Blue Dreams
I love that period between Christmas and New Year. The in-between-ness of it. A little floaty place where your mind is a bicycle cloud descending a gentle slope towards the years end. This last place of 2020 felt even more floaty to me as there wasn't the usual travel and bustle involved in seeing friends and family and planning last minute gifts, wrapping and packing.
In that inbetween of days, I did a bit of studio clearing and moved my desk to the opposite end of the studio away from the window and against a wall. Having a wall rather than a window for a view was probably hands down one of the best decisions I made ALL YEAR. And it happened right at the end! I could happily tape up all my work in progress and stare at them all at once as opposed to constantly rifling through all my sketchbooks (slaps head emoji).
‘Temporary’ studio mess
I’m continuing to paint in blue which is something I’ve become quite obsessed by without the need to apply other colours, other than touches of permanent rose. Perhaps it’s the same for those who choose to work only in black and white. Perhaps blue is the new black for me. Ultramarine particularly. From Kassia St Clair’s ‘The Secret Lives of Colour’, the Latin for ‘beyond’ - ultra and ‘sea’ - mare, for this was a colour worth going the extra mile for. Its journey started from a mountain in Afghanistan, donkey-carted along the Silk Road to the Mediterranean coast in Syria, before being shipped to Venice and eventually winding it’s way across to Europe and on to my paintbrush.
It’s certainly lending itself quite well to my current project of illustrated seal stories, inspired by my own sighting of one of these majestic sea creatures back to a cold February dog walk with my partner along the seafront. I mistook it at first for a swimmer, slowly realising that its bobbing head was not human as it eventually flung itself on to the beach helped by the strong moving tides. Resting briefly, it flung itself back in, allowing the tide to transport it eastwards towards a glowing sunset. I squealed with delight. Growing up in the city, I’m not used to seeing a wild animal in its habitat and the experience stayed with me.
What other seal encounter stories are there? I put a callout in August 2020 for people to share any seal spotting experiences they had had or heard. Someone spoke of a childhood experience they had had being out in a boat in stormy weather and seeing lots of bobbing heads in the water. One of my friends, sitting on the beach, noticed a floating mass in the distance and worried it was a dead creature called out the coastguard to investigate. She was informed that it was actually a sleeping seal covered in a wreath of seaweed which made it hard to make it out. Lots of other stories started coming in, all of them rich in visual stimuli and inspiring me to start a collection of illustrated seal spotting stories. Perhaps you have your own story to share? If so, message me as I’d love to hear all about it.