I LOVE winter, I think it’s the most beautiful season especially on those wonderful crisp, clear and frosty days when everything seems to sparkle and shine. However, it can also be dark and quite frankly a little dismal especially as we head into January with the excitement of the festive season behind us and Spring still a long way off. But, looking on the bright side, now that we’re past the winter solstice the days are getting longer and lighter and there’s more and more fabulous winter sun to enjoy. Incidentally, one of the first exhibitions I was in after graduating was called Winter Light, but that was a long time ago now!
I’ve always been interested in shadows in my work and hence interested in light as you can’t have a shadow without a light. Recently, especially since moving to the seaside, I’ve become even more intrigued by light and how I might capture it in my work. My camera roll is full of pictures of the sun breaking through the clouds, light bouncing off the water and the shine of the low sun on the wet shore. Often, when I go down to the shore to watch the birds the wet sand looks like liquid metal and on still days the sea itself shimmers and shines like a precious metal.
I’ve been experimenting with metallic paper, trying to capture something of this effect and I’m excited by the possibilities. I will hopefully be showing some of this work in the near future but I’ve included a couple of pictures to hopefully pique your interest. I’ve been using bits of metallic fabric and thread in my work for a while and it’s something I keep coming back to. It could just be my inner magpie coming to the fore but I like to think it’s a little more meaningful than that!
If you want to see work by an artist who really understood light then you’ve just got time to see Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery’s fantastic ‘Turner: Northern Exposure’ exhibition, on until 5th January. Included in this exhibition are several large watercolour studies (personally I think they deserve to be called finished paintings) made by Turner on his tour of northern England in 1797. I was blown away by these pieces, they are full of energy and movement and look as fresh as if they’ve just been painted. The ‘proper’ watercolours and oil paintings are beautiful and very skilfully executed but it was these studies that stood out for me.
I’m not the only person to think that these studies are Turner’s best work. I recently went to see a talk by Andrew Graham Dixon (broadcaster and art historian) and was delighted to find that we had similar views on Turner. It was a very entertaining talk and gave me lots to think about. But before I get onto thinking there’s just time for another mince pie, a walk on the beach and a few more snaps of that winter sunshine.
Helen Walsh – www.delicatestitches.co.uk.
