hopes of spring

The evenings are starting to lengthen and now at 6 pm it is still light enough for me to find the light switches to turn the lights on. It is definitely studio time, I just can't stop drawing and it is inspiring. Today the weather was so inviting and the sky so clear that I was compelled to walk to the other studio to work on a new piece I have been developing. Then I wandered through the streets of the old city en route to my other studio to work on a smaller intense tree drawing.

The sunshine tempts me into thinking it is spring. I am waiting for the birds to start nesting in the eaves of the house opposite me. They have chosen a spot next to the central heating chimney and they can manage two nests a year with a long spring and good summer. It is still quiet, so spring is a few weeks away. Cool, crisp days and palest blue skies that ascend endlessly over the city gives vertical space that the 17th & 18th century street pattern misses on the ground.

the year of the forest

Winter is a time for the studio and I am quietly working on more drawings. Newfoundland remains a constant inspiration and I am dreaming of returning. The Newfoundland rock fissure series continues. While I wait for my latest canvases to arrive- my treat to myself is to have someone else stretch my large canvases for me,- I am working on the beginnings of my xyloteque. It is a library of trees and for now it is my own personal trees: ones I have a history with. The latest are the the elegant but manipulated trees that line the canal outside the studio.

Winter tree, Amsterdam, detail of mixed media drawing 2011

This year was declared the Year of the Forest by the UN General Assembly. That is good with me, I am crazy about trees; trees and rocks are my simplest pleasures. I've been selected to make a sculptural piece in the Forest of Schoonoord, Drenthe (the far East of the Netherlands) in May it is an art-in-nature symposium followed by an exhibition. I am working with tree remains and there is a group of Staatsbosbeheer (forestry commission) rangers to help with installation, it is going to be a large piece and I am delighted to have people to help. 

This is also what winter in the studio is about, many applications, fund-raising, collating images and information before a summer of drawing. It is lovely when an unexpected offer like this comes in and even nicer to have been selected.