Through the eye of the telescope

The falling eagle is coming on after a good session yesterday. Almost prefer it as a white silhouette. Will need to add more descriptive detail into the forest beneath. Sky looking good.

The most recent watercolour is the least successful. The first is still the best and the shortest in terms of execution!

Cityscape studies

The first in a series of watercolours painted from outside our top floor flat in Deptford. The wind whistles, the birds make a right racket and the paint just moves and swirls..whatever the weather!

New Year, new work

We are back living on Crossfields estate in Deptford. We managed to move in before Christmas after a few days staying at my parents where we enjoyed a bit of heavy snow!

The flat is small but tidy and suits us fine for the time being. The one thing that is hard to get used to is the sound of traffic 24/7. Maya nearly getting hit by a car running a red light and witnessing a phone mugging brings you down to earth with a bump! It has been great seeing loads of friends and going out. London has changed a lot in a short time.

The photos above and below are showing the progression of my latest painting featuring the lightning-struck eagle I saw before leaving Portugal. It was such a powerfully metaphorical image that I had to capture it visually. It took time finding the right eagle image (I will also be using images of it from memory). It is a collage of 4-6 different landscape photos from around where we were living at Moses. On the 3rd photo you can see the lightning cutting across the composition, opposing the diagonal of the treeline. The borders will have a dark, circular telescopic effect: really hard to paint! This will need a lot more work. I should add in the drawings and watercoulor studies too.

It has been a good first couple of weeks back at Welling school. I feel lucky to have got straight back into a job (albeit slightly different) at a funny time of year. The welcome from staff and students has verged on overwhelming! It feels wierd teaching in a media room (Nina's old room) but it has actually taken that long to adjust. Teaching film studies is great, though preparation and planning needs more work. The current unit is British film from a macro perspective and I've selected Clockwork Orange and Harry Brown. Taken a trip to the BFI on the south bank for a seminar on the evolution of Hollywood and the studio system. Fairly basic, but still really informative with clips from Dark Knight, Memento and the full viewing of Sherlock Holmes. The latter was surprisingly good. Took some getting used to seeing Holmes portrayed by RDJ on a occasions like a cross between Charlie Chaplain and Jackie Chan!

The melancholy of departure

So, all good things come to an end. During a tempestuous storm on 7th December the decision was made. We were going back to London. It was an intense last two weeks of heated discussions, tears, visions (most notably a falling Eagle struck by lightning) and dreams. We went round saying our goodbyes, starting with the lovely Winter family. It was hard to do after 4 wondrous months but this was it. I will miss the stream, the wind in the trees, the shadows, the birds, the insects, the light, the big landscape, then sunsets, and all the other memories of fresh outdoorsy life. Mas nao pod ser.

Violet's teachers wept when we told them we were leaving and only then did we realise what a bond they had ll formed with Violet, kids included. We all cried loads, especially when after taking us out for a leaving meal they showed us a powerpoint of all Violet's moments since starting! Gulp!
The trip back up through Portugal and Spain was smooth until we needed petrol at midnight 100km from Santander with all the petrol stations shut and it had started to snow! Fortunately we found a nearby hotel in a small skiing town to stop for the night.

After stopping for a few days at my folks, we were lucky enough to move into a flat on Crossfields estate in Deptford. The flat is bijou but clean and tidy with less stuff in than we normally need so it will be 4 months of a more streamlined existence unti we move back into our house in April.

Yesterday I spoke to Floresdocabo and have now booked the exhibition in Sintra for mid-April. Bring it on.

102: Tues 7th December

The big bird falls slowly;

Lightning pauses,

the bell in my head tolls.

Building and mindmapping

94: Mon 29/11

Snow falls as a silent blanket,

Covering the mountain road.

95: Tues 30/11

Dogs bark into the morning

Drops dangle golden from

the olives.

96: Wed 1/12/10

Orange tail flash

of an unknown bird -

How to paint water over stones?

97: Thurs 2/12/10

Orange eyes glint from the

hole - Snake, lizard interrupted.

98: Fri 3/12/10

Jewel-encrusted windscreen

Finally melts. Later we see

Kestrels and storks.

99: Sat 4/12/10

The man peers from the cracked pane

My pen scratches to record his pose.

100: Sun 5/12/10

Plump robin is replaced

by a screeching grey bird

Endless rain resounds.

Energy and inspiration

So the old tilting tree had to be felled. The process involved much deliberating and risk assessment until Andy, Josh and I finally decided to go for it. Josh and I were positioned along the path with a rope and Andy choosing his spot to diamond cut and slice. Crack and fall. 4 weeks of wood. Sweet as.

The last three days have involved me refining my chainsaw and axing skills. Zen and the art of the swing. Half a ton of wood chopped in an hour is pretty satisfying...until you try to build a fire and you haven't any opened pinecones. It is all a fine balance! Caz has been busy photographing the olive harvest here at Moses that started for real yesterday on a sunny saturday. The cold and frost have come, the ideas have come, the energy is flowing, and a week of rain starts tomorrow. Time to plan, prepare, build, draw and consolidate.

89: Wed 24/11

Old listing tree is felled.

From afar the forest

Looks unchanged.

90: Thurs 25/11

Fifty years in these

Trunk rings stacked

Like a pile of giant sweets.

91: Fri 26/11

Sandy colour in the light

black jagged shapes underneath.

Vulture skims trees.

92: Sat 27/11

Relieve the trees

of their bounty -

here is your olive branch.

93: Sun 28/11

Frosty logs and grass

The green gold hillside

Winter sunlight gently short.

Back to the sketchbook

85: Sat 20/11

Trackside trees bow

To the flash of

The axe and saw blade.

86: Sun 21/11

The old folk mingle

With the ember smoke

Children's glee and sniffing dogs.

87: Mon 22/11

Bright race of clouds:

Peach, purple and blue

A welcome return.

88: Tues 23/11

The stones shimmer

mutating in pools

of colour on my page.