Recent Work
Following on from the Marginal series, I continued to look at Wet Woodland habitats, into Autumn, Winter and Spring, as smaller patches, dips and pools of ephemeral water appeared, rain fed intermittent streams and rising groundwater and springs flooded larger shallow areas.
In the studio I started a series of abstract oil paintings, building up different transparencies and layers of colour, and finding echoes of this landscape appearing through the paint.
The turn to Autumn provided gems of colour; fresh-fallen oak leaf tracks of silver-bronze and lilac, dazzling golden sunshine through beech leaves, startling mauve mushrooms emerging from a leaf litter bed, larches halfway changed with yellow tips. This warm copper canopy remained well into Winter, mixing with frosty mornings and leafless birches jewelled with water droplets.
In the rainforests and hills of Galloway, high humidity and cloud cover made breathing more effortful; all around, soaking moss and rushing water softly lit by the mist covered sun. Newly formed streams carried excess water towards rivers; ways through found over stepping stones, old walls and slippery wood. Huge trees grown into fantastic shapes, with mushrooms and ferns growing along mossy branches and pinkish lichens on trunks.
Early, glowing sunsets usually broke through the mist, shining pink and orange, the bright moon and stars appearing in dark skies, and the sounds of owls calling across the valley.
