Autumnal Painting

I've been having a busy time, and I've not been adding to this blog as often as I'd like, so I'm going to attempt to write this Blog more like a diary - time permitting. Hopefully it will give an idea of the 'bigger picture' of my life as an artist, including my personal projects, insights into some of the artists involved in the Bridport Art Scene, my experience of our Open events, what is happening at St Michael's Studios and on the St Michael's Trading Estate, and my thoughts about many artists I admire, as well as my own intentions for the future of the Art World.

I must say that after a really busy summer, I've been enjoying having a quieter autumn. One of the things I love about living in Bridport is how everything calms down after the tourist season. The local community is still buzzing around and all the locals are out and about, but everything feels more relaxed. I was out in the sun this afternoon and I bumped into a friend who has recently moved here from London. He still hasn't got his head around how laid back every one is down here, but that's one of the joys of Bridport. In London the energy can be really good because it motivates everyone, whereas in the country the energy is at a more 'natural' pace, so you really have to motivate yourself, but it's easy once you get the hang of it.

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on a life-size Drip Figure of a local woman. I just completed the second layer last night, and the painting is now drying flat on it's back. I use a very unpredictable technique for making my drip figures, so it's all about preparation and then working with paint that is literally falling off the canvas. The chaos involved in the process means that the results are always surprising, and this one is no exception.

My drip figures are really about creating the 'presence' of a person, and the drip techniques I use mean that the image has a sense of movement and transience, just as our bodies are never quite still, and changing from moment to moment. I also like the way that my drip figures confront the viewer rather than being purely voyeuristic in character.

Now that I've done the second layer I've got to wait a few days for it to dry before doing the third layer, and my thoughts have gone back to my landscape painting 'view from Leweston Hill'. I haven't touched the canvas today, as it's actually quite difficult to switch back and forth between my drip figures and landscapes ( since there's a very different dynamic involved in each of them) but I've been working out what to do when I get back to it.

The Leweston Hill painting is based on the view from the third in the long range of three hills that I've been painting that runs from Lamberts Castle (near Hawkchurch), through Pilsden Pen (near Marshwood) to Leweston (near Broadwindsor). It's an amazing hill, the highest in the region, and has a magical feel to it.

I'm painting these landscapes because I feel a deep emotional connection to the Dorset countryside. I grew up in North Dorset, next to a farm in the middle of nowhere, so my appreciation of nature feels very natural. Now that I've been to London and moved back to Dorset, my love of the landscape continues to grow. I have a great admiration for many landscape painters, particularly the pioneers of the genre - 16th Century Dutch painters like Ruisdael and De Koninck, as well as Turner, Constable, the Hudson River painters, and the great Romantic painters like Casper Friedrich, the Barbizon painters, and of course Cezanne. However, I've yet to see the landscape painted quite the way I feel and experience it, and so that is what I am going to do.