Category: Journal

 

 

 

Ink and charcoal on paper – 23 x 33 cm

 

Mixed media on paper 140 x 60 cm.

Early morning sun catches the very tops of the trees, a golden halo as I look up. Down below green tips of snowdrops are pushing their way through the earth, a sign that the light is slowly returning. And yet the forecast is for snow, so it is far from spring. This January sun has no warmth. The beauty of the day is walking into this landscape, holding my breath. With each mark following mark I cross the border, fixing a memory which, by its very nature remains uncertain, flawed.

 

 

Ink and charcoal on paper – 23 x 33 cm

 

 

Acrylic on board – 44 x 31 cm

 

Mixed media on paper – triptych – 180 x 84 cm.

 

The wee small hours. Dark and rainy as I drive. I have a plan to paint the wood as it emerges from night and I’m a little scared truth be told. As I walk through the trees the torch beam throws long shadows, strange shapes. Its better with it turned off but it’s hard to find paper, paint, brushes, water. Fumbling in black, painting black in blackness. Noises – I scan with the torch, nothing, probably deer. An owl hoots. Quite suddenly I see the sky fill with stars. Still. Little by little, tones of grey seep silently, making sense of this landscape. The sky lightens unhurriedly. A new day, a new year.

 

 

 

Ink and charcoal on paper – 33 x 22 cm.

 

Thank you to everyone who has looked, liked, commented and supported me this year. It is very much appreciated. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a hearty Hogmanay.   Dominique x

 

 

 

Mixed media and my sons old t-shirt on canvas 140 x 140 cm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed media on paper 150 x 20 cm

 

 

 

Mixed media on paper – 140 x 60 cm.

 

The world has stopped. Frozen. I am the only sound in the wood this morning. Along the edge of the burn starbursts of ice reach toward the fast flowing water whilst thick fingers of ice clutch at boulders and rocks midstream. I am careful not to slip on them. Across the water I sit and look at the trees. A robin sits too, watching me . I think I should have brought some nuts to give it. Instead I throw it bits of my kit-kat. It simply looks on. I paint the utter stillness. A heron lands on a rock, my feet shift on the crunchy leaves and it takes flight, its great swags of wings lifting it gently into the pale sky.

 

 

 

The wood feels exposed this morning, wind echoes a memory of sleep as I walk. I am getting a new view of the wood in winter, this steep sided fissure in the landscape. The geography and geology reveal its bones. Here in my favourite place a copse of young beech trees mimic the curves of the burn below, rising upwards, away.

I sit listening to the wind roaring and closing my eyes I am all at once at sea.

 

Mixed media on paper 140 x 60 cm.