Who talks in riddles, who talks in reasons?

Three recently finished pieces which are now hanging in the Pembury:

Underwater Lights
(with Stefania Bounajuti)
Acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"
For sale (£90)

( details )




Sea Flowers
(with Lizzie Louise Sudbury)
Acrylic on canvas, 8" x 8"
For sale (£50)

( details )




Fire Dancer
Acrylic on canvas, 8" x 8"
For sale (£50)

( details )

Many, many thanks to the three artists who contributed to the above. They are as inspiring and talented as they are lovely, and making pretty things with them has been one of the best parts of the last year. More of that please :)

Stef and I started this painting on Sunday night. It was late; we were both tired after a long weekend, and we weren't trying to do anything ambitious. It's not finished yet - we want to add more fine detail - but the overall shape is probably not going to change too much. The working title is an in-joke - I don't know if it'll stick :)

Synaesthetic Culture
approx 15x15", acrylic and glass paint on board

Btw, promiseclean: is this the sort of thing you were thinking of for your commission? No worries if not, just pondering options :)

Stef came round on Wednesday to stay up all night making a big painty mess, which is something I haven't done in far too long. I finally got the chance to play with the beautiful set of Chinese watercolour brushes which oxfordgirl and mejoff gave me the winter solstice before last, and which I've carefully carried with me ever since, but been too scared to start using them without feeling like I knew what I was doing. Stef randomly gave me two similar brushes (although without the cunning changeable tips), a roll of linen-soft watercolour paper and a block of ink, which were the missing ingredients I'd been waiting for. She also gave me the confidence to just start messing around with it all, reassuring me that it wasn't sacrilegious to use them without knowing the proper brush forms.



Working with beautiful tools has a pleasure all its own. The ink block is embossed with gold and resisted all our attempts to grind it. We tried knives, a pestle and mortar, even smashing it with a hammer, but it appeared to be made of iron or something. We eventually resorted to tipping a bit of water into a saucer and scrubbing the end of the ink block into the water until we got the dilution we wanted, and then basically using it as a watercolour block. The ink has a dry, musty smell reminiscent of mouldy bread.

I made a pot of fruit tea to drink while we were painting, which had a beautiful dusky dark pink colour in the cup. "I want to paint with it," I said in confusion, "but I also want to drink it!" Eventually I realised I could get another saucer and tip some tea into it. The pink colour it left on the paper was lovely and subtle and changed as it dried, fading from a warm crimson pink to a pale rose.

Tea Dragons
Ink and tea on watercolour paper, 28" x 18"
(with Stefania Bounajuti)

They aren't sure which way up they prefer to be, so I've given each of them the limelight in turn.