Capturing the Force of the Sea

The Grand Pier – Karen Stone

 

The approach to Aberystwyth from the east necessitates the crossing of twenty miles (from Llangurig onwards) of open, undulating hills sparsely dotted with signs of human habitation. These hills divide the mountains of Snowdonia to the north from the smoother landscape of Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire to the south, dissecting Wales across her lightly populated middle.

The journey is at its most glorious in winter, the hills glistening with the whiteness of fresh snow. For me, the destination is a coastal university town that drops to the Irish Sea with a riot of architectural fashions and people. The seafront is predominantly high Victorian, a ghost of a late 19th Century tourist boom that left whisperings of grandeur in the architecture, and at its centre, Aberystwyth’s grand pier reaches out into the relentless waves.

Pleasure piers hold a fascination for me, both as an artist, with the marriage of manufactured engineering and earthly elements, and as a studier of people, desiring both the engineered fun and the wild experience. At this moment in time, it is tired and, like the hotels and guesthouses, echoes days of sunshine, ice creams, and pleasures, now long past. However, like vinyl records, I can’t help but hope that the seaside pier will one day have its renaissance!

My painting is captured during the winter – my favourite time, as the waves drown out the squawking of seagulls, and the structures of the pier brace themselves against the harsh elements. I don’t even contemplate setting up an easel, but follow Turner’s lead with a sketchbook. Luckily, there is a strategically placed pavilion that offers just enough cover to sit with my watercolours for a time.

Drawing is fundamental to all art, whatever the discipline. It makes you look, if you do it properly, and to study your subject, you must get inside its head. I must have stood and studied the grand pier many times, yet this is my first painting of it. The sketch was drawn on a relatively calm day, with the watercolour painted straight onto paper with no pencil (drawing doesn’t dictate the use of pencil) and the time period was decided by the attention span of a small terrier, apt to make mischief when bored.

The sketch sat in my plan chest for two more years of visits to the pier, each time making mental notes and repeatedly taking the same photograph from a slightly different angle. A visit in December gave me the sounds – the sounds to put into the paint.

The most difficult part of the artistic process is bringing the art piece to life – it is as precarious and ephemeral as conception, and its individuality and ability to communicate can be wiped out with just an overenthusiastic sweep of the brush or carve of the palette knife. I started with an accurate drawing, taken from a photograph, the purpose of which was not to collect a photographic representation, but because I knew if I messed up the proportion now, it would greatly irritate me later on.

When I transfer the drawing to canvas, I have an essence in my mind that is neither the sketch nor the drawing, but is an intuitive feeling formed from a combination of the sketch, the reference photograph, the experience of standing on the seafront, and my own identity This is the beginning. For the entire time I paint, I must be in the painting.

When approaching how to capture the sea, it’s hard not to think of the works of Joan Eardley and Dawnne McGeachy.

 

Joan Eardley painting the sea

 

Joan Eardley was a Scottish artist, born in 1921, and is noted for her portraiture of the street children of Glasgow, and for her landscapes of Catterline, a fishing village in north east Scotland. She stayed at a simple cottage in the village, with no running water and no flushing toilet! Her work seems to respond to her subject rather than representing it – she painted the sea directly from its source, often strapping her easel to large supports on the side of the harbour, so that the resulting works became soaked with spray, literally including the natural elements in the finished piece. Eardley died of breast cancer in 1963.

 

Dawnne McGeachy

 

Dawnne McGeachy is also a Scottish artist, who is currently working. She studies the forces that make waves, using mathematical equations and the Beaufort wind force scale. She sets out the working of each wave state using the scale, then paints directly on top, encapsulating the mathematics within. Her fascination with the sea began as a child, growing up on the Kintyre Cambeltown Peninsular in western Scotland, and hearing the stories of her fisherman father. However, McGeachy holds a deep fear of the sea, knowing its dangers from her father’s stories, so, unlike Eardley, most of her process takes place in her studio.

In The Gallery Window – Flowers

Watercolours of Flowers:

I always love to draw and paint flowers form life rather than photographs and it is often watercolour that I choose to work with. An unforgiving medium watercolour requires patience and best results are often obtained by spontaneity and minimal application. The simplest of brush strokes can give vibrancy and beauty that can be difficult to achieve in other heavier based paints.

Cherry Blossom
Faded Tulips

 

Daffodils

In The Gallery Window presents different works every few weeks in the window of t the gallery at  York Place for passers by to enjoy.

In The Gallery Window

This week the gallery window at 16 York Place is showing Beach Huts a small oil painting by the late Ruth Burden.

Ruth had her studio in central Worcester and I am privileged to both have known her and hold two of her small paintings. Ruth studied in Birmingham and Bath under such greats as Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and William Scott and her work is still in galleries and collections.

She had the ability to capture everyday life, including people, with a humour and sensitivity that made the stylised forms utterly familiar.

Beach Huts (I have named the painting as it came to me after Ruth’s passing) captures the sun and the sea and the vast expanse of the coast, making us, the viewer, feel so small. I love the simplicity of the figures, small yet gestural and the warmth from the Naples Yellow sand. The beach huts grounding the painting, informing us that this is a landscape that we choose to frequent. The painting is simply lovely.

Ruth lived and worked in a large house on the edge of Britannia Square in Worcester and at the end of her life moved to Windmill Close which culminates York Place. Beverly Schofield’s account of Ruth Burden’s life was recorded in The Guardian in 2012 you can read it here https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/26/ruth-burden-obituary

Clearance Sale of Works

In order to free up space for new work I am clearing out some drawings, paintings and prints. Most have been produced as demonstrations to classes but some are pieces from ideas that I no longer wish to pursue.  I have tried to price them very reasonably (most between £5 and £30) and on the more expensive I’ve added a ‘make me an offer ‘ tag.  I’ll add them as I sort them so watch this space!

‘Cottages on Hill’ 24cm x 11cm Watercolour £25
‘Dandelion Patch’ 15cm x 20cm lino cut £15
‘Three Pears’ 16cm x 13cm watercolour £10
‘Pink Flowers’ 20cm x 15cm Watercolour £10

Paint With Me

Paint With Me is a series of designer colouring packs and kits that make fantastic stocking fillers or small gifts.  From Funky Pheasant to the delicate Rudbeckia sunflower there is something for everyone – perfect festive holiday entertainment.

Karen has developed them specifically as an activity of creative fun for all ages. Absolutely no artistic ability is required as all drawing, colour choices etc are supplied. Full instructions are provided in an attractive colour brochure with a little twist at the end for the more adventurous.

Funky Pheasant
Rudbeckia
Poinsettia
Robin With Rosehips

Packs contain 2 A5 preprinted sheets and 2 greetings cards to colour, envelopes and full instructions.

Kits contain the above plus set of watercolour paints, brush, water containers and mixing palette.

Ordered direct from Karen Stone Art the packs are priced at £10 each and the kits with paints, brush and all materials at £25 each.

Summer Newsletter 2020

 Hello everyone and I hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe, and sane, in these strange times.

Basil and I have been enjoying the lock down working in the studio (me) and going for walks (Basil). What a strange time it has been, I’ve really missed meeting up with people both socially and through teaching so I thought it was about time I touched base with everyone and tell you what I’ve been up to.

I was very fortunate at the start of lock down to receive a grant from Severn Arts to complete a project over May. My Project “The Sketchbook Project” contained work from both myself and others who put their sketchbooks forward. Principally I concentrated on things that were unique to lockdown; Basil, zoom dance classes and an unexpected bunch of flowers. You can read more about the project in an earlier  news item. I was also fortunate enough to receive a commission for the lovely Bertie, the dachshund.

Bertie Sketch

Whilst the impossibility of running face to face classes has been frustrating I have dipped my toe into the world of zoom and virtual learning (something I never thought I would do) and the two classes I now run have proved to be great fun and as one student pointed out participants get direct tuition in a greater quantity than in a normal class. Fortnightly is a general drawing and painting class Projects.  

Every Wednesday evening is a portraits class.

Independent Woman

 

As normal classes will almost certainly not resume in the near future please get in touch if you feel you would like to try a virtual class. That said I am hoping to organise some outdoor sketching and painting, with social distancing, so again get in touch if you are interested . Here is a picture from a session last year.

 

Outdoor sketching

I have been busy working on my own work with new works in watercolour including some experimental ‘playing’ based on the works of Turner. 

Clouds

I have now linked my Etsy shop to my Instagram, there is not much on there at the moment but I will be adding more things covering a range of subjects and prices and following my Instagram page is the best way of keeping in touch with what I am working on so please feel free to follow me.

Finally, as a bit of a detour to my usual free flowing paintwork I have been working on some marketing material for some beautiful new homes in the Cotswolds. As you can see – not finished yet!

Cropthorne

Keep safe everyone and keep in touch!

Karen x

 

Sketchbook Project Results

Cottage Garden Flowers

The final piece from my first Sketchbook. Inspired bymy unexpected gift of a bunch of flowers and  the beautiful works of Elizabeth Blackadder. Watercolour on Two Rivers paper.

Sketchbook 2 is based on my faithful and hopeless studio assistant Basil. He has been my constant companion through the lock down period and he is thoroughly worth the replacement of chewed up studio equipment, 

Basil Sketchbook

The sketches were taken from both life and photographs (as he cannot keep still. The one of him running is from memory. It has been my joy to see him run – he is very fast! Below are the paintings of Basil. All acrylic on board and 6″ x 4″ in old money.

Sketchbook 3 was inspired by the Zoom dance/keep fit Classes offered on line – I never normally get chance to do these – offered by Dancefest they involved 30 minutes of me flying around the studio in various, far from elegant, poses. The book is based on the first dance delivered from the lovely Lis Winter, from Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. I will just add that the costume was added by myself. 

 

Finally we come to the overall piece. This is my work that represents this time in lockdown and isolation with fear of the COVID 19 virus. It is a still life (no surprises there for those who know me) and to brings together the thoughts from my sketchbooks and how art has been used to represent society in history.

 

Inspiration

The Nature Morte still life tradition came into its own in the mid-seventeenth century. Later the French were to use the term to suggest layered symbolism and reminders of the transience of life, with its ever present threat of death. The dancer sketchbook reminded me of Poussin’s painting A Dance to the Music of Time the painting that also inspired Henri Matisse to paint dancers. So my painting started life based on the painting below.

Matisse Still Life With Dance

The dancers were originally shown – maybe they will go back in at some point – paintings are never truly finished until they leave my keeping.

About the painting.

The flowers represent both the transience of nature and sharing company, recognising social distancing, in my garden. The bowl of fruit is indicative of normal life that will, in time, decay and this combines with the symbolised lemons, taken from a jug bought at The Range, shown beneath the flowers that will remain forever as an interpretation (Matisse uses the real and the represented in his work). The coffee cup and its surrounding rectangle, the latter the size of an iPad, represent my son in isolation in Aberystwyth. The carton of vitamin D  pills (bottom right) represent my daughter who has had to stay indoors for this entire time. The chair (top left) with pink cushion represent myself and my dog set in isolation, hence the large space surrounding it. The rose pink box around the whole painting suggests an imprisonment that is not bleak or without future. Finally the dark blue square, behind the flowers, was added to balance the composition but perhaps it is a reminder that life shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Contemporary artist Nick Pace proposes that a still life should contain each of the following:

something ephemeral – flowers and fruit

something permanent – my studio setting

Something of low value, but great personal value – the coffee cup and box of vitamin supplements representing my children

something new – the pattern on the table cloth showing lemons was taken from the picnic jug.