A Big Gap...

I've been away from blogging as my Dad died last week.

It was all a bit sudden and I'm still a bit bewildered by it all...

I love this photo which was taken when he was about 5.
So, nothing much to say, I'm afraid, but here is what my eyes have been looking at...

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...and my Dad's pride and joy; The Screaming Baby making friends with the fish!

Where the rust and water went...

Well, I've put my fear and fascination of rust and metal in water into my recent paintings.

I'm a bit of a fiddler, so these may not be quite finished...or they might be...I have to live with them for a bit, but I've really enjoyed the process of creating them, which has taken some time: because there are so many layers, I've had to be really patient letting each one dry, whilst trying to keep them looking wet...

...and this is one below I've been playing with for a while, (some of you might remember it in a slightly different way, from an earlier post 'Up Close and Underneath');
It's become a lot murkier over the last few weeks!

Fear, Rust and Loathing in Lost London...

I am so drawn to the Thames, to the sea, to all things tidal, and yet I have a fear; a phobia connected to it.

One of the comments I had about a painting I'd done of the underneath of a boat, has prompted this post, which isn't really an explanation, but maybe an illustration of why I try and paint what frightens me.

For a start I've found that when I paint something with the fear and strong feelings I have about man-made objects in water, particularly metal things, somehow it seems that I leave some of that emotion lingering, and people appear to appreciate it, even if they don't feel the same...maybe that emotion enables them to be led to visit other deep places ?...who knows...but my phobia fascinates me, and just as I think it's all ok, and I'm fine with rusty boats... I suddenly get the fear.

I took a walk along the Thames yesterday and saw some fantastic and odd things. The Thames is so difinitively London and so not London at the same time.

However, The Thames terrifies me; it's lonely, grey, old, full of rusty working vessels, and it seems to hide so many things under it's deep grey shroud; an historical London which we see broken fragments of on the shoreline, and the fact that it's calmly yet constantly hiding death...or maybe that's just my phobia!

Anyway...the walk started out in a civilised way, and when you work out what this says,...you'll laugh I'm sure!

A wonderful piece of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott design: see the telephone kiosk resemblence?

...and there was a pedestrian diversion near Blackfriars, and can you believe NO ONE stopped to look at this apart from me. It is hidden in an awful industrial corner, surrounded by vandalised 'hazardous chemical' warnings...

I think it's utterly amazing and so beautiful

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...and this kind of made me think of Elaine

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And the rest...well, the rest is just rust and fear...the industrial, lonely, chained, boat persisted in worrying me, but it was the piping further down that was the final straw; I was nearly crying and feeling really rather sick, so I called it a day after that, and made a hasty retreat!

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