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

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 🌸