sky gardens

maybe its the solstice,
the clear starry skies of portugal
or the spectacular lunar eclipse we saw

or maybe its this cosmic rose link


but i have been painting sky gardens

combining painting and old textiles bought at estremoz market

a new direction for my work...combining recurring themes in a new way

its going be interesting to see the reaction to them

i wonder what do you think?

the moon...

i've been thinking about the moon

it often appears in and influences my paintings. recently i found a very early painting from a time i was on an art foundation course more than 20 years ago.
i was and still am fascinated by the white horses...mainly found carved into the chalk hills of the wiltshire landscape...early land art.
the one i was particularly attracted to was at cherhill.
i recently found this painting in my old studio... its the cherhill white horse in the moonlight. for me the painting was about being restrained and being free...i believed the horse could rise from the hillside during the moonlight and gallop over the down lands...but most of the time it was contained and two dimensional in a hollow of cherhill. the painting attempts in a naive way to represent the horse carved into the land just at the point when it is touched by the moon and is becoming three dimensional.

by the light of the moon

at the time i felt my life was constrained ...but painting was a taste of freedom.

more about the white horses of wiltshire here
and another very recent moon painting on the celtic year blog