Jazz Green : Artist Journal

All posts tagged with... ‘landscape’

March 17th, 2013

and yet another water log

norfolk field rain flood winter landscape

[the footpath was out of bounds, a lakeside view]

river rain flood landscape winter

[flooded meadows, next to the river, above the waterline]

winter landscape flood meadow norfolk

[flooded meadow, approaching snow island, calm waters]

norfolk landscape flood path rain winter

[flooded path near the river, no right of way]

norfolk field rain flood winter landscape

[another day, another meadow, choppy waters, no sea legs]

flood meadow rain norfolk winter

[see… someone left the flood gates open…]

March 1st, 2013

another winter stuck out in the sticks; or how i have endeavoured to evoke a fleeting sense of this winter landscape, in pictures.

what follows are some of my small sketchbook paintings (on paper) from the months of january and february.

flooded field landscape sketch painting

[flooded corner of a field, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

these small paintings will probably mean very little to those who do not live or work in the countryside, but perhaps to some of those who do, it might look slightly familiar: of dreary rain-drenched days, the flustering blustering wind which blows this way and that, or the earthy dampness of a foggy grey morning, the veil of mist or frost on fields, or days when the air is piercing and clear, freezing the landscape into a tundra-like quietude.

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[sketchbook paintings]

i am always drawn towards the skyline, where a thicket of skeleton trees or the raggedy fringe of a hedgerow meets the open skies.

and how, at this wintry time of year when this landscape seems even more bleak, earth and sky are still ever-changing in their hues (because of the weather)… on a bright winter’s afternoon when an expanse of dark brown field turns a shade of rippled bronze, or when a sulky leaden sky flattens the mired landscape with a melancholic hue.

dark dusk field hedgerow sketchbook painting

[dimly dusk, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

marsh rain landscape painting sketch

[rain on the marsh, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

it is also curious how the rural landscape in winter can give a [false] sense of being in a wilderness, because there are few houses, and in these modern times, very few people are needed to work this agricultural land.

this landscape can appear desolate at times.

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[sketchbook paintings]

remains of snow field landscape painting

[remains of snow, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

it’s always the little things that catch your eye: the vibrancy of green when framed by the gap in a spindly hedge, a puddled corner of a field glinting silver in the low sun, or the last traces of snow melting in the long shadows… insignificant, transient things.

anyone who cares to notice might want to tell you about these incidental things, never mind trying to take a picture…

suffolk winter landscape painting sketch

[snow melting, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"]

 field hill landscape sketch painting

[sketchbook paintings]

winter landscape sketchbook paintings

[shingle hill, sketchbook painting, acrylic on paper, 7" x 10"]

each painting ’sketch’ took about fifteen minutes, so cumulatively this amounts to only three hours of field work.

here, inside the pages of a sketchbook (or two), i was aiming to express, very loosely in paint, what the rural landscape looks and feels like on some days in winter, from observation, memory and experience. everyone will have their own point of view: nothing really changes, every day it changes.

it is interesting that buildings and people (or animals) do not interest me here, so perhaps i was only looking to seek that elemental sense of a wilderness in winter, isolating the isolation, finding solace in the solitude.

this is what i find myself returning to at odd moments when it seems i have made little headway in my other work. i hope one day to get better at expressing the thoughts and ideas in my head…

Where little pictures idly tells
Of nature’s powers & nature’s spells

September 8th, 2012

the artworks annual exhibition opens this weekend at blackthorpe barn in the heart of rural suffolk. i am one of thirty artists exhibiting new work in this art exhibition.

[edit: i would like to mention here of my gratitude for the encouragement and support i have received this year in the continuation of my membership of the artworks group. they will know who they are, and i thank them.]

each artworks artist is allocated a space in the barn and here is a small picture of my wall of (very) small paintings.

these paintings are very possibly the smallest paintings in the artworks exhibition, and my intention was to produce a series of delicately textured paintings which would require close scrutiny so that the beams (in all their rustic heavyweight charm) did not entirely steal the show.

these small paintings are framed in white wood frames (using natural liming wax), floated within extra-deep window mounts to give a degree of separation and independence from the exposed beams and overlapped timbers of the barn’s rustic interior architecture.

small paintings - art exhibition - blackthorpe barn suffolk

plain white walls do help to concentrate the gaze when someone happens upon an artwork for the very first time, where there is no background noise to distract from the ‘get to know you’ conversation (or creating a dialogue as some artists will call it, but a conversation seems much more personable).

this series of (very) small paintings combine my rustic style of painting with collage, constructed in many layers to create subtle accents of texture and relief within the surface, minimalist in composition offset by irregular striations and stacks of textured colour, to evoke everyday sensory elements of the rustic and the rural – walls, fences, boundaries, edges, horizon lines, buildings and structures.

here is a picture of one of the (very) small paintings on show in the exhibition (minus the picture frame)…

small painting - suffolk pinks, tarmac and straw
[suffolk pinks, tarmac and straw 2012, 10cm x 10cm)

this (very) small painting evokes striated, layered memories of walking, cycling or driving (or sometimes just taking the bus, which is nice) through the suffolk countryside in late summer, of straight roads and stubble fields, the harvest straw and dust as it clusters and clumps by the roadside, of sideways glimpses of traditional 'suffolk pink' farmhouses, sometimes set back from the road behind hedgerows, gates, fences and walls - and wondering (in that brief moment of passing) what it might be like to live there, with those fields as your only neighbours...

here is another (very) small painting in the artworks exhibition (again, minus the picture frame)...

small painting - purple sage, potting shed, garden
[purple sage, potting shed 2012, 10cm x 10cm]

sometimes it’s the smallest of things that momentarily hold the attention. the textures, colours and aromas in the garden on any given day, a purple-leafed sage in a terracotta pot, the dust, dirt and cobwebs in the shed as you sort through a jumble of odd-sized plant pots, the aroma and texture of compost in your hands as you sow the tiniest of seeds, or the patina of waterlines on the inside of a rain bucket or watering can.

these seemingly mundane visual experiences, now insignificant memories, seem to have filtered through when making these small paintings, perhaps to acknowledge some of the humble pleasures of rural life, and to cast away the less pleasing aspects, as things are ‘felt’ and layered in one’s memory, without recourse to a more ‘literal’ narrative.

if there (ever) was an overarching idea, an underlying motive, a subconscious need, it was a need to evoke such sensory memories –  in a way which felt authentic, honest and pure, quietly evocative, modest in every way – as a small expression of retreat or escape, back into a small world which i could claim as my own, and from there on in, came the titles.
artist walk fen
rural life has been an inevitable influence in these (too?) small paintings as i continue to be drawn to the colours and textures of time passing, a humbling antidote to the relentless pursuit of ‘perfection’ in contemporary life.

artworks 13th annual art exhibition
8th to 30th september 2012
blackthorpe barn, rougham, suffolk (SatNav IP30 9HZ)

the artworks exhibition is open daily, 10am to 5pm, from 8th to 30th september 2012.

artworks is a professional art group of thirty east anglian artists who organise a showcase exhibition each year at blackthorpe barn. the thirty exhibiting artists in the 2012 exhibition are:

Valerie Armstrong, Mike Ashley, Lyn Aylward, Penny Bhadresa, Gillian Crossley-Holland, Helen du Feu, Genista Dunham, Janet french, Chris Gamble, Roger Gamble, John Glover, Jenny Goater, Joss Goddchild, Jazz Green, Lynn Hutton, Alison Jones, Eleonora Knowland, Christine McKechnie, Katie Millard, Elaine Nason, Carol Pask, Anne Paton, Doug Patterson, Ben Platt-Mills, Ursula Kit Price Moss, Lizzie Sanders, Colin Slee, Constance Stubbs, Liz Waugh McManus, Virginia Wright.

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The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.