Category Archives: landscape

Type cast…

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Detail of ‘Clearing’, mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023
Detail of ‘Clearing’, mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023

Thinking about the use of typography in my abstract landscape painting…

Portions of newsprint and large fonts, calligraphy and scratched lettering – I’m finding it increasingly satisfying to use these in mixed media work. Lately the challenge has been to source larger found type for recent bigger works on canvas, as the contrast in scale is important. Smaller newsprint still works as texture, but large bold lettering adds the impact I need, adding an exciting graphic element, supporting and strengthening the composition and tonal contrast. Fortunately I recently found a suitable source and swooped on it and my work table is now awash with torn out bits of newsprint.

Studio workbook with newsprint and collage. Photo © Mari French 2023.
Studio workbook with newsprint and collage. Photo © Mari French 2023.

I’ve been drawn to typography since I was a design student at Stockport College in the 1980s. I seemed to have a facility for it and loved using it as a design element in its own right.

However, recently I’ve been considering other possible roles the use of typography might be playing in my recent works; what it may be subliminally evoking:

The dialogue in my head, inner thoughts as I explore the landscape on location, and also as I conjure up my experience and impressions in the studio.

Overheard speech from other people moving through and using the same landscape – walkers, photographers, nature wardens, fishermen, shellfish farmers, etc.

The apparently wild, natural landscapes are corralled by mostly unseen by-laws, ownership and tenancy agreements, environmental legislation governing its use, and more.

The invisible incessant dialogue of phone signals, radio waves, digital information, criss-crossing the air over most landscapes, whether wireless or via masts and telegraph wires.

New work, mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023
Untitled new work, mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023

Of course I’m not suggesting the content of the lettering that I use is relevant (apart from calligraphy, the content of which comes direct from my sketchbooks). The choice is random, although I suspect certain portions of text may ring a subtle bell with me, or just intrigue me, when I select it.

The train of thought I wanted to pursue in this post though, is that almost all landscape is affected in this manner by human language and numbers of some kind; a pervasive element in some ways as worth acknowledging as weather and light. The realisation intrigues me and in some ways will continue to inform my work into the future. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.

‘Clearing’, abstract woodland landscape in mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023
‘Clearing’, abstract woodland landscape in mixed media on canvas. © Mari French 2023

Revelations in the reedbeds …

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For the first time in months I went out sketching last week on the north Norfolk coast at Thornham, with its salt marsh, tidal creeks and reedbeds. It was a gloriously sunny day for November and (thankfully) I decided I couldn’t face the shady studio or staying indoors in my north-facing house on such a day.

There are many reasons I’ve left it so long – I used to go out sketching each week and it was (is) an important part of my practice – but the truth is I just got out of the habit. Yet I felt so much clearer-headed and brighter once I was treading the familiar sea defences looking out to the horizon and down over the winter reeds.

Despite the cold wind I found a little shelter in the sunlight next to a pool almost hidden in the reedbed, below the path. While a late dragonfly hovered in the sun and a large fish leapt out of the still water, I precariously balanced my sketchbook on a fence rail and set to work…

…and it is this point I’ve been thinking about since. I always tell myself and others that it’s the light and the landscape that compels me to paint; that I’m trying to instil in my mind what interests me in the scene, so that later I can retrieve and distil the impressions into a piece of studio work.

I still believe this, but now I realise it’s too simple an explanation – it doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s the pleasure I take in pausing to contemplate how I’m going to ‘interpret’ the scene whether with watercolour or acrylic ink; the joy of brushing water across the white page, into which I’m going to just touch the black ink block and watch it bleed out swiftly into the wet, or trail a loaded ink dropper through it and see the colour bloom swiftly outwards; the experience that, after years of trial and error, I now know that by moving a purple-grey ink into the wet area further down it will bleed upwards into the black, where I watch it pool and spread or run off wildly in a different direction; how colours will mix and back run.

This also happens whatever medium I’m using in the studio. There comes a point quite early in the process where I forget the original inspiration and an all-consuming pleasure in the media takes over; whether it’s dragging acrylic paint across a prepared canvas with a big brush, pasting selected newsprint onto the work, scratching marks into wet paint, or scraping colour away to reveal stained texture below.

Of course, like all artists, there are times the process doesn’t work for me and pleasure turns to frustration, but when it does work there’s nothing like it.

Playing catch up…

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New Autumn sunflowers series. © Mari French 2021

I can’t quite believe it’s so long since I last posted in this blog; where has the time gone? The past few months have been a particularly busy time for me in the studio, not least creating three new series of work:

new Cornish paintings inspired by a sketching trip to St Ives, Cornwall in April (see previous post), some of which were exhibited at Gallery East, Woodbridge, Suffolk this summer;

a fresh take on my salt marsh obsession, in acrylic inks and soft pastel. This time I’ve been inspired by the mirror-like pools and creeks scattered over the salt marshes and grazings. I exhibited several at Norfolk Open Studios in September/October and four are currently on show at ’Littoral’, a group exhibition (until 21 November 2021) at Little Buckland Gallery, Broadway, Cotswolds, a new gallery (for me) and one I’m very excited to be showing with;

and last, but not least, my current series inspired by a local field of fading autumn sunflowers, one shown above, which I’ll tell you about in my next blog post soon!.

Below is ‘Cradled sky’ one of the new salt marsh works in acrylic ink and soft pastel, at Little Buckland Gallery, and below that ‘Unfolding coast’ which sold from my open studio. Check out more of this series on my website here.

‘Cradled sky’, ink/pastel on paper, 29x29cm. © Mari French 2021
‘Unfolding coast’, ink/pastel on paper, 21x29cm, SOLD. © Mari French 2021

Another event that took up lots of time was preparing for Norfolk Open Studios. I opened to the public for three long weekends in late September, early October. This was the first time I’ve opened my ‘new’ studio at West Raynham airbase to the public and I’m happy to say it was pretty successful, with the sale of several paintings, collagraph prints and lots of art cards.

I really enjoyed meeting art lovers, artists, friends and neighbours, plus new collectors of my paintings! So much so that I’ve now decided to offer to open by appointment – just email me at art@marifrench.com if you’d like to visit. The studio is at West Raynham Business Park, near Fakenham, North Norfolk, UK, NR21 7PL.

At my open studio in September/October, Norfolk Open Studios 2021.

Going back to the Cornwall work, I later produced a set of five collaged panels that also developed from my sketching break in and around St Ives, in April this year. I loved working on these cradled wood panels (50x50x3cm), they take multiple layers of media very well and don’t need framing. In these I’ve made extensive use of collage elements; cornish newspapers, tide tables and my own calligraphic notes to add texture.

The proximity of water © Mari French 2021

I love the contrast of the wild Penwith coast with its small rocky coves and energetic tides crashing in and out; a contrast to the usually calmer North Norfolk coast close to where I live. I haven’t exhibited them yet and all five are still available. You can see the full set on my website at www.marifrench.com

Sea language © Mari French 2021