The Blossom On The Trees

I spent a great deal of the Easter holidays at the local skateboard/scooter/BMX ramp park with my five year old son as he pushed to the limits his new stunt scooter (and his parents). He deftly wove in and out the generally much older boys who congregated there; following them around; hanging on the edges of their conversations at the tops of the ramps; getting in their way as they performed all sorts of fancy tricks, while he mastered his more modest bunny hop. He was largely invisible to them, but there was also a nice sense of them looking out for him too when they occasionally bumped into him. We had our little routine of picking up a coffee (for Dad) and 2 doughnuts from the ‘Old McDonald’s’ drive through (despite me telling him it is just called McDonalds, he still insists on calling it Old McDonalds, which he says sounds better. I think he’s probably right) and then heading to the park. I sit on the bench out the way, while he does his thing. It was a rather unnerving glimpse ahead to the teenage years (he loved the guy who came along with his spray paint at one point and did some rather lame graffiti. ‘I want some of them!’ he said as we headed back to the car later with me trying to explain what it was the guy had been doing). 

 

 

  Anyway, in my quiet vigil I sat and sketched the unfolding activities. After initially drawing some of the poses of the figures, I eventually became more drawn to the architecture of the ramps and the surrounding parkland, as the top drawing demonstrates. 

This is my boy doing his scooting thing (all 3 figures are him), and was my first drawing…

  Today is the anniversary of my younger brother, Stu’s death from cancer five years ago. He never met my two children, but I often wonder what he would have made of them. I miss sharing these experiences with him, and feel much more alone these days.

Into The Woods...

My wife and I are very self-sufficient, and always work hard at making things work. So despite the disappointment at the situation we now found ourselves in, we were soon off exploring the local landscape with Isaac on foot or by the car, which we had hired for the week. It was my first time driving on the other side of the road, and despite Diane’s nervous protestations from the passenger side (‘you’re going too near the edge! We’re going to be in that ditch in a minute!’ etc), I felt I soon got used to it.

The landscape was very beautiful: not mountainous or particularly rugged like the north of Norway, but rolling, open fields, lots of woodland and forests, and large lakes. We barely saw another soul, as it was now also ‘out of season’ if you like too, with most of the weekend Norwegians in their ‘hitters’ now back in jobs in Oslo with kids back at school.  (On evenings back at the cabin this did seem to enhance our sense of ‘aloneness’ and ‘abandonment’ surrounded by the tall, silhouetted trees against the sky. We sat by candlelight on the porch with the box of wine we felt so glad to have bought at Duty Free).

My I-Pad seem to come into its own on these journeys: the camera and video on it is excellent, but I could also make quick paintings and drawings on it (although I still prefer my sketchbook to draw in with my favoured brush pen), as well as more detailed pieces when we were back in the forest at our cabin: I could start a painting, tuck it away in my bag when Isaac would come along wanting my attention, and then easily resume it again, and make easy alterations in response to the changing light. For the first time, now I look at them in the studio, I thinka few of the paintings I’ve made could be seen as finished digital artworks in their own right which is an exciting development.

I would take my pachode box with my oil paints off on my own to work in more concentrated periods. I’m quite pleased with some of the small oil paintings I’ve made, where I found myself heightening the colour in the purple trunks of the trees, and in the myriad of greens and yellows in the changing, diffused light. This seemed to bring me closer to the feel of the place. The paintings seem to pick up on some of the visual ideas I worked on a couple of years ago in some of my tree paintings, but with more success. The fact they are rooted in a particular place is significant here.

At night though as the darkness descended I continued painting on the porch with a head torch that I use. I painted the barely visible tree trunks that seemed to surround us like ghostly spectres, trying to capture their presence and the bruised green and grey shadows and shapes between them. When I look at these pieces now they seem to have a psychological edge to them that echoes the thoughts and feelings swimming around my head during these days…..