Tag Archives: art

Early signs of summer

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Signs of Summer by Molly GarnierThe painting shown here is Signs of Summer, and depicts a scene of rural England I’m instantly drawn to, with a familiarity that’s irresistible. I love the sense of energy in it – you can feel the breeze racing the clouds along and casting their shadows fleetingly over the sunlit land.

For Molly Garnier, the artist of this painting, capturing views like this is second-nature. “I loved art from a very young age, especially painting,” she says. “It was my favourite subject at school and I was extremely lucky to have a very good art department and access to all materials at school.”

She vividly recalls going to see some huge Jenny Saville paintings when she was 17. “I remember thinking that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to create paintings that had an impact and struck a chord with people’s emotions and thoughts.”

Molly graduated from Edinburgh College of Art, where her primary subject was painting the female nude.

“It wasn’t until five years later when I moved back to Norfolk with my husband that I started painting the landscape,” she says. “I remember being totally amazed by the huge skies that Norfolk has and the magical beauty on my doorstep. I love trying to recreate an atmosphere and reflect how it feels to be in that place at that chosen time.”

Long country and coastline walks are an essential part of this process. “I usually take my camera and sketch book,” she says. “I try to add small pockets of detail and sharp focus and play with the ethereal quality of the light.”

Her preferred material is oil colour. “I use some large nylon brushes and then small fine line brushes for detail,” she says. “I always paint on wood that I have primed. I love the very fine grain of the wood and the way you can see brushstrokes and rub back.”

Marsh Light by Molly Garnier

Marsh Light by Molly Garnier

She continues to paint nudes as well. “I did life drawing at Art College and studied the masters such as Caravaggio and Degas,” she says. “I went on to do my degree show about the impression of voyeurism and looking upon an intimate nude scene. I love the skin tones and the way the skin can seem to glow.”

Molly says that unless she picks up a paintbrush during a day, she doesn’t feel quite herself. “Painting makes me feel complete – it’s my therapy,” she explains. “I paint a lot of commissions, mainly of a chosen landscape that’s personal to the client and I really love seeing people’s faces when they receive the painting.”

She adds: “I’ve been extremely lucky to exhibit in over 80 exhibitions and sell a vast number of works that hang in people’s houses. It makes me very happy to know that my work has created an impression on someone.”

Tide Walker by Molly Garnier

Tide Walker by Molly Garnier

Molly exhibits regularly at Lime Tree Galleries in Bristol and Long Melford. She’s represented on the online Affordable Art Fair site, and is  an artist at The Gallery in Norwich and Cromer.

Find out more at mollygarnier.co.uk.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judy(at)socketcreative.com.

Solar etching with Luella Martin

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In The Woods, solar etching by Luella MartinThickets, forests and ocean views appear in Luella Martin’s art, but the true focus is the light. Using it both as the subject and the means, she creates images that appear to exhale the quiet of rural spaces.

It’s a curious contrast to a childhood in central London, but is perhaps explained by an abundance of time spent in galleries, where certain paintings become familiar friends.

“My mother used to take me to lots of art exhibitions when I was a small child,” she says. “I especially loved going to the Tate Gallery (there was only one in those days) and I always had to visit my favourite Mondrian. One day we went to a large Renoir show and I was dazzled by the explosion of light and colour – I decided then that I wanted to be a painter.”

At the time she was about five or six years old. “I remember spending hours in my bedroom drawing vegetables and kitchen utensils!”

November, solar etching by Luella Martin

November, solar etching by Luella Martin

She discovered solar etching during a weekend workshop “with wonderful printmaker Dawn Cole” and was hooked immediately.

“The workshop was arranged by Ian Brown at Volcanic Editions in Brighton,” she says. “It’s a great workshop where I’ve enjoyed exploring different techniques and editioning my prints. I am very lucky to have met some lovely generous people who’ve helped me on my artistic journey.”

Big Sun, solar etching by Luella Martin

Big Sun, solar etching by Luella Martin

Instead of using hazardous chemicals to create an image, solar etching relies on a light sensitive material which is exposed thought sunlight and developed with tap water – both ingredients that most of us have easy access to.

Watch a short film about how Luella makes her solar etchings.

“The thing I like most about solar etching is it’s versatility,” says Luella. “You can adapt the process to suit any style of work. Because it’s a non-toxic process so you can make the plates anywhere – I’ve exposed plates in my back garden!”

Horses By The Foreshore, oil on canvas by Luella Martin

Horses By The Foreshore, oil on canvas by Luella Martin

Beyond her garden, Luella finds inspiration for her etchings and painting in the landscape of the South Downs and coastal areas of Sussex. “I visit the same places very often and always notice something new,” she says. “I try to see it at lots of different times of day – different weather and different light define the atmosphere.”

Life as an artist is a joy, she says. “What could be better than messing about with paint? I feel very fortunate to be able to spend time in my studio making new paintings and prints.”

Luella is showing her recent solar etchings with Cameron Contemporary Art in Hove until 19th February 2017 as part of the show Edition 2017. She will be opening up her studio at Phoenix Brighton over the weekend 12-14th May 2017.

Find out more at www.luellamartin.co.uk

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judy(at)socketcreative.com.

Re-envisioning the world

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Rose Temple by Abeer ElkhatebThrough the eyes of artist Abeer Elkhateb, the world assumes a majestic splendour. With Fantastical turreted cities beneath fabulous skies, the scenes look like glimpses from exotic fairytales, a dramatic contrast to his ultra-realistic bronzes of entwined figures.

This contrast of styles takes me by surprise, but talking to Abeer Elkhateb makes it clear that there’s always been a touch of the rebellious about his art.

“As far as I remember I was about 10 years old. For no reason at school, I was just painting and painting and painting,” he says. “It got me into a lot of trouble at that time and it sent me to jail at a later age.”

When he was 16, Abeer’s uncle Abdallah Alkhateb (a PhD Historian and artist) took me under his wing in a way and opened his massive library to my eyes, which allowed me to be introduced academically to the art and art history.”

Following that, Abeer says, art became a way of life,  “or I can say it is my life.”

Abeer has developed a very particular way of working. “Every five years I take a new path and start building everything around it,” he says. “The last project I worked on was based on reverse-ism. I took some well known physical laws like gravity, perspective, fundamental construction and turned them upside-downs, inside-out.”

Observation and imagination both play vital roles in this process.

“I love Albert Einstein’s statement that logic takes you from A to Z, but imagination takes you anywhere,” he says. “In many case I’ve wondered about the borders between reality and imagination, wondering if my imagination created the world I’m in or if the observed world by me created my imagination. Do thoughts really become reality?”

Abeer mentions painting places he’d thought were dreamt up in his imagination, but then later coming across those locations in the real world.  “I also have ongoing dreams – when they come they just continue where they stopped the previous time, as if a different dimension of me lives in a different world. I use those dreams as one of the sources of my artwork.”

As a result, many of his enchanting scenes are re-envisions of real places, such as St Michael’s Mount in France, Port Isaac in Cornwall and various parts of Germany.

Transforming a nebulous idea into a work of art is part of the excitement.

“I love it when a new idea is about to come up,” he says. “First thing is drawing or outlining the idea and if I need to perform and film the performed concept, I do.”

Once this is done, he can concentrate on painting or sculpting, according to the form of expression that feels right. “Basically I let the idea grows organically. Many of my recent works are in 2D and 3D alike.”

Lovers No.4 by Abeer Elkhateb

Lovers No.4 by Abeer Elkhateb

Abeer has  been experimenting with materials since the seventies, “from scrap material  found in the streets, metal, wood, clay, wax, plaster and bronze on the sculpted production and oil colour, watercolour, ceramics, textile, etchings and mosaics. I think what I want to say is material and skills are always working side by side and when they don’t, I feel that I’m being challenged and that is exciting because it pushes me into the unknown territory. At that stage I feel there is something to explore. So, I don’t really prefer particular materials – it’s the concept that informs me.”

Abeer can’t imagine his life without art. “I came to England from the war zone in Baghdad,” he says of his struggles to survive as a man and an artist. “I’ve failed in so many things in my life as well as succeeding in many others; I’ve had my ups and downs, been crushed and stood up again,” he says. “But even at the craziest times, paper and pen were always somewhere beside me, either in my pockets or in my bag. Paper and pen act as a reminder to myself that I am an artist. Recording experiences helps me see how every day, every experience, every breath is important. That is love itself.”

Lovers and Child by Abeer Elkhateb

Lovers and Child by Abeer Elkhateb

Abeer Elkhateb’s Imagined Worlds is on at Skylark Galleries 2, Unit 1.09, First Floor Riverside, Oxo Tower Wharf, London until 19th February 2017. Find out more here abeerelkhateb.wordpress.com and www.skylarkgalleries.com.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Painting Iceland

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Icelandic View by Judy DarleyIf you know me, or if you’re a regular visit to SkyLightRain.com, you’re probably aware that my obsession with art is growing increasingly consuming. I’ve even begun creating artworks of my own, attempting to capture my responses to the views around me.

My trip to Iceland earlier this month was particularly rich in visual fuel – snow, skies, rocks and unfamiliar textures abounded. I came home with a headful of impressions, and rather than simply translate these into words, as I usually do, I have made efforts to churn some of it out in the form of art.

After carrying out a few sketches, and watching a wonderful ‘wet-on-wet’ Windsor & Newton watercolour masterclass, this is what I came up with.

It’s not quite what I see in my head, but it’s far closer than I expected to get, which makes me very happy.

Exploring the unknown through art

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Sandcloud crop by Sara EasbyToday’s guest post comes from Sara Easby, a wonderful artist, teacher and dreamer who I discovered exhibiting her Icelandic artworks at the Grant Bradley Gallery late last year. She talks us through the things that move her to paint as a means of exploring the unknown.

Drawing was always my favourite pastime as a child and I was very imaginative.

I thought I was going to be a nurse like my mother, but then when I was 13 someone told me it was possible to be an artist when I grew up. I went to Saturday morning art classes and then to the local art school at 16. It never occurred to me not to be an artist after that, and I really believed I wouldn’t be able to do anything else.

One morning an artist friend Francesca Bellingierie Maxwell and I were having a coffee and we both agreed that we’d always wanted to visit Iceland and that May was the best time to go. Discovering that the moment was right we set off the following week on an impulse. This was very unusual for me, but I had got stuck with my painting and teaching, so wanted a challenge and focus. The challenge was driving all the way round Iceland. I’m a timid driver! And the focus was just simply to fill a sketchbook.

I’m not interested in copying nature, or in representational landscape personally. That’s not my reason for painting. Much of my working life has been in designing for theatre and teaching people drawing, mainly life drawing so it doesn’t mean I don’t value those things. But painting has become a way of exploring the unknown and a kind of meditative practise I suppose.

The experience of being in Iceland gave a feeling of being right on the edge of the world and of actually becoming a part of nature. It was amazing to feel that feeling of nothing. Suddenly everything seems possible, and I came back with a lot of energy to make the series of work.

Dark Broiling by Sara Easby

Darkbroiling by Sara Easby

Our lives are made up of layers, so I’ve been exploring this in painting and drawing for ages. Earlier on this worried me thinking that each time I went back to something I was changing it because it was wrong. But gradually I realised that there was no right way, but that change was what it’s all about. Eventually you have to stop a painting when it feels ‘finished’. It has to stop somewhere if you want to share it with other people.

Gold Circle by Sara Easby

Goldcircle by Sara Easby

I use anything and everything to draw and paint with – anything that will make marks. This is what I was taught and what I hope to teach others to do. Oil paint is one of my favourite medium because it has a quality of deepness. I never want to be sure of the results, because, as Picasso once said, what’s the point of doing it if you know how it will turn out?

I teach a lot of art workshops because teaching has always been a means to make a living. I have never had the luxury of just doing my own work. Running workshops is good because people come who want to be there and it’s a way of exploring together.

Paledrips painting by Sara Easby

Paledrips by Sara Easby

It also always makes me question what I am doing. Making art is rather solitary and I like people, and you need a balance. I’m actually rather passionate about the importance of creativity in the world. It’s deeply satisfying when you see people connected through making something they can do.

What I love most about my life as an artist is that you never stop learning, and I love learning!

About the author

Sara Easby, artistSara Easby trained in Leeds, at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. She’s worked as a designer for productions at the Royal Court Theatre, London and Bristol Old Vic, and has taught design and drawing at the Universities of Bristol and West of England as well as running workshops for students, animators, artists and anyone interested in exploring their creativity. This includes teaching life drawing to animators at Aardman Animations, originally for their training programme for Chicken Run.

All images in this post are from Sara’s Iceland series. To see more of her work go to: www.sara-easby.com.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judy(at)socketcreative.com.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive guest posts and reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Dreaming landscapes

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Clifton Suspension Bridge by Bill Ward Photography

Clifton Suspension Bridge by Bill Ward Photography

Photographer Bill Ward has a talent for capturing images that have a natural painterly quality. Playing with exposure length, light and shade, as well as framing to enhance the abstract elements of an image, he takes commonplace scenes and makes them magical.

It helps, perhaps, that he has years of experience behind him. “I’ve been taking photos off and on since I was six,” he says. “I started off with an old Kodak Instamatic, which was – happily – pretty much idiot-proof, and I took photos of all sorts of things.”

At that time, his subjects included cars and dogs, “nothing particularly meaningful, but when I look back now at some of the photos (pretty much all of which I’ve kept), there are quite a few landscapes and seascapes in there, which is interesting.  A bit blurry and wonky, but definitely there…”

Bill bought his first proper SLR film camera (a Praktica MTL 5B) before going travelling. “I took it round the world with me.  It was a fully manual film camera, totally solid, and pretty much indestructible.  A complete beast.”

He describes cameras as the perfect travelling companions. “I like how you’re never alone with a camera,” he says. “It always gives you a purpose, a reason to be anywhere.  I used to sit in markets for days, soaking it all up, and just peoplewatch.  I loved it.”

Rainbow Falls by Bill Ward Photography

Rainbow Falls by Bill Ward Photography

Bill is perhaps best known for his acting work, which includes roles in Coronation Street (where he played builder Charlie Stubbs for 280 episodes and three and a half years), and Emmerdale, where he acted the role of farmer, James Barton. His camera, he says, offers a sense of stability between roles.

“About six years ago I had 3 months waiting on an acting job, to see whether a TV pilot we’d made was going to make it to series – it didn’t in the end, which was a shame,” he says. “I was wondering what I could do usefully with the time, so I set myself my first ever proper photography project, bought myself a Digital SLR off eBay, and set about trying to capture Winter, as seen from the beach.”

For three months, Bill devoted himself to trekking up and down the East Coast of England, “in the snow, the hail, the rain, you name it, with my camera. At the end of the three months I had a much better set of photographs, and I’d enjoyed myself far more, than I’d ever imagined I would.”

Bill’s next acting job following this happened to be at The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, where he noticed photographic and art exhibitions staged in the theatre foyer. “I took a very deep breath, pitched the idea of an exhibition to them, was astonished when they accepted, and things have kind of gone on from there, really.”

Wave, Storm Katie by Bill Ward Photography

Wave, Storm Katie by Bill Ward Photography

Prior to all of this, Bill spent a decade Bill working in advertising Industry, and I ask him how his time in that sector influences his photographic eye.

“Good question, and not one I’ve considered until now,” he comments. “At a purely practical level, I spent a couple of years as a Strategic Planner at Saatchi and Saatchi, and one of the accounts the agency had at the time was Pentax, so I was able to buy myself a very capable camera at a very decent price. I still use their cameras to this day. But from a creative point of view, one of the many unsung qualities of Advertising is the “singleminded-ness” of many of the best ideas. Much of the skill of advertising is working out what you’re trying to say, in as concise a way as possible – the endless pursuit of the true ‘essence’ of a thing, and then trying to say it as honestly and as freshly as you can.  I’ve definitely taken a bit of that with me into photography.”

In Search Of by Bill Ward Photography

In Search Of by Bill Ward Photography

These days, he says, his acting roles and photography projects “tend to dovetail really well. Acting is defined by a number of extraordinarily busy periods, when you’re either filming a really busy storyline, or putting a play together in a few weeks, and you simply don’t have a minute to spare. It’s totally all consuming.  There’s no time, and importantly no brain space either. But either side of those pretty intense periods, there can be a fair amount of slack.”

He explains: “I’ve just finished a three-year stint up in Leeds on Emmerdale, and one of the joys of that job was using the time I had when I wasn’t filming or learning lines to investigate the spectacular raw material that the Dales has to offer. It was a quite extraordinary time and I still feel very privileged to have had it.”

Photography offers a more psychological benefit too. “I do find that photography provides a real emotional release – a chance to spend time with Mother Nature, plug in, and let her do the rest.”

I love the dynamism of Bill’s work – his images are packed with energy.

“I suppose I’d describe my work as unashamedly emotional – I’m particularly interested not just in the places I go, but trying to capture how it felt to be there,” he says, attributing that urge to his travelling days. “From a photographic pov, I’m interested in specifically how it felt to spend this particular time, with this particular place.”

He adds: “I try very hard not to impose my will too much on what I see around me (although a bit of that is inevitable, and I suppose what differentiates you, in the end), rather I suppose I’m trying to see what the landscape has to offer on this particular day, see how it makes me feel, and try and take a photograph of that meeting point, if you see what I mean.  With greater or lesser degrees of success, but that’s the aim, anyway… It does mean I tend to do a fair amount of experimenting on the edges of the photographic spectrum, eg with Intentional Camera Movement (ICM), Multiple Exposures etc. I’m just trying to find ways to capture as accurately as possible how it all felt.”

Holkham Beach by Bill Ward Photography

Holkham Beach by Bill Ward Photography

Landscapes and seascapes are his genre of choice for a number of reasons. “I love its purity, its ‘in the moment-ness’, and how you can be completely immersed in a place, or a time, and just give yourself over to it,” he says. “It’s a very good balance to the hurly burly of everyday life, and the perfect antidote to the day-job.”

An interest in history, as well as his love of travel, feed into this.

“I definitely tend to find I take the most rewarding photographs in places to which I have a strong emotional attachment – not always, but usually,” he says. “That can come from a number of different things: my own personal interests (history is a big one for me – I have a degree in it, and a nose for it, I enjoy sniffing it out), but also going back to places I used to go on holiday growing up, or places I’ve always wondered about but never had the chance to get to. I would definitely class myself as much a Travel Photographer as a Landscape Photographer for that reason. I enjoy the being in a place as much as the photographing of it.”

Bill relishes the “unpredictable nature” of living a life based on the creative industries. “That can be a double edged sword, because with unpredictability comes a colossal amount of insecurity, but the plus sides are overwhelming positive,” he says. “The one thing you tend to get a fair amount of is time, and then it’s just up to you as to what you choose to do with it.”

Bill currently has collections in galleries around the UK, including the Contemporary Six Gallery in Manchester, and the Mick Oxley Gallery in Craster, Northumberland, “so you could pop in to see them if you happen to be passing.” He’s also a regular contributor to the Pentax Facebook page as he is now an Ambassador for the brand.

Find more of Bill’s work at www.billwardphotography.co.uk.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Striding out in style

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Walkies Wesley by Bridget Davies

Walkies Wesley by Bridget Davies

With a swish of ink, artist Bridget Davies conjures up the very best dressed characters you’re likely to see. From ladies who gather at posh parties to sneer about their competition, to gals striding out with their perfect pooches in tow, her scenes capture glimpses of a bygone era, when waists were nipped, hair coiffed and heels precariously high. Looking at her work makes me think of a jazz club in a Stephen Poliakoff play or the glamorous soirees in Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

For Bridget, the love of drawing began early.

“I do believe it began when I was a child, and I liked to make paper dolls, all with an array of outfits to fit any occasion,” she says.

Showing Off by Bridget Davies

Showing Off by Bridget Davies

She began to take the potential of fashion illustration as an art form when a visiting lecturer who worked in this field led part of her fashion degree.

“I’ve always loved drawing the human figure, both of males and females, but this was different,” she says. “I developed a strong fascination for fashion illustration and drawing. I’m not sure why… maybe it is a prolific blend of the different elements that come together, to produce a successful painting; competent observational skills and draftsmanship, good graphic awareness, and the playful playful, flirtatious narrative.”

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes by Bridget Davies

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes by Bridget Davies

Bridget has also always loved illustrations from the Forties and Fifties. “I’m influenced enormously by the elegant and beautiful fashion drawings by illustrators of this period, as well as contemporary fashion artists and illustrators working today.”

To me, Bridget’s images often resemble stills from a film, mid-way through some dramatic episode.

“I use a slightly voyeuristic approach, as a fragment of a stranger’s conversation or passing comment made by a lover can be the catalyst for a whole series of ideas,” she confesses. “Combining with ideas from literature and conversation, I use the genre of fashion painting to create scenarios and characters and, with what I can best describe as visual anecdotes, telling secret stories of how I feel about my presence and desires.”

The central protagonists are usually female, she says, due to there being “an element of self-projection in my work.”

She also uses eveningwear and the glamour of her characters as a means to explore “the lengths we go to in order to impress and express attraction and desire.”

Favourite Cutlery by Bridget Davies

Favourite Cutlery by Bridget Davies

It makes sense, regarding all that, to see several of her artworks hanging in the kitchen of a character in the most recent series of Cold Feet! Though these examples are part of her Heavy Metal series, which succeeds in making cutlery and whisks look unexpectedly elegant! In case you want to follow suit, you can find the range at King and McGaw.

Drawing from another aspect of her degree, Bridget also loves to create stunning silk scarves that double up as works of art. “As my degree was in fashion and textiles, I’ve done a lot of work using fabrics,” she says. “I also wanted to work on a product that could be framed as I love seeing silk squares in a frame.”

Recent collaborations have included projects for The Shard in London, John Lewis, Anthropologie and Ikea. She says she enjoys collaborations for the opportunity to experience “a different way of working and problem solving. It’s sometimes a good change to have a direction dictated from an outside source, and can be quite challenging. Also, to be led in a direction that I may not have previously considered helps develop my artwork and ideas overall.”

Naughty Henry by Bridget Davies

Naughty Henry by Bridget Davies

Being a full time artist is an ongoing thrill. “I love creating. My brain is in a constant whirl. Ideas, ink, paint… It’s all so exciting, and I never feel jaded or fed up! I’m a very lucky girl.”

Find more of Bridget’s work at www.bridgetdaviesart.co.uk, as well as in London galleries such as Catharine Miller and Panter and Hall.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Urban sketching with Liane Tancock

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Dower House by Liane Tancock

Dower House by Liane Tancock

Tangles, twigs, feathers and nests make up much of Liane Tancock’s beautifully intricate drawings. Sketching and walking through the natural wild areas in and around Bristol, Liane captures a sense of the rural within the city. Trees often appear on her pages, but just as frequently it’s the smaller details that gain her attention, and so she

“I have loved art from an early age but growing up I didn’t realise that I could be an artist,” she says. “I thought artists were the famous people you see in museums and in books. I carried on pursuing my love of art undeterred.”

Seeing Karl Weschke’s Leda and the Swan on a trip to Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery fired up her determination to pursue art as a career. “I decided being an artist was the path for me – I was so moved by his painting that my course was set.”

Flight by Liane Tancock

Flight by Liane Tancock

Ooh, I just spotted the bee in the above artwork! Liane’s drawings are full of exquisite details to be sought out and celebrated.

Choosing nature as her subject came about just as instinctively. “Since childhood I have been fascinated by nature. My grandmother instilled in me a great love of the natural world. I spent a lot of time collecting objects off the beach and on our walks, and this is something I continued throughout my life into adulthood.”

When studying for a Fine Art BA, Liane regarded herself as a landscape artist working in oils, and followed this path for many years. “I spent most of my days painting on site on the coast at Barry Island. It wasn’t until years later while living in Devon that the collecting I had done since childhood and my love of the natural world would come together cohesively in my art.”

Nest in the Brambles by Liane Tancock

Nest in the Brambles by Liane Tancock

It was a stroll along a Devon lane that shifted Liane’s focus. “While walking my dog on a blustery autumn day, I found a fallen nest blown down from the winds,” she says. “I returned with it to the studio and decided I needed to return to the beginning and just start drawing. All the found natural objects I had collected over the years became my world.”

Liane believes that what she was seeking in her work “lay at the very beginning of my art education, the simplicity of finding wonder in all the objects people walk by every day, unseen, hidden in the hedges and in the leaf litter. And all the tools I needed were a pen and a piece of paper.”

Second Chance by Liane Tancock

Second Chance by Liane Tancock

Liane says that going back to basics in this way and celebrating the small, unnoticed objects was very freeing, a sensation only enhanced by the materials she uses.

“My tools are very simple,” she says. “I use Bristol board paper for studio work and sketch books for my sketching work. I use mainly dip pen and ink and occasionally Fineliners. For onsite sketching, I find fountain pens and Fineliners the best for catching the immediacy of a moment.  So much can be captured with just one colour and a piece of paper.”

Discovering hidden places is an added pleasure.

“I have found that Bristol has lots of woodland amidst very urban areas and places of such history amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life,” she says. “It’s a city where you never know what you’ll find around the next corner. I find it exciting to not know what I will discover next to sketch.”

Being a member of an urban sketchers group has led to more discoveries. “It has shown me so much more of Bristol and has given me the opportunity to discover more sketching sites at places that I wouldn’t have immediately thought to go to sketch.”

Translating the atmosphere of a place onto paper takes a particular frame of mind.

“My studio work has its own pace and each drawing is a lesson in patience,” says Liane. “However my sketches are done quite rapidly. When I reach an area I wish to sketch in I take in all the elements around me.  Sometimes associations pop into my head – it could be a remembrance of a poem, a film I have seen or a beloved book. I find the right spot just hits you and I try to draw how a scene makes me feel.”

At My Feet by Liane Tancock

At My Feet by Liane Tancock

Liane is keen for the viewer to experience the scene fully. “I want the viewer to feel the canopy of trees reaching over their head, feel like they can hear the birds hiding in the bushes that they have travelled with me and are seeing what I see. I always write a piece on my artist Facebook posts to describe my adventures out and about, to take my audience with me on my sketching trips.”

Recently, Liane took part in an event raising funds for the Alzheimer’s Society. “I have been lucky enough to meet some wonderful artists while living in Bristol,” she says. “Wendy Calder is an amazing ceramicist who holds annual open studios and raises money for the Alzheimer’s society. I was honoured that she asked me to join her and some fellow artists to show at her open studios. Having been a care assistant for many years and having my grandmother suffer from Dementia, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s.”

She describes the sadness of watching her grandmother “who was always such a strong figurehead in our family”, become unable to care for herself through memory loss and confusion. “Even her personality changed. Alzheimer’s and dementia makes you feel like you are losing a person slowly, piece by piece, as the person you once knew so well, changes before your eyes. Someone not recognising their own family is so painful for all involved. So I was deeply honoured to be asked by Wendy to take part and help in any way I could.”

Liane says that she can’t imagine her life without creating art. “I love feeling that I’m always at play with my subjects, and that I can create my own universe. I enjoy sharing my love of the natural work with others and seeing people start to observe the world around them in a different way – a rich, often overlooked world of leaves, bees, moss, feathers and lichen! My life is so rich, for having art in it.”

See more of Liane’s work and information about forthcoming events on her Facbook page www.facebook.com/lianetancockartist

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Enter the mind of Angela Carter

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The Misfits by Nicola Bealing

The Misfits by Nicola Bealing

Author Angela Carter put her own twist on many traditional fairytales, as well as dreaming up her own unsettling stories that hark from ancient fables. In celebration of her askew imagination, the RWA is hosting Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter, an exhibition of artworks inspired by her writing, as well as original cover art from her novels and more.

After The Masked Visitor by Lisa Wright

After The Masked Visitor by Lisa Wright

Eerie, beautiful, thought-provoking and discombobulating, the pieces on show include Marc Chagall, Paula Rego and some truly luscious works by Leonora Carrington, as well as plenty of others that seem selected to haunt your dreams and stir your imagination.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Marie Mulvey-Roberts of UWE, and the artist and writer Fiona Robinson. Among my favourites were works by the wonderfully macabre Heather Nevey (below), and an understatedly unnerving oil painting titled Grandma’s Footsteps by Angela Lizon.

The Murder 1 cr Heather Nevay

The Murder 1 cr Heather Nevay

Other highlights include the chance to see Angela Carter’s photos, pens and other artefacts. For me the best part of all, and the most alarming, was stepping through a curtain into a gallery populated by strange figures with outlandishly large egg-like heads, seated around a table where a naked, terrified man lay prostrate – an installation by Ana Maria Pacheco titled The Banquet.

Wonderfully, while some of these works were inspired by Carter’s fiction, others, such as Chagall’s work, helped to fuel her creativity, while others still sprang from similar ideas, proving what a rich conversation visual and written works can enjoy.

Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter is on at RWA, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1PX until 19th March 2017.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Free up your creativity

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Paledrips painting by Sara Easby

Paledrips by Sara Easby – www.sara-easby.com

I’m a great believer in the energy we can derive from creative mediums other than our own. My comfort zone is writing – spooling words together to create stories, narratives, or images in the mind. It fires me up and helps me make sense of the world.

Listening to music can influence this, while baking or any kind of physical activity, from running to dances, makes ideas pop in my mind like mustard seeds in a pan of hot oil. And art has been the starting point of many of my creative written works.

Over the past couple of years I’ve been moved to dabble in making my own art – splashing a bit of paint around or doodling scenes as they form in my head. I’ve begun attempting to draw the views in front of me, or focus on small still lives, in an attempt to get my body to wake up the muscle memory laid down when I drew and painted copiously as a teenager.

But it’s been so many years since I last took an art class. Or at least, it had been.

Last Tuesday I strolled over to the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster to see Sara Easby‘s BRÆTT (MELT) exhibition, inspired by Iceland. The work was raw, elemental, and enthralling. I wanted to know how to capture emotions the page as she does.

Then I discovered that the very next morning she was due to teach an art class at the gallery. I sent her an email and she promised to squeeze me in.

What a wonderful experience. Two hours of freedom to ink, paint, glue, scrape and create.

Artwork by Judy Darley

It connected me to my emotions in a way that reached beyond words – such a liberating change! Creative writing cannot exist in a vacuum – we need to experience life and part of that is to experience art. As enjoyable and moving as it can be to view it, to make it is far more vigorously inspiring.

It doesn’t have to be visual art, of course. You could learn to play the drums, or take up ballet, join a stitch and bitch group or even enrol in a Spanish language class. All these things exercise parts of the creative mind that writing along cannot reach.

To get you started, Sara is co-hosting an Art and Writing Workshop on 10th December from 10am till 4pm with Nigel Gibbons. “This will be a chance to enjoy both creative forms, exploring these two ways of working, and allowing them to interact,” says Sara. “The aim will be to enjoy a space to be creative. No previous skills or experience necessary.”

There is a charge of £20, which includes some art materials. For more details, or to book a place, contact Sara on sara@sara-easby.com or Nigel on 077 40 200 991. The venue is Cotham Parish Church Hall, Cotham Road, Bristol, BS6 6DR.

Who knows what riches it will help you to unearth in your future literary works?