Claude Monet : Waterlilies : photo of oil painting : Christies

 

 

Still thinking and meditating upon the beginning of John’s Gospel, I found myself looking at early spiral galaxies and working through the photos needing classifying through the ‘Galaxy zoo project ... and found that these widened my horizons, taking me back far further in time... and some paintings resulted based on “In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was with God and the Word was God... the same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made... [John 1 v 1 - 18 ] This poetic beginning seems to spiral or circle around in rhythmic repetition... and so this painting began ... taking up the whole of Advent one year, as I turned the large canvas round and round to paint the spiral, basing my ideas on what I had seen via www.zooniverse.org and thinking all the time of those few verses at the beginning of John’s Gospel which went round and round in my mind...

                                          widening horizons :  oil on canvas, Janet Driver

Any of the early Christians who had grown up in a Jewish background would no doubt be reminded of the first few verses of the Hebrew Scriptures Genesis 1 v 1f where the first story of creation is written in a similarly poetic form :”In the beginning...”   I always felt that because John’s Gospel echoed the beginning of Genesis, it would have made better poetic sense to have put his Gospel at the beginning of the New Testament.... maybe then it would have been easier to see the connection between God & His Word in the poetic story of creation... for it is only a few verses into Genesis 1 that we find : “And God said: Let there be light: and there was light”  and we see the importance of God’s Word in creating...for what he says is done, like an echo of his command or his word... as pictured in this manuscript illustration below where the universe is being created through the eyes of a mediaeval artist...rather a different take on things with the huge compass...

 

...

                                         MSS Christ the Creator c 13th Cent.

 

                                                       

I happened to see these beautiful photos of Mosque interiors whilst searching for the mosaics in Ravenna...but I’m not sure whether these are mosaics...I think they are more likely to be ceramic tiles...the most amazing blue...

this Sunday:Advent Sunday, there is an online carol service from St Martin’s in the Fields, London.... details on their website...

on this blog during Advent / Christmas / Epiphany I will share with you several paintings from artists around the world

an Advent Calendar... something for every day during Advent...sometimes some music, or a video, or visual... is available via St Mary’s Wivenhoe website :  stmaryschurchwivenhoe.com

  

Sunday 14th June

a rose from our garden

Monday : daily picture

oil on canvas, Janet Driver

Some years ago I sat down for a moment in a tropical butterfly greenhouse.
My entrance had clearly disturbed the butterflies who were flitting all around me...
...so I sat very still, allowing us all to calm down...

then

... I saw this small flower,

hanging
 way above me,

 turning slowly in the humid air...

beckoning me

...as I began to sketch these beautiful, simple shapes...

towards

“...the still point of the turning world... “

... a memory of T.S.Eliot’s Four Quartets

Friday : daily picture

spiral galaxy : oil on canvas, janet driver

Some years ago I became fascinated by spiral galaxies ... looking at the sheer beauty of many of them...  as I joined in with thousands of other volunteers in the ‘citizen science’ project classifying photos of galaxies at  www.zooniverse.org/projects ...and now there are all kinds of different projects hosted on this website...why not click on this link and see if one of them is for you ?

Saturday : daily picture

"Blue Monday" ?

Is this just another ploy by sales media ...?
like this link I received today, for a blue monday sale by the Society for All Artists:
http://www.saa.co.uk/blue-monday-saa-masking-fluid-bundle.html?utm_source=SAA+Database&utm_campaign=25b7ae5601-EN160117_Blue_Monday&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_69c0b1655a-25b7ae5601-175364785&mc_cid=25b7ae5601&mc_eid=902c736fec

it does rather seem like it !

One Blue Monday advert suggested cheering up the Monday blues....

well, certainly Mondays feel blue for me as its the day we do our cleaning...and I was never a fan of cleaning !... so if you need cheering up,...

Blue Morpho: oil on canvas by Janet Driver
This beautiful large butterfly landed on this Banana leaf just in front of me
while I was quietly sketching
almost as though asking me to sketch it too...
It stayed absolutely motionless for ages, and then finally, as a reward for my efforts, it began to flutter its wings slightly, gently opening them just enough for me to catch this glimpse of brilliant blue.... only for a few moments... before shutting them again .
It took several weeks trying to paint the brilliance of that small glimpse of blue... it was really exciting to discover how to make that jewel of colour really glow, and I will always remember the stillness and poise of that butterfly.

Blue Dream: oil on canvas by Janet Driver
Another surprising encounter... this time with a tree...
and the same stillness and poise
as  our neighbour's Magnolia tree basked in early spring sunshine

Butterfly Count 2015

There seem to be fewer butterflies around... is this true ? or is it just in our garden ?

I saw this beautiful Peacock butterfly a couple of years ago, but haven't noticed any since then... 

Has anyone seen any of them this year ?

I just happened to come across an advert for the  Butterfly Count... for the next week or two, until August 9th... & spent a lovely quiet 15 mins watching for butterflies.

 Saw a few large white butterflies circling around one another and then fluttering away on the breeze, or gently floating into the lavender... a couple of very small brown ones, or so I thought...but they turned out to be bees, also enjoying the lavender !  

  I was really surprised how few butterflies I saw... I thought we had planted several butterfly friendly plants...so where are all the other butterflies ? 

...years ago we used to see Red Admirals,  and many others I couldnt name...but theres a very good identification page to download from  

   

  www.bigbutterflycount.org  

A few years ago I visited a tropical butterfly house, and saw this amazing Blue Morpho which landed on a large banana leaf and basked in a pool of sunlight.

At first its wings were tightly closed & I was fascinated by the "eyes" & other patterns, quickly sketching away while it sat obligingly, almost as though it knew it was sitting for its portrait!

Can you imagine my surprise when it suddenly began to open its wings...just enough for me to glimpse this brilliant blue inside. What a challenge...could I possibly paint its portrait with this vibrant blue ? it took a long time to give the appearance of glimmer and shine, experimenting with various blue glazes...and, yes, this is one of those oil paintings that is best viewed from a distance... with, perhaps, a little time just to sit in silence....?