, they capture a sense of place so fundamentally.
When I was wee I thought of the print my Granny had above her mantlepiece as you might a favourite story; you know so precisely how it goes but nevertheless can always find something new.

I think it's finished!

I've been having a lot of fun painting this off and on over the summer, but I have a feeling that it's finished. Deciding when something is finished has never been one of my strong points, often, things are finished about half an hour before I stop messing around. This painting combines areas of high detail with areas which are quite roughly painted, and which certainly could be worked into some more, but I think I prefer it the way it is.
I'm not done with the Australian bush theme, however; there's a few more in my head waiting to be painted.

Brown Hare watercolour sketch

Hares are brilliant to draw, big gangly things with googly crazed eyes. Years ago a hare used to visit my parents garden. We called it Hector. He'd let you get so close to him you could literally step on him. I think he was very old, and possibly senile - certainly didn't act in a way likely to prolong his existence.
Where I live now is great for hares. If you walk through the flat fields on the Fylde Coast in late winter you're likely to see 50 or more.