Janet Driver: July 2020

Thursday, 30 July 2020

Beautiful Birds

photo: Troy Snow

I have seen Egrets now and then down with other birds near the water’s edge at low tide ...

but never seen them so beautiful as in these photos !

photo found on Pinterest

Wednesday, 22 July 2020

Wednesday 22nd July

APOLOGIES .... after several attempts to re - write & put a few paintings onto this blog in celebration of Mary Magdalene / 22nd July... I have once more lost the threads and paintings too...

I will try again in a few days time....

Tuesday, 21 July 2020

Mary Magdalene

22 July is the day of celebrating the life of Mary Magdalene...

... many years ago I began to realise she had become much maligned and misunderstood throughout the centuries, and this is reflected in paintings by well-known artists, who were presumably being true to the thinking of their times... ( eg Georges de la Tours & Titian )

But then I discovered an earlier painting : from the St Alban’s Psalter 1120 - 45, and what really interested me were the expressions of the disciples receiving Mary’s news that she had seen the Risen Christ...

apologies.... this blog - post has flipped around / lost some pictures & writing....

hoping to re - write later today

St Alban’s Psalter : 1120 - 45 AD

Friday, 17 July 2020

Jurassic Cliffs, Dorset

Jurassic Cliffs : oil on canvas, c.Janet Driver

All my oil paintings are painted layer upon layer, gradually, over time, sometimes taking several weeks from the initial underpainting to the final strokes of colour...

but painting these cliffs seemed to make me even more at one with the vast centuries during which these cliffs have been slowly changed and eroded by rain, wind, waves, baking hot sun, ice & snow...

I decided to paint the rocky texture of these ancient cliffs using palette knives, so that I could drag one colour over another ...but what about the sea and sky ?

I had to experiment on practice oil-painting paper to try various techniques... then worked outwards from the cave into the waves, then up towards the horizon ... then I working on the clouds and down towards the sea...

it was very different from painting with a brush

and quite exhilarating...

Don’t forget... I am now changing from ‘a picture a day’ during lockdown

into a few paintings on a theme

once a week or fortnight

...I will be back again next Tuesday or Wednesday...

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whenever I post something new...

Thursday, 16 July 2020

Thursday

On the day we went into ‘lockdown’ in the UK

way back in March

I promised to put something on this blog every day

...a picture or two

...a painting

...some of my own paintings & my stained & etched glass...

and now that we are beginning to come out again

I realise its been well over 100 days

...and each day there has been something to share...

but now I would like to move on... :)

I still have some of my paintings and glass to share with you...

but many are part of a theme rather than individual one-offs

so... this week I will continue every day until Friday

...then one day next week I will put up some of my Mary Magdalene paintings

then something else about a week later...

if you wish to receive an email notification, please add your email at the top right hand corner,

click ‘submit’... *

then you will automatically receive an email whenever I put some pictures on this blog

Gustave Caillebotte: Regatta at Argenteuil

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Wednesday, 15 July 2020

Wednesday

On the day we went into ‘lockdown’ in the UK

way back in March

I promised to put something on this blog every day

...a picture or two

...a painting

...some of my own paintings & my stained & etched glass...

and now that we are beginning to come out again

I realise its been well over 100 days

...and each day there has been something to share...

but now I would like to move on... :)

I still have some of my paintings and glass to share with you...

but many are part of a theme rather than individual one-offs

so... this week I will continue every day until Friday

...then one day next week I will put up some of my Mary Magdalene paintings

then something else about a week later...

if you wish to receive an email notification, please add your email at the top right hand corner,

click ‘submit’... *

then you will automatically receive an email whenever I put some pictures on this blog

Becalmed, awaiting more wind : c Janet Driver

using a phone ? ...then click ‘go to web page’ & enlarge the top right hand corner to enter your email

Tuesday, 14 July 2020

Tuesday 14th July

On the day we went into ‘lockdown’ in the UK

way back in March

I promised to put something on this blog every day

...a picture or two

...a painting

...some of my own paintings & my stained & etched glass...

and now that we are beginning to come out again

I realise its been well over 100 days

...and each day there has been something to share...

but now I would like to move on... :)

I still have some of my paintings and glass to share with you...

but many are part of a theme rather than individual one-offs

so it would be easier to take a little time...

...space these out ...

...take maybe a theme each week...

or fortnight

with a few blank days between

as space to breathe

If you would like to know when I have posted a new theme,

please put your email in the box at the top right hand corner...

and don't forget to click ‘submit’ :)

then you will automatically receive an email

each time I put new pictures on this blog

Monday, 13 July 2020

Monday

Saturday, 11 July 2020

Sunday 12th July : The Sower : St Matthew 13 v 1-9

Van Gogh : Wheatfield with Cypresses

Van Gogh clearly enjoyed painting the colours of the wheat at harvest time...& even went so far as to paint both sower & harvest in one painting ! (see below & Friday)

Jesus’ parable ends with an amazing harvest...100fold return would be almost impossible even today with all our technological improvements... but a really bumper harvest is the story’s punchline.

The Reaper: Van Gogh (after Millet )

detail from The Sower, showing the wheat already golden for harvest behind the sower !

Saturday: The Sower

Van Gogh : the Sower (after Millet )

I came across this painting of a sower by Van Gogh, which shows much more clearly the traditional method of broadcasting the seed... I have never seen a farmer doing this, and so at first I was puzzled by his slightly odd gait... but of course he is not just walking across the field, but with each step his arm will swing round to scatter the seeds, swinging his whole whole body around as well...

Eventually I managed to find this painting by Millet which must have been the one Van Gogh used as his reference... but painted in a very different style and range of colour & tone...

Millet : The Sower

maybe these paintings can help us imagine the sower in the parable Jesus told & which will be read tomorrow... but then the ending of the story = the real punchline...& Van Gogh must have known that well... but more tomorrow... :)