Almost chickened out of going to the studio today seeing 2 inches of snow outside and plummeting temperatures. But I’d been looking forward to painting having been busy doing other stuff for much of the past week.
So, quilted overalls on (of which my hubby is very jealous) and calor gas heater going full blast I actually had an enjoyable few hours working on 3 small pieces on paper I’d started last week. When fingers got a bit frosty I blasted them with the hairdryer I use for drying off acrylics.
These three works continue the series I’m currently developing in response to coastal erosion on the North Norfolk coast (mainly around Happisburgh), which I wrote about in my previous post. I’m attracted to the colours of the crumbling cliffs and broken structures littering the shore – ochre clay, pale stones, rusting metal, concrete etc, set against the shadowy land slips below the fields above. For these small paintings I used acrylics, gouache and inktense pencil on watercolour paper – I sometimes use a smoother paper or board support, but here I like the grain exposed by the dryish edge of the dragged paint.
My solo exhibition, from 24th March for one month at the Grapevine Gallery, Burnham Market, North Norfolk, will feature these three works alongside other larger pieces in the series and several new reedbeds paintings. Below are a few of the earlier stages of these small paintings.
Mari French RI : contemporary artworks 