worked stone

I've returned from my first trip to Orkney. This had been on my wish list of places to visit for many years. I thought December in Orkney would be all horizontal rain and storms but I arrived between storms and it was warm and quiet. Warmer than further south which was pleasantly bemusing.

There is so much I want to draw I am not sure where to begin…

house at Skara Brae looking at the stone dresser 

I started with 3100 BC and spent two hours visiting Skara Brae, Europe's best preserved Neolithic village. Wow. So much remains of these stone structures, it's an environment where people lived and worked and conveys a sense of reality. The entire complex of houses are interconnected, like nests in the dunes, snuggled away from the wind. These were the people who also created the extraordinary shard-like Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

One of the stones of Stenness. 

Orkney has so many layers of history. Driving through the landscape there were remains from the First and Second World Wars. Here are the ruined sheds by the site of the gun emplacements at Yesnaby.

Finally the hills of Hoy from a beach near Stromness. The winter afternoon light was dissolving into blue night. The longest night is almost upon us and daylight is precious.

chestnut rain

I had a short but extremely intense residency in the Netherlands. The first time I have ever been in residency in the country I live in. I was a guest of the Artist Residence Dalen supported by the family Sanders-ten Holte. I want to thank them for their kind support and their belief in my Tree project. 

Oak tree drawing in progress 

These were probably the wettest 5 days I have experienced in the past few months. The drawing above would not dry outdoors. I had to work on plastic sheeting (generously donated by the interior design shop next door) and I carried this indoors to dry, the paper was so damp it took two days to fully dry out. This hadn't stopped me working.

After three days there was a break in the clouds and in those moments I worked under the shelter of these trees (amongst many).

horse chestnut trees Dalen

The winds meant that all around the trees were dropping seeds and the noise of falling chestnuts and acorns was audible.

snack bar Dalen

Dalen is a friendly, small town. Even for the brief period I was there I enjoyed it and felt welcomed. I would also add on the evidence of the snack bars, outrageously optimistic, it takes a brave soul to eat ice-cream in cool, rainy weather.

another snack bar in Dalen

two recent exhibitions

Suddenly after spending a quiet summer making drawings I had two group exhibitions. The first has just ended last week. I was part of a group drawing exhibition at Art Affairs Gallery in Amsterdam. It was the first chance to show the drawing of the Turner's Oak since its creation in the Botanical Gardens this summer.

Turner's Oak, 2013

Then at the same time I was selected to show in the Salisbury Open Drawing exhibition in Salisbury, Wiltshire. I hadn't been to Salisbury for years and I loved the opportunity. The exhibition is still on view until early November at the Salisbury Arts Centre. Lobster Head Cove was made as a result of my earlier residency with Gros Morne National Park and The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery.

Lobster Head Cove rock formation

Between showers

Haltingly temperatures have improved. The rain has stopped long enough for me to draw for several days. I have joined the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. This is the trunk of the Turner's Oak there. A hybrid of the Holm Oak and the English Oak, the original grown in the Essex nursery of a Mr Turner in 1783. This one is of a later date but equally fascinating. I am quietly obsessed by the convoluted form and I draw it regularly. 

Turner's Oak

I bring my large paper roll into the gardens and I have gained a new friend perhaps because I am a little unusual and sit at duck height on the ground. I am visited daily in the hope that I might finally learn to bring food with me. Apparently this duck and its mate spend the whole summer every summer in the gardens. They nest under cafe tables. 

a slow spring

It has been a hesitant spring in Northern Europe. I have been working outdoors between heavy water- laden winds and happy glimpses of sun. 

Zuid-Kennemerland dunes

 These are the dunes in the National Park near Haarlem. The skeletal trees clasped breaking buds of leaves too small to be seen from a distance. The sun warmed the sand and hidden from the wind I could convince myself change was beginning. 

Text reads: "Warm winds dissolve the long cold, while fragile sunshine tickles the skin" 

I was working on a short text piece to be part of a landscape workshop in South Korea at the end of last month. It's an excellent idea, for those who live too far away we make work in our own surroundings and send in the images. The above is a final line of a short text piece heralding a change of season. 

 

Finally this week the sunshine arrived in earnest and the neighbourhood cherry blossom sagged with abundant flowers.  

life amongst the gum trees

Working back in the urban studio is making me dream of Australia again. Before leaving I was in the Snowy Mountains near Lake Eucambene. It is a landscape with trees that tell its history: amongst the gum trees, European trees nestle where homesteads once were. Eucambene was a thriving community supporting several hundreds of people while the Snowy Mountain (Hydro) scheme was being built and now the few remaining houses are used mostly as agricultural sheds. The dam was completed in 1958.  

tin shed on a farm in the Snowy Mountains

Eucalyptus

What I particularly loved were the eucalyptus trees. With the amount of water and ground water in the region they grow tall. 

Evening amongst eucalyptus trees

Fig trees

I have just returned from 6 weeks of drawing trees in Australia. An extraordinary experience and they were bewilderingly beautiful. My journey began with a visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens plant pathology laboratories in Sydney. I have to thank them for allowing me to visit, I learnt so much. The images of what I saw were so attractive like microscopic etchings.

Tree in the Botanic Gardens

I spent most of my time in Sydney working with urban trees. I was three weeks in Bellevue Hill Park drawing Morton Bay Fig trees. It is rare that I have the chance to work somewhere so deliciously warm.

work in progress, ink drawing

When the nearby school was sealed from the park because traces of fibro building material had been found (containing asbestos) that were being washed down from the park above, I began to realise that life for an urban tree (or artist) can be more precarious than one realizes. Fortunately the site was given the all clear and the asbestos particles were discovered to be bound within the building material.