Inspirations Archives – Page 3 of 5

Posted on March 12, 2018May 21, 2019 by emma cownie — 18 Comments

Waiting for the Tide

Before I visited Tenby, on the Pembroke coast, I had this vague idea that it was something like Barry Island, on the Glamorgan coast near Cardiff. If you have never heard of Barry Island, it was a Victorian holiday destination for day trippers from Cardiff and the South Wales Valleys. It had a “Pleasure Park” with rides and lots of shops selling rock and candy floss and it also had a Butlins holiday camp but the rides and the holiday camp are long gone now. It has a nice beach but its not as popular as it used to be.

Well, Tenby is nothing like that. It’s tasteful, historic, and enduringly popular. I love Tenby’s real name. That is it’s Welsh name which is “Dinbych-y-pysgod” meaning fortlet of the fish. It still describes the old town well as as it’s solid town walls still survive as well as its harbour. Its a delightful place to visit with pretty Georgian houses and two large beaches.

Tenby has a special place in my heart because in the midst of my PTSD breakdown and recovery I painted a picture of Tenby harbour.

I was very emotionally fragile at the time and I really I enjoyed painting the pastel colours of the harbour buildings. I get a lot of pleasure from colour. Other people got pleasure from it too because it was one of the very first paintings I sold as a semi-professional artist. The collector who bought it later told me that she was going to redecorate her lounge to match the painting! I was so touched by this. I had so little confidence at the time that it meant a great deal to me. I also sold many prints this painting. As you can see I did many paintings of Tenby Harbour but I eventually moved on to other subject matters and different challenges. I particularly focused on people portraits closer to home in Swansea and paintings of Gower peninsula, closer to home.

So last month, I decided that Tenby was overdue a visit. I had been watching the weather forecast for weeks. Eventually the forecast was for a day of wall-to-wall sunshine. The only problem was that it was very cold with a bitter wind. Never mind. I wrapped up well with thermals and two pairs of socks and got up early to catch the 7.50 train from Swansea to Tenby, arriving at 9.30.

I had set off early because I like to catch the morning light with its long shadows. I also wanted to see the harbour at high tide with the boats in the harbour. The only problem was that as soon as arrived at the harbour I could see the the sun was in the “wrong place” and most of the boats had been pulled ashore and covered up! The previous times I had visited Tenby was in the summer, later on in the day.

So, I had to wait. So did. I waited in the way I usually do, by moving. I walked and walked. In the end I walked around Tenby for 6 hours, taking photos of the shadows and the people. Despite it being mid winter it was the school mid term break in England (not in wales) and Tenby was full of families, wrapped up, despite the biting wind, and enjoying the sunshine.

I had chips for lunch watched by three beady-eyed seagulls and a chocolate ice-cream. I had to think about that as it was so cold but in the end I gave in had one – it was delicious. I had intended to catch the 1.40 pm train back to Swansea but i could see that the light was changing and I knew that it was low tide at 4pm so I tried and waited some more. I walked up the habour walked and climbed half way down the steps to take photos of the four or so boats that were in the harbour. It was strange waiting for the tide and light because they eventually changed faster than I thought they would. All of a sudden the tide had retreated far enough for me to walk out into the harbour and take photos of the reflections. Bingo. This was what I was after.

And then, almost miraculously the tide revealed the sandbanks on the far side of the harbour, by the end of the harbour wall and I could gingerly climb down some seaweed-covered steps and see the harbour in it’s full glory. I don’t think I took off my fingerless gloves once in Tenby, and I did appreciate the heating on the little train back home. I just made the 4.40 pm train back to Swansea and get home in daylight.

My day in Tenby was all about patience and waiting for things beyond my control. Looking at this, my most recent painting of Tenby harbour I can see how much my work has changed, and hopefully how much I have recovered from those incredibly difficult times back in 2012-13. The painting is much larger and calmer and more confident than any of those I painted before. Large paintings, almost by definition require confidence. The winter tones are less vivid than the summer ones, despite the bright winter sunshine. I will be back for the summer light.

See my coastal paintings for sale here

Posted on February 23, 2018May 30, 2019 by emma cownie — 16 Comments

Gower Walks (wet feet are optional)

The sun is out. So I am out too with my camera. Looking for inspiration for some Gower landscape paintings. We drove down to Rhossili at low tide to look at the rocks. My husband is from Northern Ireland and he was feeling homesick for some monumental rocks like those at Giants’ Causeway. Now, Gower doesn’t have pillars of amazing basalt rock but we do have some pretty grand tors.

The walk from the National Trust car park at Rhossili was certainly bracing. The wind was super cold and strong enough to make me nervous about approaching the cliff edge to take photos. People have fallen to their deaths here. The sheep are all pretty blase about it, though.

Behind the bay rises Rhossili Down to a height of 600 feet. It is the remains of an old beach level much eroded later on by the ice sheets of the last but one ice age. The bench of land below, with the Old Rectory in its middle, was caused by earth slumping down from above during a cold phase. Although, it seems like a wild and out of the way place, people have been here for a very, very long time. A Neolithic hand axe – the oldest human artefact found in Wales – was found here and is now on display in The National Museum in Cardiff.

We walked into the wind and past Worms’ Head with its exposed causeway and found a flock of sheep eating turnips scattered amongst the straw-stubbled ground. We walked along cliff tops, and looked over a long dry stone wall inland to the medieval strip farming that still continues in the fields there. This is one of only a few Medieval “Vile” Field systems left in Britain.

The path then splits. You can continue along to top of the cliffs to Mewslade or take a path to the right which dips down to the top of Fall Bay. There is a small collection of wooden boats way above the beach, some are attached to metal rings embedded into the rock. Its a lot easier to make your way down to the beach through this path than it is via a gap in the cliffs at the east end of the beach.

The high parts of Gower are made of the oldest rocks. The downs that loom over Rhossili and Cefn Bryn are made from Old Red Sandstone.The rest of Gower is made from Carboniferous Limestone. The coastline cuts across a bed of folded of Limestone at an angle of 45 degrees towards the sea, to expose curious diagonal layers of rock.

View Towards Mewslade Bay

So here my afternoon takes a slightly wetter turn. I had climbed onto rocks that lay between Fall Bay and Mewslade Bay further along the coast. The sea was crashing around me. I felt quite safe. The rocks were not slippy. I thought the tide was still going out.

Then my husband shouted at me “The Tide’s Coming in” and I looked at my watch. It was exactly 3 o’clock. Low Tide. For some reason, I then decided that the crashing waves were coming a lot closer. I hesitated, the patch of beach I had jumped from onto the rock was submerged in incoming water. I waited. The water just got deeper.

Then, my stupid PTSD head kicked in. It goes for the worst scenario. What if it never retreated? What if was going to get washed away? I was going to get washed away! I was certain. So, I panicked and jumped into the water. It came up to my calves. It was really cold. The bottom half of my jeans were very wet and my walking boots full of water. I sloshed through the sea water and onto dry land. Emergency over, I tried to cover my sense of foolishness by blaming my husband for “frightening me”.

I didn’t drown or even catch cold for having to walk back to the car with wet boots and drive home again. I had a hot bath as soon as I got home but there’s always part of me that believes that you have to suffer (or at least go to great lengths) in the process of creating your art so I find mild exhaustion and hardship rather satisfying. As if deep down I think it will somehow make the paintings better!

Posted on February 21, 2018May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 21 Comments

Time to Call it a Night?

I woke up a bit earlier than I usually do this morning. It was just before dawn. The night was no longer inky black but had a bluish tinge to it. The light has been changing ever since. Now it is mauve. It will lighten until the light is pinkish, then finally white. Throughout the course of the winter I have been used to waking in the dark and waiting for the sun to rise. No so much recently. The days are lengthening noticeably. Instead of night arriving unexpected at 4 o’clock it now holds off about tea time. This gradual lengthening of the day has a natural rhythm and logic.

The sudden arrival of British Summer Time (BST) or Daylight Saving Time (DST) when the clocks are turned forward an hour in late March does not. It feels like we are catapulted into the summer with more light than we know what to do with. I find it odd that I am sad at the arrival of BST because all that extra daylight means I can paint for longer. I should be happy. I am happy but the abrupt lengthening of the day feels wrong. The “loss” of an hour is also tiring. It’s much worse in the autumn. Instead of easing into winter we are hurled into the darkness. Others feel this way too.

The EU is debating this right now. There have been calls for the European Commission to launch a “full evaluation” of the current system and come up with new plans, if necessary. In Europe, currently, EU law sets a common date in spring and autumn on which clocks must be put forward and back by one hour in all 28 member states. Supporters of the DST say it saves energy and reduces traffic accidents but critics argue it can cause long-term health problems and studies have generally failed to show significant energy savings associated with the shift.

They hate it in Finland. More than 70,000 Fins (out of 5.5 million) signed a petition asking the state to give up the practice. French MEP Karima Delli argued that moving clocks forward to summer time left people tired and led to increased accidents”Studies that show an increase in road accidents or sleep trouble during the time change must be taken seriously”, the French MEP said, adding that estimated energy savings were “not conclusive”. Belgian lawmaker Hilde Vautmans, however, said that changing daylight saving could mean either losing an hour of daylight every day for seven months in summer or sending children to school in the dark for five months over winter.

I was surprised that the USA also uses DST. I assumed that with so many time zones, nine, that they would not have wanted the added complication of DST. It was introduced during the Second World War and most mainland states areas still have DST except Arizona (although the Navajo have DST on tribal lands). Many studies have been done in the US that show the negative effects of the biannual shift to DST. Losing that hour’s sleep in spring affects health; strokes and heart attacks are more likely, there are more traffic accidents and it affects relationships, tiredness causes more arguments.

Interestingly, one big country has tried life without DST. In 2011 Russia (who have on less than 11 time zones in their massive country) first tried clocks on year-round summer time but that proved unpopular then in 2014 switched to permanent winter time or “standard time”. Russian MPs said permanent summer time had created stress and health problems, especially in northern Russia where mornings would remain darker for longer during the harsh winter months. However, I have yet to discover whether the return to permanent “winter time” is popular with the Russian people.

So if I want to avoid this biannual lurch forward and back in the day, I can move to Russia, Arizona or one of the other 70 countries that don’t bother with it including Japan, India, and China.

Posted on January 24, 2018February 25, 2018 by emma cownie — 16 Comments

Our favourite female artists (deceased) part 2

Thank you for all these suggestions. I was unaware of any of the Australian/New Zealanders but very much enjoyed finding out about them, especially Rosalie Gascoigne. It just shows me what a Euro-centric artistic education, I have had.

Georgia O’Keefe– She is best known for her paintings of magnified flowers, animal skulls, and New Mexico desert landscapes. Her Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 1932, the most expensive painting by a female artist ever sold at auction. I have never been that excited by Georgia O’Keefe’s work but I suspect that if I saw one of these massive works in real life, I feel diferently about them.

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Rosalie Gascoigne, was a New Zealand-born Australian sculptor. She was one of Australia’s leading avant-garde artists. She was also a phenomenon. She did not begin her artistic career until she was in her fifties. She’s an inspiration to all us middle-aged artists. She had her first solo exhibition in 1974, at the age of 57. She showed at the Venice Biennale in 1982, becoming the first female artist to represent Australia there.

Emily Kgwarreye, was an indigenous Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary indigenous Australian art. Her painting, Earth’s Creation 1, sold for $2.1 million (£1.2m, I think) at auction in Sydney in November 2011. I love the sheer scale of these works.

Margaret Preston, was one of Australia’s most significant artists. She was a key figure in the development of modern art in Sydney from the 1920s to the 1950s. Renowned for her paintings and woodcuts of local landscapes and native flora, she was an outspoken public voice on Australian culture and championed a distinctly Australian style, based on the principles and motifs of modernist, Aboriginal and Asian art.

Artist : Margaret Preston (Australia, b.1875, d.1963) Title : Date : (circa 1957) Medium Description: colour woodcut on tan laid Japanese paper Dimensions : Credit Line : Bequest of W.G. Preston, the artist’s widower 1977 Image Credit Line : Accession Number : 207.1977

Grace Cossington-Smith, she is one of Australia’s most celebrated 20th century painters. An important early exponent of modernism in Australia, her work formed part of the first significant wave of Australian responses to European post-impressionism. A brilliant colourist, she drew her subject matter from the familiar surroundings of her home and her experience of Sydney city life, which she transformed into vibrant images of light-infused colour.

Clarice Beckett, nowadays she is recognised as one of Australia’s most important modernist artists. She was a tonal painter and she relentlessly painted sea and beachscapes, rural and suburban scenes, often enveloped in the atmospheric effects of early mornings or evening. After her death her work fell out of fashion and her work was largely forgotten for over 30 years. In 1970 thousands of her neglected paintings were rediscovered in a farm shed in rural Victoria which prompted renewed interest in her work. Her work surprised me, I thought it was very European in tone. I usually associate Australia with strong sunlight and these gentle, hazy works were a revelations.

Artist : Clarice Beckett (Australia, b.1887, d.1935) Title : Date : circa 1926 Medium Description: oil on canvas on paperboard Dimensions : Credit Line : Jean Cameron Gordon Bequest Fund in memory of her mother Mary Gordon 2000 Image Credit Line : Accession Number : 44.2000

I have one final installment to make. I thought that these works were so powerful that they deserved “space” to breathe rather than being crammed into an overlong list. If you have any more suggestions as to who I should include please add them in the comments section.

Posted on January 17, 2018May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 9 Comments

Summer daydreams in the dark winter.

I always struggle in the winter. It creeps up on me. I start to feel down although nothing particularly bad has happened. I feel myself start sliding. Then the thing takes on an almost physical shape. I can feel the edges of the thing starting to weigh heavily on me. Then, in the back of my mind, a thought dimly appears; “You Need Light”.

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or winter depression, although I can get it during really wet summers when the days are overcast, day after day. This year has been particularly tough. I am often thinking thoughts like “Why is it so dark?”, “Oh no, is it night already?” and “How long until the sun comes up?” It seems to get worse with each passing year. Maybe it just because this winter has been particularly cold?

Fortunately, I have a couple of SAD lamps and one of those alarm clocks that will mimic a sunrise. I just have to remember to switch them on and sit next to them. I don’t always do so. So, here I am now with a lamp on and I can feel it cheering me up getting the hypothalamus in my brain to work properly. Earlier, when there was some gloomy daylight I painted a couple of summer beach scenes. I felt very happy painting the people on the beach in the blinding summer sun. I thought about the day back in the summer we visited Port Eynon, on the South Gower Coast. The sea was glassy. It was so warm that paddling was wonderful. We had chips for tea. It was lovely. It was a day when you didn’t feel the need to “do” anything. You were quite happy just sitting in the shade watching the people on the beach.

I have long suspected that my tendency towards SAD is one of the reasons why I paint so many sunny and bright scenes. I feel much better for thinking about this wonderful summer’s day and painting these two beach scenes.

Family Outing to the Beach.jpg — Family Outing to the Beach (Port Eynon) Oil on Linen Canvas 46x38cm unframed

[wpecpp name=”Family Outing to the Beach ” price=”280″ align=”left”]

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Posted on December 25, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 9 Comments

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 21, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 9 Comments

Snow Remnant (I found some old snow)

I got to walk on frozen snow earlier in the week. I had to travel all the way to the Cotswolds to find it. There had been a foot of snow the week before but it had almost all gone. Almost. There were remnants left in the cold corners of the fields where the low winter sun’s rays did not directly warm them. It even rained a few times when I was there but these remnants did not melt. It was too cold. So, I got to experience a small thrill as my boots crunched on the ice. It was fleeting but fun.

Posted on December 19, 2017December 28, 2017 by emma cownie — 14 Comments

My favourite female artists: Part 1

The famous ones

I started this list as a challenge to myself really. I began thinking about women artists and was shocked that I got as far as Tracey Enim and then my mind just went blank. I looked up a few more names on google and added a few more to the list: Jenny Saville, Yayoi Kusama, Brigette Riley and Maggi Hambling. They were important and interesting but I couldn’t honestly say they particularly influenced my work although I love the colours that Riley and Kusama use in their pieces.

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I do really like the work of Rachel Whiteread who makes massive casts of the interiors of buildings and other unexpected objects like hot water bottles. She would have been part of Swansea’s UK City of Culture events in 2021.

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Then I looked at my pinterest account and realised that it was jammed packed with contemporary female painters. Some I just like and others that inspire me. They are not especially famous but I thought I’d share their names and examples of their work.

The Americans

Jennifer Pochinski

Pochinski has a wonderful fluid style. Such energy and confidence to leave so much undefined.

Carole Marine

I love her use of colour and light colour. Since October 5th, 2006, she has been creating one small painting almost every day.

Peggi Kroll Roberts

Again wonderful colours and impressionistic looseness of style that I find very appealing.

Jessica Brilli

A much tighter “stylised” form of painting but that same use of strong colours and emphasis on sunshine.

Leah Giberson

Again strong colurs, sunshine and an interest in mid-century buildings.

She also does a lot of paintings of Airstream trailers but I don’t care so much for those paintings. Although they are technically excellent, I find them less interesting as subject matter.

So, I think you can see that I am somewhat obsessed with sunshine and colour! I will also write a blog on living British female artists that I like.

Posted on November 20, 2017May 6, 2019 by emma cownie — 7 Comments

Twilight

Twilight is one of those words that sounds like a contraction of two longer words – like fortnight used to be “fourteen nights” or Goodbye used to be “God be with you”. The word has Dutch and Germanic origins. It was first used in England in the 14th century and probably is a contraction of “Tween” and “Light”- meaning light between, or half light. In Welsh, “cyfnos” means dusk, twilight but “gwyll” also refers to dusk, gloom, twilight. There is a very good Welsh language crime drama (Welsh Noir as they call it) called “Y Gwyll” (Dusk). There is an English language version (same actors, and storries but dialogue in English) but they changed the title to “Hinterland“. I much prefer the Welsh language version (click on the link to watch a clip here with English subtitles). Dusk suits the brooding nature of the landscape and the story lines much better, I think.

Dusk is a strange part of the day. It does not last long. It happens in the morning as well as the evening but it’s twilight in the evening I particularly love, especially in winter. The sky rapidly slips from light blue to a wonderful mauve before becoming darkest blue of night. The strange soft mauve glowing light is caused by the sun even after it has dipped below the horizon, as the sun’s rays are reflected from the atmosphere. A few minutes pass and lights are switched on indoors against the fading light but curtains have not yet been universally against the cold winter night. Just like Dylan Thomas’s “starless and bible-black” night in Under Milk Wood.

Posted on October 26, 2017February 25, 2018 by emma cownie — 10 Comments

Post Exhibition Blues

Well, I knew it was coming. After several months’ worth of focused activity on painting and preparing for my madeinroath festival exhibition, its’s all over. The paintings are back on the wall in our front room. They are lucky, this house is so full of paintings the majority never find a space to hang on the wall but spend their time propped up on shelf. I knew it was coming. This feeling of “what now”? I really enjoyed having a project to work towards, writing a bulb for my catalogue and blogging about the process.

Now, I am feeling down and a bit at a loose end. Its rather a lot like like that uncomfortable feeling you used to get as kid three quarters through the long summer holiday. You’d run around and played with your friends/siblings but now it was overcast or even raining. Entertaining yourself seemed to take more effort, all of a sudden. It was called boredom. I learnt that it was no use asking my mother for suggestion as to what to do (for some reason her answers always seemed to involve housework).

I just had to sit with it until an idea came to me. It was usually something creative. I wrote a lot of poetry and descriptive pieces. I once even wrote a play about a fine art heist one finger at a time on a manual type writer. How I loved the “clack, clack” of the keys hitting the ribbon. I was living the dream! I was a writer! I was writing nonsense but enjoying doing it. I drew and coloured and painted. My bedroom. The cat when she was asleep. The view outside the window.

Boredom wasn’t a feeling I got to experience much as an adult. Stress was more normal. As secondary school teacher as it was usually subsumed into exhaustion. I loved teaching but the work-load was crushing. Summer holidays were increasingly about sleep and recovery. I don’t know whether kids experience it much now as they have smart phones to hand.

Yes, its a lot like boredom. Maybe this isn’t boredom but its rather a lot like that bit before you think of what to do next. Funny thing is, I am still painting but not sure if I am going to continue in the same vein. I am definitely in a painterly “groove” and I loath to pull myself out it just yet. I have a few ideas knocked around the back of my head … I think that creativity as all about trying things. Some of them work and some don’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s all process. The point is to try stuff and develop the stuff that you feel “works”.