Caer Caradoc from Ragleth Hill, Shropshire

Some sunshine at last this week, so up the hill (heading east) from Church Stretton I went up onto Ragleth Hill. Some great views all around of Wenlock Edge, the Mynd, and Caer Caradoc painted here. It was a job to hang onto my paper!

View of Caer Caradoc from Ragleth Hill Watercolour, watercolour pencil 23cm x 12cm 18 August 2010 SOLD Here are some interesting photos of the hills I took, the shadows were particularly interesting for me as they looked like mirror images distorted on the hill. View of the Mynd, heather colour just showing through the dark shadows.

Norton Camp

A walk around the woods of Norton Camp from Craven Arms, Shropshire was a lovely ramble. This painting was one of the few distant views of hills available on the walk, since mostly I was in the woods! During this painting one of those low flying jets came from overhead, flew to the hill in the distance (I think it was Clee Hill), banked and headed off again. Overall it took a mere one or two minutes at most. Crushed hazelnuts still green, A beech limb fallen across the path, up a steep banked lane. Squares of corn and dots of oak, A wandering line of a hedge. An arm wet with sparkling water, A damp grass seat, Fading foxgloves, Strong swirling breeze. Unripe blackberries, Mature cheddar crisps, A Tunnock teacake, A chest full of fresh air, Time to walk on.

View towards Clee from Norton Camp, Craven Arms
Watercolour, watercolour pencil. 37cm x 15cm.
Painted 16 August 2010
£80.00

Purchase this painting unframed and unmounted. Signed and dated.
Paintings are sent sealed in a cellophane envelope, rolled in postal tube.

Far away fields - original plein air watercolour by Elizabeth Cadd

A plein air painting of Leicestershire fields.. painted during summer 2010, but I lost track of the date on this one.  I like the floating abstract shapes of the trees here..

Down to Earth, Whitchurch, Shropshire in July & August

Landscape work has just gone up at the Down to Earth Gallery in Whitchurch, North Shropshire. Currently on display are some Italian landscapes, The Down to Earth Gallery is in the courtyard at the back of Whitchurch High Street, and at the side of the Heritage & Information Centre.

The gallery is stuffed full of excellent craft work by local artists. Visit www.downtoearthgallery.co.uk

 4 The Craft Centre, St. Mary's Street, Whitchurch, Shropshire, SY13 1QY.

SPACE - Ellesmere Exhibition photos 20th June - 3rd July

Photos of my exhibition at SPACE, Ellesmere, Shropshire. Which was on from 20th June - 3rd July 2010. Showing life drawings, landscapes and a greenwood bench.

I spent the first Sunday which coincided with the Ellesmere Food & Drink Festival at the exhibition talking to people about my work with sketchbooks and other unframed work on show.
A fair bit of interest in the bench too which was nice to have on show.

Cooling walk at British Camp, Malverns

These last few days have been so hot and muggy working in the woodland workshop where I've been bowl turning, I took a break and went up to British Camp to go and cool down.
A beautiful refreshing breeze with a slight haze in the distance threatening rain, gave me chance to sketch a few scenes. I remember coming up here last summer quite a few times and my style has progressed a bit since then. Compare this same scene  in the top picture with last years painting british camp 2009 .

Shows up and down Shropshire

This is a picture of my pitch at the Hit and Run Art Show, Ellesmere, June 13th 2010. Footfall was a little low compared to last year apparently and the rain didn't help I think. I wasn't even sure what hanging system would be available when we turned up - or if we had to bring our own easels, but the organizers were extremely helpful and supportive. I met some very nice artists who also exhibit at SPACE in Ellesmere and even traded some beautiful cutout artwork with a fellow exhibitor.

Happy day on Strawberry Hill

A landscape of memories and feelings, of people and places.

Journeys

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."

Diane Arbus

Journeys open the heart, the soul and the eyes and with open eyes one sees clearly, sees a new world, a world that, for those who have lived in it forever, is no longer visible.

A week on the Isle of Wight

Oswestry exhibition photos

I haven't been doing much painting or rambling lately as I've started another season of volunteering in the woods (greenwood working) again. Why I wonder where all my time goes, I don't know...it goes on doing all this 'stuff' doesn't it. Anyway, here are some photos of me putting up my exhibition in Oswestry at the end of March.

We got their late due to motorway traffic and then I had to do the photographs for the local paper...it was a big exhibition to put up, but my lovely mum helped me out and we got it up in record time. Life drawing and figurative work went mostly in the upstairs room. Landscapes are round the cafe, you can see here downstairs.

Art Exhibition

My exhibition of Italian landscapes and life studies goes up today in Oswestry.

Also my new website to preview the exhibitions now live at www.elizabethcadd.co.uk

Hope you can pop along or just take a look!
Enjoy!

Getting inside the work - comments on Rothko

I have started reading The Artist's Reality, Philosophies of Art by Mark Rothko.
A quotation from the Introduction by Christopher Rothko:
"So much of understanding his work is personal, and so much of it is made up of the process of getting inside the work... you must undertake a sensuous adventure within the world of the painting in order to know it at all. He cannot tell you what his paintings, or anyone else's are about. You have to experience them...As his works exemplify, writing and painting involve different kinds of knowing."

As a painter paints, he is inside the work and the work is inside him, it emerges around his thoughts, and from his subconscious, growing through his moving body and settling on a surface. To describe in words all things in it, is to deny the painting it's own voice, we miss something in the translation from image to speech.

Why did Bonnard paint ... and what's personality got to do with it?

"What attracted me was less art itself than the artist's life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life."

PIERRE BONNARD

So, I've been thinking about why I started painting so much in the last year, and why my paintings come out the way they do? How does this happen?

I've read recently that an artists personal style is about personality, and I have recognized from the artists I have met after knowing their work first and then finding out what they are like as people, or seeing something of the way they live, that this is true. There may be some exceptions to the rule, but for example, an fastideously tidy person in daily life will probably paint or make things with exact precision.
My own style, well something is happening, whether it is a proper style is yet to be seen, as you can see from this blog...(does anyone read this blog anyway?) Here are some words off the top of my head to describe my own painting style at present; loose, watery, messy, confused, thoughtful, gentle, abrupt, sometimes uptight, colourful, flowing, hurried, overworked, layered, blurred, spontaneous, energetic, quiet. I  could go on, but without analysing things too much, those words also kind of describe how I feel, me, I wonder if anyone who knows me would agree?

So what is being an artist about then? Is it about being free to express your personality through your art? We are who we are at the end of the day. Individual, different, and complex as nature intended.  Freedom is necessary for us to be who we are, and is crucial in order that we can express our thoughts or feelings or experiences of who we are, or what we feel about the world. In order to let creative works emerge, we must banish the sorts of negativity that inhibits our creative flow and substitute it for constructive criticism. If we don't feel free to express ourselves - or make mistakes, we cannot grow as individuals and then what happens to the creative tendancies?

A note about my own work. I don't always really like what I've painted, but find the results more interesting than anything else. When I started to paint I would tell myself as long as I could find something small in each painting I liked then I was doing o.k. This was largely for encouraging technical ability. Now, there will be days when 2 paintings could have very different styles, and I would wonder why that happens. When I was at University studying Contemporary Arts, I had numerous projects based around the personality, personas and the psyche, this subject fascinated me. Maybe different personas come through more in one painting than another. There must be a subconscious process happening, alongside the physical activity of mark making that results in the artwork itself. As we can't say what we want to with words alone, these are the results of being in the moment with the landscape, my feelings and my life experiences, speaking my own language through paint and paper. An illusive visual conversation with myself perhaps...to be continued I think.

6 x 20 minutes, A2

I've been feeling like the paintings lack some energy in them...it's probably the winter cold that's been zapping it out of them. But no excuse. I challenged myself to 20 minutes for all paintings today. I've enough time to get the basics down, an impression is all I'm after here, and just left colours flow together on the page and see what accidents happen. There's no time for any layers, just bleeds and wet in wet work. (Sorry about the poor lighting on these photographs.)

And a single tree understood...

This was another sunny, fine windy winters day. Looking across to the magnificent holm oak (an evergreen) standing on the hilltop in the distance. 2 paintings here, then a trip into Siena to look at the Duomo.

A whole other world with a mackerel sky

I was going to Siena today, but I changed my mind in Buonconvento for some reason and ended up taking a short trip out up onto the hills. It was so stunning this afternoon...that tears rolled down my cheek at one point. Ahhh. I just had to stop painting and take it all in. Hills, mist and the sun peeping through a mackerel sky. There is something amazing about everyday being different. I thought for the first time this morning that I may have started to get bored with it all, then another view hits you, and you know why you came here, all over again. 4 paintings today, 2 small ones and 2 larger ones.

Sun and clear sky in winter

An almost warm day today after this mornings frost had disappeared. The sun was out, the sky was very blue, so the brushes came out.A sketch of the veg garden gate, the view in the distance and 2 of the surrounding olivegroves.

Watercolor masters

• John James Audubon • William Blake • Charles Burchfield • Paul Cézanne • Tony Couch • J.S. Cotman • J.W.S. Cox • Honoré Daumier • Charles Demuth • Albrecht Dürer • Thomas Eakins • Thomas Girtin • Childe Hassam • Tom Hill • Winslow Homer • Edward Hopper • George Inness • Ted Kautzky • Henry G. Keller • Dong Kingman • Paul Klee • John LaFarge • Tom Lynch • John Marin • Reginald Marsh • Thomas Moran • Georgia O'Keefe • Maurice Prendergast • Frederick Remington • John Singer Sargent • Irving Shapiro • Charles Sheeler • William Sommer • Zoltan Szabo • J.M.W. Turner • Vincent Van Gogh • Frank Webb • James McNeill Whistler • Edgar A. Whitney • Frank Wilcox • Andrew Wyeth

Sketches from the Uffizi

A whole afternoon in the Uffizi gallery, well worth it. Loved the 13th Century patterned artworks, and the ceilings of the main corridor in particular - painted covings in blue and gold and light decorative scenes painted all the way down the corridor. Here are a couple of sketches as no photos could be taken.Scenes from the lives of hermits, - monks was an intricate painting and I fell in love with these little boats dotted around the sea.