Becoming Blue XII: Pansy - FLAMMOLA

As the world dips into chaos for the second time this year, I am hiding in my secret house painting. Project blue once again has been swept into the unknown, just as it was when I was travelling to Egypt on the brink of WWIII. The weeks running up to  Egypt had me watching the news like I'd never watched it before. This time I am not watching missiles. I am watching countries shut themselves off one by one. Turning off and going dark, like lights going out in the Blitz.

Blue Pansy, 1m x 1m, Watercolour on paper.

One of the many reasons I started the project Blue was in retaliation to Brexit, I plunged myself into the Romantic Movement and behaved as if borders didn't exist. But now there is a new problem on the horizon - a clever virus - and suddenly everything has become much more difficult. With nothing to control the situation but closing borders and shutting oneself away like you would clean laundry in a chest of drawers, I have crept back into my 12th house hole to paint in a house that feels almost as remote as Tasmania. It clutches onto the edge of a national park with no roads and comes with an ancient population of Spaniards. Here I am hidden, here I will weather the storm and work quietly without a car. 

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living." —Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

A posy of pansies

Whilst painting the tight work of the Puya I am simultaneously applying broad washes of bright colours on enormous Pandemic Pansies. I have no idea how they will turn out, the eventual idea was to create an entire wall of them. Something a bit Alice and Wonderland. I like the way the patterns radiate out like hands, like viruses and the way the paint eeks out with 'washes'. They are petals of nostalgia, happy flowers. Gateways, representative of the portals of our hidden transformations. They are botanical butterflies.

Blue Pansy, Watercolour on paper, £100

The name "pansy" is derived from the French word pensée, "thought", and was imported into Late Middle English as a name of Viola in the mid-15th Century. Their other common name "love in idleness" stems from the image of a lover who had little or no other employment than to think of his beloved. In Italy, the pansy is known as 'flammola' (little flame),  and I rather like that. A little flame of hope. Hope in the dark.

On account of its popularity in both society and its recurring appearances in Romantic poetry, a variety of new nicknames for the flower began to circulate. Dorothea Lynde Dix proclaims that:

“Perhaps no flower claims to be so universal a favorite, as the viola tricolor; none currently has been honored with so rich a variety of names, at once expressive of grace, delicacy and tenderness.”  

Many of these names play on the whimsical nature of love, including “Three Faces under a Hood,” “Flame Flower,” “Jump Up and Kiss Me,” “Flower of Jove,” and “Pink of my John.” In Hamlet, Ophelia distributes flowers with the remark, "There are pansies, that's for thoughts."  Interestingly, Margaret Mitchell originally chose Pansy as the name for her 'Gone with the Wind' heroine, but settled on Scarlett just before the book went into print.

With time the Pansy has also become a symbol of two faithful lovers who are separated by distance. This also seems apt under the current circumstances. I know many couples who are trapped in different countries as they ride out the pandemic unable to see or hold one another.

Giant Pandemic Pansy, watercolour on St. Cuthberts Mill paper. 1m x 1m.

I sat on my bed last night looking at three giant pansies, which I have placed purposely at the foot of my bed to remind me each time I wake up that the pandemic isn't a bad dream. Now I think the kitchen is the only room in the house not to be taken up by paintings. As I stare at the three faces I feel incredibly strong and happy and surprised at myself. 'Where did these come from?' I ask myself, just as I had done when I painted a quadtych in Tasmania this time last year. Again it feels like a massive evolutionary jump in my art that wasn't forced or predicted. It just happened. I just found myself playing with water and loosening up after the constriction of the Puya. When everyone's in fear, it seems I am still able to play. I hope these broader brush strokes continue.

I hope to continue this series of giant pansies as the pandemic tells its story. These first three giant pansies are destined for Abbott and Holder this August and will be included in the Blue Flower book which I still hope to publish in 2024.

If you are interested in commissioning your very own original small pansy (pictured 15 x 15cm) message me at mail@inkyleaves.com. They are £100 each.

I am remaining in isolation even though everything is opening up. I am rather enjoying this peaceful metamorphosis. Stay safe and wise. x

Becoming Blue VI: Blue Sun Orchid - HAUNTING II

It’s hard to understand what it is we are capable of until we risk leaving behind what we’ve always known. - Chani

In order for things to begin there needs to be an ending. Here in Australia, I feel that things have slowly come to an end. The studio that I had been using as a base has come to its own end in the form of a lease expiry. The beautiful garden that was just coming into flower outside was packed away before my arrival from New Zealand and all the offices are now empty. As I stroll around the confused space, I find a knot of fairy lights, a coiled hose pipe, the charcoal remnants of a fire and a shovel which cut straight into a mound of fertile compost like a dagger. Everything I looked at on the 18^th December described how I felt. Knotted, burnt out and cut before any cutting had actually taken place. I took a series of black and white photographs with my heart in my throat. I could barely swallow and I felt nauseous. I had a sad feeling that things were very quickly coming to a close and there was nothing I could do but let go of what those four weeks in Melbourne had been. It wasn’t going to be easy to let go, I had become attached.

Australian song: True Blue

Hey True Blue, don't say you've gone!

Say you've knocked off for a smoko...

And you'll be back la-ater on.

Hey True Blue, Hey True Blue 

Give it to me straight, face to face 

Are you really disappearing?

I think I can say quite honestly that I had never been so happy in my life during those days in Melbourne. The happiness was because of a meeting between place, time and the people. It was a meshing, an optimism, a hope. Now, the place was being dismantled, the time suddenly wasn't quite right and the people were also saying goodbyes and I found myself, after a month of being in New Zealand, feeling quite scared and uneasy to what I had returned too. I felt vulnerable, alone and out of synch with everyone. Even my flight from New Zealand had been held back by a day due to four broken aeroplanes. It felt like Australia didn’t want me back. I’d fallen out of the slipstream about as fast as I had fallen into it.

The habitat of a person I had grown to care for very deeply, was no longer in the window of the building. On the last day, only one thing remained - their distant face in the window and an open laptop. Everything seemed distant. The distance of blue. Just as it was in my more recent dreams, I found myself unable to reach them. My time was over. Our time was over, for now.

"Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head 

Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said? 

When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware 

That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair. 

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel 

Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel 

As the images unwind, like the circles that you find 

In the windmills of your mind..."

In my desperate attempt to stay on course, I stomped around Melbourne with a big, blue suitcase and hesitantly filled it with oil paints and painting media, later hopping onto a train which took me back to where I was staying in the suburbs. Stomach tight and feeling jittery, my heart and it hopes once again broken. Grief set in. 

Work in Progress: 'Christmas 2018'. Watercolour and charcoal on paper.

I said in my last post how after conquering one flower, another one comes into my life and alludes me. I finally conquered the Agapanthus and it's agony... Then the Sun Orchid came in during All Hallow’s Eve and it’s taunted me since. Only this time it is far more mysterious. It's a dangerous heady sort of feeling. Slippery, tricky and confusing, like a picnic at Hanging Rock; a bad dream, a puff of smoke.

"You should grow a beard 

A beard to tell a thousand stories never told before 

A beard to tell you tales, whilst the fireplace roars 

The closing of relationships and the opening of doors..."

I often wonder if I could just settle down with a quiet life or if I am now addicted to the highs and lows of whatever this existence is that I seem to be shaping for myself.  I ask why am I pushing so hard? To what end and at what cost? What am I willing to sacrifice and why? A friend of mine has told me to just get on with things actively rather than ask all these questions, but when one finds oneself this far away from anything they know you can't help but ask how you ended up here. It's just who I am as a person.

‘The goal of art is to reveal unearthly life dwelling behind everything, to break the mirror of life so that we may look being in the face’ (Franz Marc).

I spent Christmas in quiet contemplation trying to regain the strength I had somehow lost, whilst preparing to go back to Tasmania on limited luggage. I posted all the materials ahead of me to a house on 'Comeback Road' and laughed out loud as I wrote the address... for that is exactly what I am doing, I am coming back.

Four seasons in a day in North West Tasmania. My view just off of Comeback Road. 

I have been trying to finish sketches, but they are all dead pieces of work. I can't seem to distill whatever it is I am trying to distil. I know that the reasons behind this are because I am not focused - there is too much going on in my head and heart and I am still moving around between B&Bs. I have also lost energy and am full of self-doubt. Usually, I paint from emotion, I either project myself onto the plant or the plant does it to me, but now I am trying to incorporate what the landscape is trying to tell me as well. I feel like a conducting rod with electricity pulsing through it and it's almost just too much. I ask myself, why stop doing what you did before? Why not just carry on interpreting flora? The answer is, I have no idea why - again it's just a feeling that I should consider the other elements. So I am considering the bushfires, the history of a landscape both geologically and ethnographically as well as the story of my heart and the lure of blue.

The Wuthering Heights fire in 2016, by Nicole Anderson

“Many crises in our lives have a long unconscious history. We move toward them step by step, unaware of the dangers accumulating, but we fail to see is frequently perceived by our unconscious, which can pass the information on through dreams. A recurring dream is a noteworthy phenomenon. It can anticipate a future event of importance” Jung. I came to Australia because of a series of premonitory dreams I had between 1998 and 1999. Since arriving here, I have seen the people and places that I saw in those dreams. That in itself has been really hard to digest over the past eight weeks. I clearly don't like the mystical as much as I thought I did. I don't like not knowing how or why I had these dreams. How could I have seen half the things I have seen 20 years before I saw them? All I have to run on is the nodal axis of the moon which is a 20-year cycle and the fact I had my Reiki attunement in these years. Did I accidentally open up a portal through time and place? Or did someone else open it and reached out to me? What on earth is going on?

A friendly reminder of the quote that led me into Blue, and how terrifyingly accurate this quote has now become to my own life: 

"but I long to see the blue flower. It lies incessantly at my heart, and I can imagine and think about nothing else. Never did I feel like this before. It is as if until now I had been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me into another world." 

Novalis, from "Henry von Ofterdingen"

First sketch. Charcoal and watercolour on paper. A5 in size. 

In these dreams, there is no storyline, just places, faces, voices and feelings. I remember after having them at the age of 14 that I’d somehow end up in Australia. It was just a feeling. I was older in these dreams – a young lady. I felt solid – real, alive. More alive than I have ever felt. Stable. Secure in my skin. This is something I have never actually felt in my whole life. I still don’t, but I wonder if the storm I have had to ride out alone this Christmas is the beginning of me finding a way of being happy in myself and secure in my decisions.

Tasmanian Fire

Now, hiding in an AirBnb on Drummond Street which used to be used to house women who wanted to further themselves many decades ago as well as painters who couldn’t afford proper housing, I am reconsidering compositions. I sit meditating and visualising for hours. It takes hours and hours and is actually one of the most exhausting stages to what I am doing. It's how I work. I am aware the clock is ticking, which really isn't helping this deep process but I have to ride it out. 

“What we have to reconquer is the weight of lost reality. We must make for ourselves a new heart, a new spirit, a new soul, in the measure of man. The painter's true reality lies neither in abstraction nor in realism, but in the reconquest of his weight as a human being” (Alfred Manessier).

Tomorrow I will be in 'Marrawah' which means 'Eucalyptus Wood' in Aboriginal Peerapper or 'Number One' and it is where I will be for the next four weeks. I like the fact it can mean number one – because I feel that this is where Blue really begins.

Acknowledgments:

With thanks to the fabulous Amaya for her kindness and guidance over the past 6 months since I embarked on this journey. Thanks to Emily and Chris for their love and care in Melbourne and to Natasha, Bambi, Vida, Tamsin and Poppy of England, my mother and Andrew of Spain, Tiffany of Sydney and Jenny, Elizabeth, Zowie and Sue of New Zealand for their support. Thanks also to Sue of 93 Drummond Street for looking after my canvas, Melissa for letting me use her home in Tasmania, Meg and David for looking after me so attentively these past two months and to Thomas, for letting me be me and for teaching me so much.

Interview on Radio Talk Europe

On a gloriously sunny day in Belicena, Spain I was hiding in my studio talking with the excellent and very talented Ian Rutter, who not only presents, but also writes and paints. 

Leaf  070420170959, Rosa sp.. Watercolour on paper. SOLD

Ian produces an fascinating programme called 'Life Stories' where he interviews non-Spanish guests who have chosen to live in Spain. He discusses their lives in Spain and what they did before they moved and what they intend to do in the future. 

During the programme guests are asked to choose 6 pieces of music that mean something to them. I naturally found this to be incredibly challenging as my tastes are broad and change frequently. In the end I chose pieces that I probably play the most and one that we all know about - the one that actually has the sounds of my own life, Leafscape.

Leaf  090520171506, Conker, Watercolour on paper.  SOLD

The programme is scheduled to be aired this Sunday 12th November at 1pm, and then again on Saturday 18th November at midday. You can tune in on an FM frequency or via the website, and all details can be found here: http://www.talkradioeurope.com/. Once the programme has been broadcast, there is a 7 Day on Demand function on the website, and you can download a copy of the programme via this feature.

LISTEN LIVE on 12th November at 1pm

or

ON DEMAND from 7 days post airing

Leaf  090520171507, Conker, Watercolour on paper, SOLD

Happy listening and a big thanks to Ian for being so encouraging and patient with my ramblings! 

Inky Leaves has been busy

'181120141339' - finished. 
Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus)
I  always like to finish the paintings many weeks after the major painting stint of getting most of it down.
When I finish I don't look at photographs or the specimen.
I instead just look at the painting as a whole and work out what needs correcting by eye.

I am just going to leave you with the pictures and captions today... They say that every picture tells a story and I am going to expand on this - a collection of pictures tells the story that has been this past fortnight! Alas it is Saturday, the day I choose to take off and it is sunny outside, so I will be venturing out for a walk now that I have completed the house work. Hopefully I will find some more leaves!

'181120141339' - close up 
Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus)

'181120141339' - close up
Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus)

'300720150946' - still being worked on. Another few layers went on this week...
Indian Bean Tree Leaf (Catalpa bignonioides)

'150620151536' - still being worked on. Another few layers went on this week...
This one is very difficult to do as I don't have the specimen in front of me, my sketches aren't to scratch and neither are the photographs. This is slowly becoming a large imaginary leaf!
Giant Rhubarb Leaf (Gunnera manicata)

'041120151206' - Had a bit more done on her this fortnight too. This one is really dark and so it's taking a lot of time as I don't want to cake it in one layer of thick watercolour but rather apply the layers slowly to create some depth.
This leaf is in my pressed collection.
Grape Vine Leaf (Vitis vinifera)

I was also working on '041120151203' last week.
This one is a killer because I am not a huge fan of the paper texture.
This is from one of my pressed leaves that I collected a couple of months ago
Poplar tree (Populus nigra)

'041120151203'
Poplar tree (Populus nigra)

Ruby Ricin

Botanical illustration of a Ricinus leaf, on the drawing board, when I last photographed it

It's been a productive time in the Inky Leaves studio and once again 'time' is doing it's own thing and not obeying the simple laws of logic. Luckily for me, time is moving very slowly, at a moment when I thought it would be zooming past. This is excellent news as not only must I be enjoying life to the max (I feel like I have crammed in a lot), but I must still be managing to keep up a good painting pace. All I have to do now is paint out three more 'medium sized' leaves before the second week of May and I am on track. This is how one does thirty six pieces in 12 months. 

Artist at work...

Up close - work in progress on the Castor Oil Plant (Ricinus communis)

This fortnight saw the birth of a ruby-coloured ricin (castor oil plant) leaf called Rina. As a juvenile leaf she has this fantastic purply-coppery colour. I love the leaves of the castor oil plant; they always look so menacing, if a little creepy. The new leaves are very sculptural and can appear almost metallic in the way they reflect the light. Whenever I see them I always think of Karl Blossfeldt (click on link for latest exhibition tour dates) and feel that he would have liked to have done something with a Ricinus leaf. Astonishingly, I first decided that I wanted to paint this species back in 2006 when I ran away from Edinburgh for a weekend in Paris. I remember seeing a clump growing in the municipal gardens of Les Jardines des Plantes and decided there and then that I would at some point paint it. Of course during those days I wasn't really a painter - I was studying for my Masters in botanical taxonomy - and it wouldn't be for another ten years when I'd finally get round to it. I am happy it took this long - it's given me the space to not only work out how I wanted to depict it, but also to develop the skills required to do so.

Studio shot for a sense of scale (Ricinus communis)

Ricinus communis leaf - work in progress

So there you have it - Ricinus. I am not sure if you have noticed yet, but I haven't been posting any pictures of the leaves finished. If you want to see them finished, you'll have to come to the show! I will update you as to when this is nearer the time, but it is likely to coincide with next years RHS London Botanical Art Show.

Moving on from deadly plants...

This week the weather has turned a bit cold and 'mis' here in Spain and we have snow forecast, although it looks more like hail at the moment. The swifts have arrived in some areas and the daffodils have just come out into bloom. Surprisingly, the bulbous plants here are much later than the ones in the UK and I can only put it down to our cold nights. So naturally this inclement weather has kept me focused - staying indoors rather than sloping off outside. I am slowly climbing the mountain of 36 pieces in a year. The plan is to also paint six pieces for 2017's RHS show this summer, which will hopefully take me to the first week of September, when, if all goes well, I will be painting 15 smaller pieces on vellum whilst touching up the other 15 larger leaves. I realise it's an insane painting programme, but it is not fun unless it is bonkers. Last night, in theme with the effort required to climb piles of plant-based work, gigantism and being slightly mad I dreamt I climbed a Seville Orange. I was smaller than the size of a pithy dimple, which I hasten to add, were like craters. It smelt fantastic as I dug my heels into the skin and clawed my way up to the top stem. I managed to complete the climb, which I am taking as a positive omen and wasn't too exhausted as the fragrant oil was invigorating.

Vine Leaf

With the sky now lobbing balls of ice at my window, I have managed to start another leaf called Victoria. It's a decaying grape vine leaf (I don't blame her, it's freezing outside). There are some fantastic colours in this one which I am very much looking forward to describing with paint. 

New piece - work in progress - decaying grape vine leaf (Vitis vinifera)

Working on the grape vine leaf 

News Flash

Talking of grape vines, I have heard on a vine made up of grapes that there will be another Mrs. Delany exhibition.  Will keep you posted as soon as I have more info but I sp0tted the news as a tweet on Angie Lewin's feed - printmaker extraordinaire. 

Inky Leaves on the BBC's coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show

Hopefully, with a bit of luck, Inky Leaves should be making a small appearance on the BBC's coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show at 19.30 this evening (Saturday 28th May) on BBC2, although it's not certain.

Carol Klein asking me some questions about the Brighter Blooms display

After spending a couple of days painting the flowers, the BBC found me painting. I did make a teeny appearance in the background of Carol Klein's piece on Tulipomania on Tuesday afternoon when I was painting on the Bloms Bulbs stand (28 30 minutes in). However, for Saturday's programme I am hiding amongst the Zantedeschia's which had been beautifully arranged by Brighter Blooms.

BBC crew shot...

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Chelsea and recommend it as an adventure in painting to all botanical artists. The traders and growers are very helpful and were happy to have me painting and asking lots of questions. It is the perfect place to find speciality growers for projects. I learnt a lot during my time there, not only about horticulture but also about botanical art and the painting process. I was left feeling a little stunned at how fast tulip flowers open and had to find a way of capturing them quickly. I also learnt how important it is to have shadows - I really missed them when hiding in the Grand Pavilion which filtered so much of the light.

During my time there I took an A3 fat pad of the new Botanical Ultra Smooth paper which was kindly gifted to me for the event by Burts. I really enjoyed painting on this paper and prefer it to all other choices for this type of sketchbook work. I will be publishing a review of the paper soon.

Now I am back in my UK studio I am busy cracking on with my large leaves for the upcoming exhibition 'Leafscape' at the Abbott and Holder Gallery in London. Please email me for details mail@inkyleaves.com.

Big thanks to Burts, the RHS, Brighter Blooms, Bloms Bulbs, the BBC, Alex Prendergast (aka Punk Botanist) and Jamie Denyer for making the day possible and to Carol Klein for guiding me through the process.

Cristina Duclos

Saw her work, it's botanical and therefore I'm sharing it:

Cristina Duclos ©

Cristina Duclos ©

Cristina Duclos ©

Cristina Duclos with her work