Newsletter: January 23
January has kept us on our toes, swapping between dark and wet and bright and frozen up here in North Yorkshire. We’ve had amazing sunrises and sunsets-ponds appeared overnight and paths became streams, then we’ve had the crispest coldest bright days, when you get that whole mountain air feeling!
I’ve been busy in the studio, not really feeling like doing the forward planning for the year I should have been doing, instead I’ve been making work- but that’s not a bad thing is it!
Perhaps it’s too obvious to say that I’m very influenced by what’s going around me, and especially by the light and weather…it’s not immediate; there’s a bit of a time lag while things I've seen, walks I’ve been on, percolate through into something that makes the germ of an idea. I always start my blog with landscape images, probably because they are so important to me…I take hundreds of images a week; at least a few every day.
The photos I take are triggers and reference, starting points and texture details…I look for interesting light, or sometimes the lack of it, shapes in the landscape, but on a large scale rather than small detail….the little studies below are the kind of thumbnails I make in sketchbooks; they only take minutes and act like a shorthand for composition ideas.
I also like edges in the landscape; places where you can’t quite see what happens next. Here I like the simplicity; the curve of the road, the diagonal flow of the land and the heaviness of the sky.
The strong shapes in the road have potential, as do the spindly trees on the horizon… I want to stress though that I don’t actually use these to paint from, its more that the action of taking the photo in the first place and framing it, fixes an idea for a composition in my brain.
A long time ago, I was involved in illustration, and had to make work that was often super accurate and specific, and I really enjoyed the challenge and discipline of this. My work now is much more about triggering a memory, crystallising a moment; an experience of being somewhere, at a very specific time; it’s very different but none the less challenging and difficult to make. If I worked from photos, I think the danger would be that the personal response, and freshness might be lost….don’t get me wrong, a whole load of great artists like to work directly from images, I’m just saying that its not right for me. The places I walk have a strong emotional and psychological pull, walking is very special to me; creating calm and happiness, excitement in the middle of a storm and peace on an intensely calm day. It’s taken me a while, but now I know that these are the things I hope you’ll respond to when you look at my work.
The gallery below shows some process and development for the atmospheric landscapes I’m working on, and below that is one of the finished pieces, solitude, about a solo walk on a quiet misty morning.
Solitude: The painting above is one of the pieces I’ve been working on…there will be a small collection including this one coming soon-available to my subscribers first. They’ve taken a long time this lot, because they needed so many layers of translucent paint to get the depth of colour and tone I wanted.
One of the things I have always done is make colour swatches, both to practice mixing colours and specifically to mix and record colours for a particular painting or collection. This is so important, for a whole range of reasons, not least because its a huge help if you need to return to a painting after a while, when you absolutely will have forgotten how you made the colours! Until now, I’ve made the swatches in small sketchbooks, and on strips of paper, but something Louise Fletcher said tipped me off to using blank flash cards. They are perfect because they are small white cards, which take acrylic/ oil paint beautifully and they come with a ring and brown card covers so you can make them into swatch books…if you put dabs and names of the key colours you’ve used on the covers, they are a brilliant resource. Above all though, unlike my sketchbook ones, you can open the ring and try colours against whatever you’re working on. Thanks Louise!! Louise Fletcher
The cards I used came from Amazon, but there are loads of suppliers, just have a Google.
…oh and a quick tip, if you find the cards tend to stick together, try either a light coat of varnish (use the one you like for finishing paintings), or rub lightly with a tiny amount of cold wax on a clean lint free cloth. If making the swatches seems a bit laborious, it’s a lovely thing to do while listening to an art podcast, and I tend to use a fairly standard palette of colours, so it’s not at all difficult to make swatches for all your favourite mixes and you can add to them as you go!
I mentioned at the beginning, that we’ve been having some amazing sunrises and sunsets, and because we’re fairly high up we have a pretty much 360 degree view, which somehow intensifies the experience. I’ve developed a bit of a tendency to run outside at 6.00 am in my PJ’s with a coat dragged over, just to make sure I can catch the colours!
All of this has lead to a series of abstract paintings, which I’m working on alongside the collection I mentioned earlier. The colours of both sunrise and sunset, are so intense they can seem too strong; almost fake in a painting, and I’m interested in developing a language that expresses them without being cheesy or too literal.
I hope these will also form a small collection, so here is a little taster:
One of the aspects of running an art business that can be really time consuming, is finding different ways to show your work both in social media posts and also to clients and on your website. There are all sorts of apps around, most of which I’ve experimented with over time, and they vary a lot! Currently I’m really enjoying Smartist App (no affiliate links or anything)…at least in the paid version there is a good selection of room sets, I’d love more frame options, and some less fussy dressing but overall it’s very good and really easy to use…I’m showing a few examples below.
Well I think that’s pretty much all from me now for this month…next time, I’ll be able to share more about the new collections I’ve been working on, and they should also be on my website by then.
I’m keeping everything crossed as I’ve been having terrible internet issues, so hopefully this makes it out to subscribers on time!
Oh and speaking of subscribers! I just wanted to thank all my lovely subscribers and mention that from now I will be making sure that subscribers get the first chance to buy my work on the website, as well as getting first notice of shows exhibitions and courses, so if you’re not signed up…please do!
As always, I love receiving your comments and feedback, and any ideas for things you would like me to cover.
Meantime, take good care and see you next month!
Jo xx
All text, images and artwork copyright ©️Jo York 2023