Newsletter: June 2023

I love the cloud shaped lichens on the rocks at Brimham!

I’m sitting here wishing I had noise cancelling headphones….

…we live in half an old barn, which had been a coach house in former times, but recently held milking cows and a dairy…outside the front of our house has suffered from years of just adding more lumps of concrete where holes appeared, and the congregation of many hooves and tractors. The result was a sunken yard with a non functioning drain; not the fault of the farmers but of the last occupants who blocked it off for some reason. Anyway, we really needed to get it done, so currently there are two tractors and a digger working outside plus jack hammers and who knows what else, and it is very very noisy!!!

Not sure how well my brain is going to cope with writing, as the whole studio is vibrating and the noise is deafening, anyway here goes and fingers crossed!

June has been an eventful month and a bit of a problem with my eye, meant that I’ve not really been able to work for most of it, but thankfully

all is well, and my eye is Ok…..makes you think though, it was all a bit scary for a while there!

First of all I’m absolutely delighted to be showing as part of the Tarpey Gallery Open again- it’s a beautiful Gallery with wonderful light-filled exhibition spaces set in Castle Donington in Leicestershire. If you’re UK based and able to get there it is going to be a wonderful show, and really well worth a visit, with so many brilliant artists and a diverse selection of work.

Show runs from 22nd July - 27th August

I’ll remind all my subscribers nearer the time as work will be available online as well as in person.

When my eye felt a bit better, I got back to my almost daily practice painting; no pressure stuff to get going again really…The video below shows a sketchbook painting, completed in less than half an hour. In it I’m playing with layering opaque and especially translucent layers, and working with a limited palette, mixing desaturated colours and creating a soft tonal look.

The video is about 18 minutes long, so do stick with it as it does show loads of techniques!

Desaturated colours are very useful in creating a softer, more subtle look, and here I’m mixing them by adding small amounts of other colours on my palette. Even a tiny speck of a different colour, creates a much more subtle look to a painting, and by adding some of those other colours on your palette, you can create a visual unity.

The colours I used here are:- Naples Yellow, Titanium White, Paynes Grey, Cobalt Blue and Cerulean Blue, Burnt Sienna and Perylene Green all Golden I think, and some acrylic glazing fluid (Winsor and Newton).

I used a single flat brush, plus a white Woody Pencil, a Derwent Sketching pencil, and a flat edged palette knife and an old dipping pen for inscribing through the paint layer.

Ok, so what else have I been working on?

Last time I mentioned A Place Among the Stones, which is an abstracted landscape, playing with landscape shapes of high fields, rocks, field boundaries and scrubby trees-it’s heading off to Tarpey for the show I talked about above. I’ve also now finished its ‘sister’ painting, which is called Sky Path.

If you’d like to know a bit more about Sky Path, click the link below.

I’ve been walking on a particular local moor; only a few minutes from home…I go early; partly because I’m one of those people who is always awake by 6.00 am, and partly because, very annoyingly for an artist inspired by landscape, and as some of you regulars know, I have really dreadful hay fever….and early is usually better.

Scudding Clouds: Deep Darks and Cool Blues

This part of the moor is quite damp, even in this hot weather we’ve been having, it’s hard to walk on with large tussocks; risking a twisted ankle.

It’s always quiet this early; just bees and recently a single cuckoo calling, hence the title, ‘Early Bird’.

Back in the studio I made this super quick study, with some notes, played with colours and then started work on the painting below: 50cm square canvas.

Early Bird: An abstracted landscape inspired by the heavy skies and deep darks of a local moorland.

Multiple layers of acrylics with inscribed detail. 50 cm x 50 cm

This one just needs the finishing touches; edges, sealing and varnishing, but will be available soon.

Sharing Early Bird, reminds me to pass on a couple of little tips…

Firstly, don’t be scared of rich deep darks in painting, they add so much depth and drama-I would suggest though that it’s so much better not to rely on just black, or even black at all. Basically you can use all three primaries; (any version) or any two secondaries to make your own deep dark-Cadmium Red + Turner’s Yellow + Cobalt Blue or Phthalo Green + Vermillion Red for instance. You can also add colours to different blacks to adjust them and add more richness-I particularly like Paynes Grey (which is Ultramarine and Black) plus Burnt Sienna (Burnt Sienna can stand in for Red), but play with your own mixes and record the recipe when you get one you really like!

The second is about taking photos…

I do this at different stages throughout the development of a painting… smart phones are such a useful tool for artists, and at some point in the process I take a photo and use the black and white filter to convert the image to show value only-this is such an easy way to check if you have the balance from dark to light that you’re looking for.

The image on the left shows Early Bird as above.

I’ve got lots of new ideas and work on the go, so I’m hoping for a whole load of studio time over the next couple of months; well once the digging has stopped and the studio isn’t reverberating in time to the Jack hammers!

Like most artists, I have a stash of a few paintings that for some reason never really worked for me…as I also have a stash of really beautiful canvas on a roll, I’ve decide to put the two things together, and take a few pieces apart and re stretch with new painted canvases. If you’ve never done this, it’s pretty straightforward, you just need to take your time with it…I thought I might post pictures about the process next month in case it’s useful? I will also be cutting up the old canvases and thinking about whether I can use them to collage on new work or if not add them to sketchbooks-hate wasting anything!!

For now a chunk of the canvas is stretched on my painting wall, and I’m well under way with an abstracted painting in soft muted shades of blue and green….I’ll be sharing more about this one next time, so just a few teasers for now.

Well I’m off to check on progress with the diggers so I think that’s probably all from me this month! As always, I hope you’ve found it interesting and I love to hear your feedback and any suggestions for things you would like me to talk about!

*Oh and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t already, that way you’ll always be first to hear about shows, new work and courses.

I’ll be back at the end of next month, with an audio file and peace returned🤞🤞!! Take care until then and let’s hope we all have a lovely and creative July,

Jo xx

All content, text and images ©Jo York 2023