I’m showing you this drawing that I made last Saturday in a garden at Grassington, Yorkshire, England just to show that I haven’t abandoned my beloved nature whilst exploring the Medea theme. I wasn’t tempted by the wonderful ‘views’ at the spot, but chose this little hosta patch in the corner of the garden. The leaves wobbled in the breeze and some had holes and were a bit tatty. This interested me though, they were still beautiful and all connected to the same roots and plant. A bit like us really! The plant made a wonderful dome shape. I’ll share a photo of it next.

Hello everyone, have just posted the new drawing in the Medea series that I made this Monday. I’m still exploring the motivation behind Medea’s terrible revenge. Have been looking and listening to various musicians and singers responses to doomed love. Janis Joplin’s song ‘Ball and Chain’ which she performed at the Monteray Music Festival really resonated. Janis did not turn her longing outwards into revenge, but really ended up destroying herself. She’s given us some really powerful work. The quote on the drawing is from the song. Like in the ‘Hurts so good’ quote on my previous drawing, it articulates the bewilderment at this sense of betrayal, and an honest if simplistic take on the situation.

I’ve just posted a large A1 drawing that I made two weeks ago in response to the Greek Myth of Medea. This comes from a collaborative request from a group called Artipeeps in Cambridge England. Some artists and poets are going to choose selected books from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphosis’ to illustrate either visually or with the written word. I’ve set myself the task of making a drawing every weekend exploring Book Seven which is the story of Medea’s love for Jason, the finding of the Golden Fleece, his betrayal of her and the ultimate murder of their sons by Medea in an act of revenge. This is a huge and very dark subject, but very interesting. I am also exploring a more up to date interpretation, but am in the very early stages of doing this. The next post shows this take on the story. It uses some text from Susan Cadogan’s 1975 hit ‘Hurt so Good’ The lines seemed to resonate with the Medea story. Sonia Boyce the artist used them in an installation too. I did a workshop with her many years ago at the Glasgow School of Art and really liked the idea of exploring the use of text with drawing. I’ll share the drawings I did at the workshop in my next blog.

Here’s the original sketch of the closed waterlily from the still-water where the motif originally came from. It was made in the morning as we were camping and I had noticed the waterlilies the day before ,and thought they would make a wonderful motif for some painting. A truly memorable summer weekend.

This is a small acrylic on canvas that I made in the summer of 2006 in response to a small sketch of a closed waterlily on a still-water where my brother does his flyfishing. It was a beautiful summer weekend when we were there for a barbecue and party. This sketch was made the following morning when the flower was closed. I’ll share the drawing it came from in the next post. I find I often only need to make the smallest sketch of the motif, and that together with the memory of the initial inspiration is enough to make a painting.

I’ve just shared an older piece based on a mosaic that I saw in the ceiling under the main terrace at Park Guell created by Gaudi in consultation with Jujol the glass maker. It was a riot of colour and invaded the senses on so many levels. This was like a cool cave of artistic jewels on the ceiling filled with these masterful mosaic and glass discs. It was a huge welcome relief to be in there after the heat of the day in the park itself. We were there in August, and it took us some time to accclimatise to the heat. We would often go out sketching in the heat until we learned not to the hard way after a bout of mild sunstroke! A truly unforgettable holiday. I just thought it would be good to share this after the glorious days of sunshine we’ve been enjoying in the U.K. Real gratitude and appreciation for this, we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like, how it affects state of mind, attitude, everything.