Yearly Archives: 2014

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from

painting of lemon and other fruit in oils on canvas

arrangement of fruit in space (starring a lemon), oil on canvas, 6×8

The last week seemed to be full of bad luck, so much so that we were joking by the end of it about what the next ‘disaster’ would be. None of the adverse events were really so terrible, thankfully – just small things like appliances dying, objects breaking and me being annoyingly a bit too ill to get on with anything useful.

A laptop screen and a fridge both decided it was time to depart for electrical heaven and a bicycle chain snapped, causing Andi a lot of inconvenience that included whizzing downhill for several miles without being able to pedal and hitch-hiking to avoid being late.

It was maddening being too ill to paint but I have managed to salvage something from the week with the aid of a bowl of health-restoring fruit, a pale self-portrait and a view painted one sunny afternoon.

oil self-portrait on 9x12 canvas, pale and unwell

self-portrait when feeling pale, in yellow light, oil on canvas, 9×12

oil painting of fruit, 6x8 canvas

another fruit composition, without lemon, oil on canvas, 6×8

oil painting of rooftops view, on 6x8 canvas

view over the rooftops, oil on canvas, 6×8

Storms and rainbows, part two

photo of a ghostly dog on the hill

rare sighting of a ghost dog

Where the hill turned a corner the sunny blue skies and white clouds met the murky purple-grey of the approaching storm. At this critical point the light seemed unreal and a ghost dog was sitting by the bracken, glowing palely with gravity-defying ears.

A join in the sky far overhead showed blue skies meeting darkness.

photo of sun and storm over the hill

the two weathers collide

Looking south it seemed the inhabitants of cloud land had taken against the hills below and plunged them into deep gloom.

photo of a break in the clouds

the heavens opening

Looking north a rainbow still shone faintly, contrasting with the darkness of the hills.

photo of rainbow and dark hills

rainbow against dark hills

The light on the fell was beautiful but it seemed a good idea to hurry home before the clouds overwhelmed us.

photo showing light on the hill

light and colour on the fell

We took one last look at cloud land, which still seemed like something out of Studio Ghibli, and I resisted the impulse to wave.

photo of cloud formation

a last look at the land in the clouds

Running home before the rain I spoke to another walker, or rather raved, about how wonderful the clouds had been. I appeared so overcome that he assumed I must be someone visiting the area for the first time. Apparently Henry Miller said: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” Maybe painting and the need to look at things keenly has taken me to the place where one remains slightly unhinged but it does make every day incredibly interesting.