Newsletter: August 2021
August has been busy but pretty quiet also; a month of working and gardening and walking locally….the picture above is our go to, local walk. It’s a Deer Park, and although you can’t see any deer in the photo, you can tell they’ve been there….the flattened patches of grass are where they’ve been sleeping. It is also from a bright day which has been very unusual up here in North Yorkshire in the UK as we’ve had loads of cloudy grey days. I’m slightly obsessed with a weather App called Clear Outside, which is great for planning, and we have had absolutely loads of days when the cloud coverage showed as 100%, and the humidity was pretty close to 100% also-not my favourite weather! (In fact I’m writing this at 8.30 in the morning and I’ve had to put all the lights on).
I think I’ve mentioned before that I can only really work in oils during the summer when I can have all the doors and windows wide open, so one of the things I’ve been doing is going back to some unfinished oils…
I’ve now finished a large one of these which is about 120cm x 90 cm, and in fairly heavily textured oils. It’s called ‘On the Cateran Trail’, and comes from walking in Glen Shee, and it’s been on the go for about two years!
The Cateran Trail is a way marked trail through the Scottish Highlands passing through Glen Shee and Glen Isla and the eponymous Caterans according to legend, were marauding groups of highlanders who stole cattle and brought with them fear and bloodshed. Today it is such a quiet and tucked away part of the highlands with amazing scenery…really well worth a visit! (actually I’ll bet it’s busy this year, given the Covid travel problems, but normally…
On the Cateran Trail
Oils on canvas: 120 cm x 90 cm in a bespoke white painted floating frame
I’ve also been doing some final adjustments to a North Yorkshire painting that I felt just needed a bit of tweaking. This one is ‘Heather on the Moor’ and comes from studies made on the Yorkshire moors, over near the edge of the Lake District. In the end, all it needed was a very a slight change to the colour balance which seemed to make all the difference! The painting is taken from memories of a particular walk; abstracted but atmospheric too, and I’m pleased with the richness of the heather colours coming through in the foreground.
Heather on the Moor
Multi-layered acrylics on canvas- 50cm x 50 cm. Framed in a bespoke white painted ‘floater’ frame.
One of the things I’ve always been interested in, is developing materials and techniques. I’ve spent a long time working with manufacturers and suppliers of art materials, testing and demonstrating how they worked, and writing about them for markets across Europe. I think this runs quite deep with me and I find I need to spend time experimenting and trying something a bit different, so this month I’ve probably gone a bit crazy! Maybe its a reaction to the restrained, calm and limited palette work I’ve been working with?? Anyway, I’ve gone full-on rich colour and gold; developing techniques combining metal leaf and acrylic glazes…it’s a very slow and painstaking process, but enjoyable.
I’ve been using the much more affordable, imitation gold leaf, (often known as Dutch Metal, which is actually an alloy with copper and brass, but produced in a very thin sheet to mimic the feel and appearance of real gold leaf). I intend to go on to experiment with some of the genuine stuff, but this does give an amazingly rich result and seems to work really well in combination with acrylic glazes. The only real difference is that as with anything made of copper or brass it will eventually tarnish if it isn’t sealed properly…my pieces are therefore thoroughly sealed first with a layer of self levelling gel and finally with several coats of varnish, to ensure protection.
The photos above show some of the development stages:
Drawing out composition on cradled panels, working from sketchbook studies.
Adding a rich colour base in opaque acrylic
Starting to add interference gold acrylic, which is a translucent gold acrylic, combined with small fragments of gold leaf
Developing textures with mark making and incised lines
Building layers of glazed acrylic, interference gold and fragments of gold leaf
Penultimate image: larger area of gold leaf with incised detail; and glazes over
Final image: Studio shot, showing depth of underpainting.
Left hand image: ‘Keel of Gold’ Right hand image: ‘Golden Waves’
Both paintings are developed from sketchbook studies and are part of my ongoing fascination with reservoirs. Here, the paintings are very much abstracted but come from just such a reservoir walk: deep water, golden grasses and scudding boats. For some reason, which I really don’t understand, I began thinking about icons when I was walking and so these two paintings have a little nod to iconography with the rich deep blues, earths and golds.
They are painted on 46cm square cradled panels, and now I just need to work out the best way of framing them!
*All the paintings shown are currently available, just use the contact form for more information.
I also have current collections available from:
*Bils and Rye Gallery in Harrogate, in person and online: https://contemporarysculpture.gallery/artist/jo-york
*Northern Lights Gallery in Keswick, in person and online: https://northernlightsgallery.co.uk/jo-york-bio
I think that’s all from me this month. I hope you’ve enjoyed my newsletter, and do let me know if you have any feedback or queries, I really enjoy hearing from you and always do my best to answer any questions. I had some lovely feedback to my July Newsletter, which is hugely appreciated, thanks so much as ever!
Until next month, take care and keep in touch,
Jo xx
All text and images copyright ©️Jo York 2021