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

‘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

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! 🌸