And Suddenly, it’s winter

Winter arrived with a vengeance last week and then wimped out to rain, which doesn’t really inspire me in my quest for new ideas. The snow and frost didn’t hang round long enough, though I am sure it will be back, probably at a time which causes the most inconvenience to us all.

What happened to autumn, where did it go, it seemed to be over in a flash? The colours of autumn are always an inspiration. Autumn was very busy. a much needed short break on the Norfolk coast inspired a couple of paintings, followed by a very relaxing week in Lanzarote and then a not quite so relaxing week in Kentucky with family where the only art I produced was at the direction of my four year old granddaughter, colouring in a Heart of Te Fiti. She is a big fan of Disney Princesses. All of which is an aside to my quest for inspiration.

My daily walks consist of four destinations: “the plough, “the bridge”, “the sheaves of wheat” or “the brown cow”. All of which sound like I’m on drunken pub walks! Not so. “The plough” is an abandoned piece of farm machinery, possibly an actual plough, in the spot where four public footpaths meet on the old airfield. “The bridge” is an actual bridge over the River Witham, five miles from Lincoln, called Five Mile Bridge unsurprisingly, from where the towers of Lincoln Cathedral can be seen. Sometimes it seems more than five miles, it is very rural here. “The brown cow” is actually two cows, sculpted in metal on the banks of said river and the “Wheatsheaf” is likewise, a sculpture which forms an arch over the water railway, a footpath/cycle way which is on a former railway running beside the river.

All of these things have provided inspiration in the past, not just to me, also to Alfred Lord Tennyson. The base of the wheat sculpture has the first verse of “The Lady of Shalot” inscribed around the base. “Long Fields of Barley” and “Clothe the Wold” are the titles of two of my previous paintings. But I digress. Sometimes the only thing to do is to start painting and see what transpires. Sometimes inspiration comes from within. The painting starts to take on a life of its own. The painting in the blog did not start out to be an autumn painting of trees, but that is what happened. Sometimes you just have to accept the inevitable.