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 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.... 

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

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...

NB please add your email

if you would like an automatic email notification 

whenever I post something new...

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

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

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

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