Walking Meditation 2
Following on from my first walking meditation, I did another, again around Blenheim Park, the list from which is below. Pheasants among the stubbleRed kit flies above them and calls above the treesLichen pocked treesMass covered stumpVivid moss on the ...
Knowing We Are There
I was reading 'Landmarks' by Robert McFarlane last night and was struck by a quote from American author and essayist Barry Lopez: "One must wait for the moment when the thing — the hill, the tarn, the lunette, the kiss ...
Reimagining The Past
This post follows on from one I wrote previously on 'Rinsho'. Below are two painting I made in woods in my notebook. With the art of Rinsho, the idea is to practice your calligraphy by copying, from books, that of ...
Walking Meditation 1
Blenheim Palace Park I discovered this walk with my children at the weekend and so I returned today to do another walk, incorporating within that a walking meditation. The idea of a walking meditation is to try and remain fully ...
Mindful Walking I
One of the ways in which I have helped myself during recent low points has been the practice of mindful walking, where instead of walking as the mind spins around thinking on a problem, you try and focus on what ...
Three New Paintings
Completed this evening... Old Note, oil on board, 2023 Sun Breaks Through, oil on board, 2023 Sunburst, oil on board, 2023 ...
Painting
I've started painting again and have begun my journey using water-based oils which I must say are rather good. The question has been, at the start of this journey - what to paint? Having worked on my tree shadow paintings ...
Rinsho
After my last post I watched a video by calligrapher Tomoko Kawao in which she mentions the practice of Rinsho, where the calligrapher copies the work of ancient masters in order to enhance their own skills. From what I have ...
Shadow Calligraphy
On Saturday, whilst at Shotover with the kids, I took some time - whilst they were climbing trees - to paint some of the shadows cast by the trees. I started working with shadows like these back in 2017 and ...
A Moment’s Language
I have long been meaning to work from some videos I made back in 2018, using a calligraphy brush and ink to follow the 'text' as it's 'written'. Here are a few of the resulting paintings which I'm pleased with ...
Arrival/Departure
It was almost 5 years ago in 2018 that I made these videos in a forest in Oxford and I’ve always found them entrancing. The play of the shadows across the paper has, for me, the feel of Japanese or ...
The Gone Forest
Two years ago I shot some video at Shotover Country Park (see 'Writing Shadows') and finally, this weekend, I had the chance to edit the clips together to make a piece entitled 'The Gone Forest'. The piece is something viewers ...
Tokens and Shadows
A while ago I made some sketches at Shotover Wood, tracing shadows with ink. Thinking back to these and with regards the work I'm currently making, I looked again at these sketches and applied the idea of the quick, gestural ...
Writing Shadows
On Tuesday I made my way to Shotover to work on a piece I've been thinking about for quite some time. The piece, about absent-presence, will, eventually, comprise videos of shadows in a wood, a few stills from which can ...