Ice Melt, oil painting, 8” x 8”

‘Ice Melt’

 As I get older I find myself getting much more nostalgic and enjoying reminiscing. Whilst working on  this oil painting in the studio I found myself remembering when I was a tiny tot way back in the long,  hard winter of 1963.

I was in the infant class and each day for weeks we faced a long trek through the snow to school and back. The snow went way over the top of my wellington boots so they never seemed to dry out before the next time I had to wear them. My legs were permanently chapped, but that snow was so beautiful, and such fun to play in, we children hardly seemed to notice all the discomfort of permanently soggy wellies and gloves!

If I was lucky one of our teachers, who lived near me, would give me a ride home after school in her bubble car. I don’t think bubble cars were really designed to drive on snow and ice, but I would squeeze into that tine car with Mrs B and all her teacher’s paraphernalia and we would very slowly make our slippery way from one end of the village to the next. It very probably would have been safer to make the one mile journey on foot through the thick snow, but I can’t tell you what fun it was, sliding gracefully and slightly sideways, on the icy road, whilst somehow avoiding all the snowdrifts which were built up on both sides - it felt like a slow motion version of the Cresta Run!

Once safely back at home Mum gave my sister and I hot drinks to thaw us out and we settled down to toast cooked in front of the blazing fire in the tiny front room, which was wonderfully cosy on a cold winter’s afternoon. There is really nothing quite like the taste of a piece of bread which has been placed on a toasting fork and presented to the flames until it browns, and then buttered liberally and eaten hot. 

It was a hard winter and must have been so hard for the adults, but for us children it was quite magical.

This painting will be on display as part of an exhibition at West Ox Arts Gallery in Bampton, Oxfordshire, from 9th November to 23rd  December.

Autumn Field

 It’s been such a long time since I posted here, so I thought it was high time I was back here again. The  beautiful warm weather lulled us all into a false sense of security I think, but autumn is most definitely here now with the rain lashing against the windows as I write this. The views across the fields are changing too, with that soft focus murkiness taking the place of intense blue skies and dark shadows. I think there is still a lot of beauty in the murkiness (which is just as well as I’m sure we’ll see plenty of it over the next few months)! 

Lockdown survival strategies

I’m sure many of us have found this second lockdown more of a struggle than the one earlier in the Spring and Summer, even though that one was much longer. The combination of lack of daylight and cold, murky weather, added to missing our families and friends (and for many, very real worries about their jobs and businesses) has made this feel a very uncertain time for so many. 

I’m a naturally cup-half-full person, but even though I have been keeping myself busy I could feel myself getting more tetchy and fed up as every day started feeling like a scene from the film ‘Groundhog Day’ (which, incidentally, is one of my favourite films, and I’m not going to even try to count how many times Phil and I have watched it)!

Then along came artists Jeremy Sanders and Jenny Aitken, who decided between them to arrange a ‘virtual paint out’ on Instagram, offering other artists who were also missing painting outside,  a different daily selection of photographic views from their respective homes in Cornwall and Derbyshire to paint from. Once painted, we put our paintings on our own Instagram pages with the hashtag #l2paintin

So each day this past week I have ‘travelled’ miles across the country via my studio, keeping company with a really lovely, supportive group of artists, each of us painting in our own unique style and admiring each other’s work at the end of the day. 

I’ve taken a screenshot of my Instagram page (@jackyradbone),  which shows a little montage of the  paintings I have done this week, some of which will be in my Oxfordshire Artweeks exhibition in May. I’ve  kept to my usual limited palette, and I’ve kept to the same amount of painting time I would, of necessity, have kept to if I’d been painting at the actual location - no more than one and a half hours. 

I have my own sketchbooks and reference photos I could have painted from, or of course I could have painted some more still life subjects or painted in the garden; but this feeling of community, of ‘meeting up’ to paint with other artists each day, has felt very light-hearted and upbeat, and has helped keep my ‘cup’ half full just when I needed it. Thanks so much Jerry and Jenny x

RUSSETS 6” x 6” oil on board

Our neighbours’ Russet apple tree looked lovely in the early morning light and I couldn’t resist doing a little oil study of it. Our family have a fondness for that Russet tree, which grows right by our garden fence . . .when our boys were little (they’re grown men now), our lovely neighbours told them they could scrump ‘our’ side of the tree whenever they wanted (how our boys loved our neighbours who, with great patience, would also return stray footballs etc and pass other treats over the fence!)
 

Now it’s Boo dog who goes apple scrumping and eats all the windfalls as they drop on our garden path. If you hear me bellowing, “Boo, drop it!!” at this time of year, it will probably be because he is wolfing down his third apple of the day! 🍏🍏🍏🐶

 Fail Big, Fail Often! -  This is a quote I heard from another artist a long while ago. It really clicked with me when I first heard it, and I now have it stuck on the chest of drawers in the studio where I can see it every time I’m ‘Failing Big’ yet again! 

It’s quotes like this that keep me going when I get stuck doing painting after painting that isn’t working out how I’ve seen it in my mind’s eye at the outset. Time after time I will make the same mistakes and my efforts will look clumsy . . .  and then . . . (hopefully/usually) . . . the day finally arrives when something clicks, and all those disappointing paintings pay off; what I was aiming for, for such a painfully long time, finally happens and I have a painting that is pretty much how I intend it to look.

Here’s longingly hoping that this will happen one day with roses, which are my nemesis. I envisage these gossamer, floaty, translucent things of delight - but it just isn’t happening yet; roses are such complicated structures, and with my double vision I lose track of which part I’m supposed to be painting!

Hopefully though, as I keep studying these delicate, beautiful flowers while painting them from life, and my tenacity in keeping on failing(!) will finally bring about the results I want. In the meantime, I will just keep plodding on, Failing Big, Failing Often, and loving every minute of it. 

If you are also trying to get somewhere with what you love to do, be brave, bold and tenacious, and remember this inspiring quote, it’s a good one! 🌸

SPRING GLORY painted on location five days before self isolation began. 

The last time I wrote a blog post Spring was just around the corner and we were all busy making plans for the better weather. Now we find ourselves in strange, and worrying, times that we couldn’t even have imagined a few months ago.

Times at the moment certainly aren’t easy for anyone, and the daily news continues to be grim viewing; but there are some amazing things happening in the midst of this dreadful pandemic. The kindness of people; strangers, friends, loved ones, is wonderful to see. And to watch our politicians all working together to get us through this is a marvel in itself. The heroic dedication of doctors, nurses, care workers , shop workers  - the list could go on and on - is very humbling indeed. . . .I truly hope and believe the world could be a better place in the future if we hold on to all the values we are showing now, in this worldwide crisis. . . 

And, through it all, the Spring continues in all its glory, families have time to be together, we are all keeping in touch much more, and we are all learning to live simpler lives, as those before us did. 

I hope you stay well, and free of this awful virus, I hope we have good weather to make the lockdown feel less limiting, and I hope you get the opportunity to perhaps try that new hobby or interest that you’ve never tried before. As this time passes - and it will - I wish you joy in the little things 🌸

The Best Laid Plans . . . 

If everything had gone to perfect plan, today I would have been on my first day of recovery after surgery. Unfortunately, I failed my pre-op last week, so everything is delayed while I have more tests and now wait to go to another hospital for my op. It’s very frustrating as the timing was perfect - there is only four months until Artweeks 2020 and there will be so much to do to prepare for that. . . 

Still, as they say, life carries on happening while we are busy making plans, so although I felt fed up yesterday I decided to get on with things anyway, warping up my smaller loom and starting on another scarf, weaving a lap blanket on the bigger loom, and spinning some more lovely, soft Blue Faced Leicester wool to weave into cloth for a waistcoat.

Today I did a painting of the still-soggy fields of elephant grass down by the river. Painting takes so much concentration that it’s completely absorbing, so after two days of filling my time with doing all  the creative things I love, I feel so much better. What creative things lift your spirits? 

New Year resolutions

Over the decades I’ve lost track of how many New Year’s resolutions I have made and promptly broken, so this  year I’ve resolved not to make any at all.  New Year is always a good time to reflect on the past and to look ahead though, and I’ve been doing plenty of that in between all the busyness and enjoyment of the past couple of weeks.

The last six months haven’t been as productive as I had hoped; some of that was due to looking after a poorly dog (who is now thankfully full of beans again, and has just celebrated his 9th Birthday with lots of treats). A lot of the problem though, was that I lost confidence in myself and have had a very long dose of ‘artist’s block’.

Now that I’ve had a bit of a post-Christmas rest and had a bit of time to think things through I’m ready to face 2020 with fresh enthusiasm. I’ve entered a couple of art competitions, and got through the first stage of one of them, with another stage still to get through (not holding out much hope of the other, but will know one way or the other soon enough). I’m also going to try to manage my time much better, especially while the daylight is still so limited, so that I can get more painting time in. I’m going to concentrate more on painting the things I love this year, no more commissions or anything like that (which that I find super-stressful), but spend the time trying to improve instead.  I’m already looking forward to Artweeks in May too, that is always a lot of fun, and as usual will creep up on me before I know it!

There are so many blessings in life, and so much to look forward to - not least, the brighter, warmer days of Spring not too far off now, with all that it promises.  I wish you a very happy, peaceful, healthful 2020 🌸x

Winter Evening 8” x 10” oil on board

It is true that if you wait until you feel inspired to paint, very little painting will happen; so with that in mind and feeling just about as uninspired as I could possibly be, I picked my brushes up today. All I had really wanted to do was stay snuggled in front of the fire, but as always I’m really glad I forced myself  to paint as it’s always a calming thing to do and I always feel better for it. 

It’s been a fraught time lately, not least because we found another lump on our beloved dog Boo. He had only had surgery to remove a cancerous lump from his tummy just four months ago, and here we were facing surgery again - this time for a mast cell tumour, similar to one he had when he was only two years old. That time it had been followed up by several months chemotherapy, so we were very concerned this time. 

Thankfully Boo’s latest surgery went very well, and this evening we saw the vet to discuss if  further treatment is needed, I’m really relieved that the decision was that the surgery should be enough this time. You would think that, after all he has gone through in his (almost) 9 years, Boo would be very wary of going to the vet’s, but no! He loves it, can’t wait to get in there with his waggy tail and lick  all the staff, and do his “puppy eyes” so that he gets lots of treats! We are very fortunate to have such a great veterinary hospital at Chipping Norton; our family has most certainly been glad of it the past few months.

‘Chinese Lanterns” 10” x 8” oil on board.

Every Autumn I see the glorious colours of Chinese Lanterns and determine to plant some for the following year - and then suddenly Autumn is here again and I still haven’t got any in the garden! Thank goodness for kind and lovely village friends who were so generous to bring not only a big bunch for us to enjoy in a vase in the sitting room (where it looks gorgeous in the hearth), but also another bunch ready to hang and dry, which I hung in the Cwtch so that I could paint them - what a joy to mix those vibrant colours!

Speaking of Autumn - how did that happen so quickly? I can hardly believe we are about to say hello to October already. I’m not a person who enjoys the dark, wet, cold days, and even colder nights, very much (it can be very hard to keep oneself warm and dry in a wheelchair when the weather is cold), but I have some friends and family for whom this is their favourite time of year so I am determined to try to embrace their enthusiasm! Certainly, on a clear, frosty day the colours in the countryside are amazing, and even a murky misty day, with the jackdaws cawing in the trees, can have its charm; so I will look forward to trying to capture the changing seasons with my oil paints - and wrap up very warmly while I’m doing it.

I will be taking part in an exhibition with Chipping Norton Arts at Chipping Norton Theatre Gallery from September 30th to October 19th. It is part of the Chipping Norton Arts Festival which is taking place in venues around the town on Saturday October 5th. There will be lots happening on the day, so do go along if you can, and I hope you will also enjoy the CNarts exhibition at the Theatre over the next couple of weeks (I’m not sure of opening times yet but will post on my Facebook page when I find out - and please be aware if you have limited mobility,  that the gallery is up a flight of stairs with no lift or stairlift unfortunately).

Also on October 5th, I will have a stall selling art prints, cards (including some new Christmas designs) and handwoven items at the ‘Dogs for Good’ Autumn Craft Fair, at the Dogs for Good training centre at Blacklocks Hill, Banbury. The Fair runs from 11am - 3pm, and I would love to see you if you can make it. Boo and some of his DfG friends will be there too, ready to give a waggy hello. x

Sweet Peas 6” x 8” oil on board

There was so much to enjoy on my walk with Boo today, but the highlight for me was the noisy little housemartin family that had made its nest under the school roof. It was the sound of the noisy youngsters, obviously more than ready for some lunch, that first stopped me in my tracks, and then I watched as one of the parents kept flying back and forth with tasty goodies for them. Boo waited so patiently as I watched the parent bird darting in and out from under the roof, with his children never letting up in their demands for more food. I couldn’t see them in the nest but they must be getting quite big and like hungry teenagers by now. 

When I got home I picked a bunch of sweet peas to put on the mantle piece - amazingly, the strong winds and fierce rainstorms of the weekend hadn’t done any damage to them  and they were still beautiful (unlike our poor, battered geraniums). Once I’d brought them into the house and put them in the little glass vase I couldn’t resist painting them.

Sweet peas have always been a favourite flower of mine and hold lovely memories for me. My Dad grew wonderful long rows of sweet peas every year, and when they were flowering Mum would let me take a bunch to school each week to give to my headmaster’s wife. My headmaster at the junior school was extremely strict, and in all honesty as a little child in the infant class I was quite scared of him - but his wife was very kind and gentle, and I was very fond of her. 

We had a school savings club which she was in charge of, so each week I would take the half of my pocket money that hadn’t been spent on sweets to school and deposit it in the savings club, and each week while they were in flower, I would take a bunch of sweet peas with me too. Dad must have had such green fingers because I seem to remember taking these little bunches of flowers for that lovely lady for weeks on end throughout the summer. 🌸

Porthcawl Lighthouse 20cms x 20cms work in progress

The time has flown by since I wrote my last blog and we are now into harvest time already. Lots has happened too, so my painting time hasn’t been as regular as I would have liked, but it’s been very good to be in the studio this week as I work on this piece.

The most upsetting thing to have happened since my last blog post is that Boo, my assistance dog, was found to have another cancerous lump, this time on his chest, but after surgery to remove it plus a wide margin he has now thankfully been given the all-clear and is completely back to his mischievous self again.

Unfortunately Boo’s post-op recovery meant he couldn’t come on holiday with us. I missed him terribly but knew he was in the best and kindest care as our youngest son looked after him whilst we were away. I had planned to get a quick oil study done most days while we were in South Wales, but the week was very windy and blowing my painting stuff about . . . I did get one tiny oil sketch done as the clouds broke up to let the setting sun through a little, but other than that I just used  my sketchbook and pen. Having a break on the beautiful South Wales coast after Artweeks was lovely , and both dear hubby and I felt so much more relaxed after it.

I’ve had a couple of paintings in exhibitions lately too. The first one, a little oil painting of our peony plant in the garden, was painted as I sat  in the garden in between my studio visitors during Artweeks, and was exhibited and then sold at a charity auction at Little Buckland Gallery near Broadway. The peonies started off in my Mum and Dad’s cottage garden when I was little, went with them through two house moves and then ended up in our garden. The peony plant is decades old and positively thrives on neglect.

The second painting is one I did called ‘The Art Stall, Genoa’, which I entered into The Artist magazine/Patchings Festival Open Art Competition. It received a ‘Highly Commended’ and is in their online exhibition through July/early August. It is also eligible for the People’s Choice award which is lovely, but I am highly unlikely to win that as there are some incredibly gifted artists also exhibiting. I am very relieved to have had my work judged at that level and to get that ‘Highly Commended’, it helps me gauge my progress and assess where I am on my painting journey. It takes a lot of courage to enter these juried art competitions, and I’ve had to grow a thick skin so that at those times when work isn’t selected the feelings of rejection and dejection aren’t too painful.- they say that rejection is good for one’s growth as an artist and I’m sure that’s true; I still feel very vulnerable when I enter these things though (although The Art Stall did well, two other paintings I also entered weren’t selected).

The painting I am working on presently is of the lighthouse on the end of Porthcawl pier. I took a photo and did a quick sketch of it one wild and windy July day a couple of years ago when we were down there for a friend’s special birthday. I love being on that pier in wild weather, but it would be reckless to try to paint there from my wheelchair flanked on both sides by raging seas, so a studio painting it has to be for this one. It is still a work in progress but I’m enjoying it very much, remembering the feeling of the salt spray on my face as I sat there watching the stormy sea.

If you watch the BBC weather forecast, you will often see a picture the BBC use when gales are forecast, of enormous waves towering over Porthcawl Lighthouse. It is a very dramatic image, and incredible to see in real life.

Artweeks 2019

I can’t believe that Artweeks is over for another year! Looking back it was such an amazing ten days....thank you to all the lovely visitors who came to see my work in my new studio and made the whole week a happy and memorable one.

I had been a little concerned about displaying all the paintings as my new ‘Little Cwtch’ studio is not as long as my old studio, but dear hubby and I had devised a way between us of displaying it all without it being cramped and I was so pleased with how it all finally looked - I even had space to display the weaving I have been doing over the past few months, which was a new thing for this year.

I met some wonderful people and had some wonderful conversations - always one of the highlights of Artweeks for me. I was also thankful to have some very good sales..... I had decided to donate the profits from paintings sold at this exhibition to the Lawrence Home Nursing Team after they had cared so wonderfully for a friend of ours last year, and am very happy to be able to send them £540 from the exhibition.

I couldn’t do any of this without my dear hubby. . .he works tirelessly in the lead up to Artweeks, helping me to do so much - even the garden was pristine and weed free (well, almost 😊)! During the week he was a smiling host and coffee-maker, and when it was all over he was the one who had all the heavy work to do, bringing all my ‘stuff’ back into the studio, taking down direction signs and posters etc and packing away paintings.

Now I’ve had a bit of a rest and it’s time to think about getting back out there and doing some more painting - here’s hoping we have another gorgeous summer! 🌸

Cloud Study 6” x 8”

I am trying to keep up the momentum of getting out and painting small oil sketches on location as much as I can, but today was not a day to be out much in my wheelchair. As beautiful as it has been at times, at other times we’ve had rain, hail, strong winds and black skies - today is a prelude to Storm Hannah’s imminent arrival tomorrow. I decided the safest, driest way to do any oil study today was in the shelter of the open conservatory doorway!

The clouds were whipping along at a real pace, so I had to move very quickly while painting, whilst also still trying to focus on the colours, shapes and values of the swiftly changing sky.

I was really glad that I didn’t let myself feel that today was a day wasted as far as getting out and painting was concerned, and that I’d made the effort to get out my kit and sit there studying the sky; it was a great lesson in observation for me and a lot of fun on a blustery day.

‘Tulips’, work in progress, 8” x 8” oil on board

These beautiful tulips were a present from a dear friend who I met up for coffee with yesterday, and they were so pretty I knew I just had to paint them!

Because I wanted to use the limewashed floorboards of the Studio floor as a backdrop, I took the tulips out of their vase and lay them down on the floor, arranging them until I thought  the angle of the flowers against the floorboards worked. I quickly took a photo before placing them back in their vase a couple of moments later.

Usually I paint flowers ’alla prima’, from life in one session, but I wanted to savour my time painting these, so today I just concentrated on doing a thin under-painting using lots of turps, checking the photo to get the composition right. Once the under-painting is dry I will add the final thick and juicy paint, always looking at the fresh flowers for their true colours and tones (photographs are never true to the original), trying as always to keep the painting as loose and fresh as I can - never an easy task for me!

I really enjoyed my time in my little Cwtch studio painting these today, it was wonderful having the window open and the door flung wide, with the reflections of the garden pond dancing on the ceiling and a bumble bee buzzing in and out of the doorway as I painted. The clocks go forward tonight, which means lovely light evenings to enjoy. Spring is here. 🌷

‘Towards Leafield’ 8” x 10” oil sketch

Today had been set aside for a short car drive and a spot of Plein air painting as the weather forecast had been for a warm, sunny day - what a joy for February! Well, warm it certainly was (a mighty 17 degrees this afternoon), but lovely hubby and I woke up to fog which showed absolutely no sign of being in a hurry to shift. We waited in vain until lunchtime and decided to go for it anyway - even though the sky was still pretty murky looking - as I’d got all my painting gear ready. 

So, flask of coffee made, we set off in the car in the hope that the promised sun would break through the murk. We drove through the Wychwood forest heading towards Leafield looking for a promising scene, but with the softness of the day nothing really looked interesting. In the end I settled for the view across the rolling fields towards Leafield, with its broad Church spire on the skyline peering out through the mist. 

On a sunny day this view is glorious, but today it just looked flat and uninspiring. Even so, all practice is good and, as the murk started lifting a little and the light started changing, the fields became slightly more interesting and I started to enjoy myself. 

I only spent an hour on this little oil sketch, but the pleasure was in being in a quiet spot, and experiencing the sights, sounds and scents of the countryside around me. Of course, as soon as I had finished painting and packed away my painting gear, the sun finally decided to come out and the whole scene before me was transformed! That will be a painting for another day. . .

‘Chinese Pots and Daffodils’ 8” x 10” oil on board

Like so many in the UK I’ve been laid low with a chest infection the past couple of weeks, which has left me feeling very out of sorts. But today, when I took Boo for his morning walk, there were so many early signs of Spring I couldn’t help but feel better! As we went up past the fields along Church Road the tractors were out cutting the hedgerows in the fine, warm weather - the scents of all that freshly pruned green wood were so fresh, and so evocative of the Springs of my youth.

Further along our walk we saw lots of snowdrops, a lone daffodil by the bus shelter, and even brave daisies in flower on the village green opposite Cafe de la Post.

My husband had bought me a bunch of daffodils, and I placed them in my Dad’s old ginger jar where they looked so pretty against the blue and white glazed pot. I made an arrangement with another little Chinese bowl from my collection, and placed them on the floor by my easel to paint from my chair.

I have a real problem with getting ellipses right and often tend to feel that I have failed when they aren’t quite perfect, so I have to constantly remind myself that every painting I do will take me one little step nearer to to finally - hopefully - getting them just right. . . As someone once said, “There is no such thing as failure, it’s simply another step towards success” (or something like that!) 😊

We are promised another couple of unseasonably warm and sunny days so I hope you are able to get out and about and enjoy them too.

We finally had a smattering of snow overnight, and it’s been so cold that it has stayed on some of the rooftops despite the lovely winter sun.
I have a lovely, very old, pochade box which was given to me by a friend after her elderly father, who was a well known local artist, sadly died. It is only tiny so I don’t use it often, but it is very special to me. . . I thought it would be ideal to use today and painted a little 5” x 7” oil study of the snowy rooftops with it.
As I type this now the sky has changed and it now has a lovely yellowy hue as the afternoon draws on, I wish I could do another painting looking at it, but there’s always another day.

‘Snowdrift’ 6” x 8” oil on board

We have been very fortunate in Oxfordshire not to have had any snow yet this winter (though we may get a little before the week is out), but I well remember last March and our village being completely  cut off by huge drifts for a couple of days.
My lovely husband Phil had cleared the snow in our drive so I was able to get to the roadside with my pochade box on my lap, and I sat and painted in the -4 degree temperature with a hot water bottle on my knee and several layers of clothes under my coat! The oil paint turned gloopy in the extreme cold and after 45 minutes I couldn’t stand the freezing cold any more - but at least I had a little painting to show for it.
Today I stayed snuggled in the studio, with my assistance dog Boo fast asleep in his bed, and painted this small snowscene, all the while remembering how cold I had been painting the last one!

As you can probably tell, this is my very first post as a completely novice blogger. . . .a very big step for me as I absolutely haven’t a clue as to what I am doing! But way back in the early 2000’s I was a completely novice painter too, having picked up a brush and some watercolours after I had found myself disabled in a wheelchair, with extremely weak arms and double vision. Before I had become disabled I had been an avid walker, and loved nothing more than walking across the fields, taking in the breathtaking views where I live, on the edge of the Cotswolds. . . but with my horizons now very limited, I have broadened them again with my painting. I love nothing more than painting ‘en Plein Air’, but equally, I love to paint in my cosy studio, where I can enjoy spectacular winter sunsets in warmth and comfort! I look forward to sharing my adventures and challenges with my pochade box (I now paint in oils), and hope you will enjoy following them!