Early stage perspective so bear with me here! The Sabre tree lived in my back garden as a tiny but vicious pot plant. Eventually, I moved it to the front and set it free whereupon it blocked the light and tapped on the window, frightening the life out of me. The middle of one side of the front garden was its final and most glorious position, threatening but not quite harming anyone and providing the safest of safe havens for insects. In the photograph there appear to be antlers growing out of its crown and although this is a Rhus Typhus and nothing to do with the weapon beneath, I just love the mythology this is developing in the frost out there.

It’s gone now. They begin to rot from the centre outwards and knives drop off, clattering (in my imagination) to the frozen ground. That didn’t happen either, it was summer and it just began to subside. It’s a kind of Phormium.

Aaand we’re off. I really like this first scoping of the territory with dilute paint, and I’m slowly learning to paint in more background before the tricksy little shapes so I have frames for the detailed elements rather than some nicely detailed elements I have to somehow paint around. And how long did this piece of learning take me? It feels like a century.

This is becoming satisfyingly surreal. I know what all of these elements are but even to me they’ve taken on a different, slide-slipped, kind of life. I’m going to straighten up the house because it’s the geometric anchor, then I’m going to think quite a lot about the bushes on the left and the killer leaves.

This is a series dedicated to filling in spaces and rectifying perspectives. I varnished the original surface so that the paint would behave more as though it was dilute and could be manipulated with the brush to give more opacity or less. I originally thought that bringing the devil plant into the foreground with stronger colours was what it needed but now I think the more defined white of the Rhus typhus at the back with its gold notes, and the white over green of the lower foliage works better. This version comes with a worryingly seasonal jangling in its background and I’d rather have the Brothers Grimm’s version of this fairytale!

This is the result of a layer-and-scratch session and illustrates the reason varnish between layers is so useful. Textures appear, colours re-appear, and depth begins to emerge from the layers beneath. This has become a little dulled by the process and the jewel-like colours have sunk away, so I’ll varnish it again tonight, then tomorrow I can liven up its appearance. I also need to sort out that nonsense in the centre where swords are thrusting upwards and falling flat almost immediately. If I take the viewpoint down a little, I can insert some new leaves falling from just under the Rhus typhus candelabra.

27th November.

Daylight.

Top floor foliage and blue/green lights.

Change of colour for the fruiting bodies on the tips of the Rhus Typhus tree. They’re red but in this instance, they’re frosted.

The large leaves of the Phormia are also frost and snow covered but I’m considering some artistic licence to form a shifting corridor of colour and tone from top right towards the bottom left. The whole scene is surrealistic from the frost on the twigs top right, through the barely visible dark wooded area just beyond, the enormous tree that takes up much of the view now the Phormia isn’t there, then the Phormia with its wickedly sharp foliage and its crown of glistening antlers borrowed from the Rhus typhus behind it. With its leaves seeming to creep along the ground once they arrive there, this plant gives the impression it could pick up its skirts and tread its own path.

This is leading me down another path and suggesting I darken the foliage rather than lighten it. The upper leaves, emerging from the crown, have the look of spider legs and I want to darken the ones beneath a little now where these are under the ‘legs’. A bit of a Paynes Grey wash should suffice. Might use it to make a hint of a large body.

Finished piece and below, the monster gritting its teeth to play nice for the kids in our village. Along with another scene, this will be a Christmas card to the village on my house or that of a volunteer, and through letter boxes. #SiteAudienceContext

8th December. You know when you’ve been looking at something and you know it’s not right but …? Then suddenly you’re driven to make a change without really having conscious awareness of what that is and Lo! silver frost on those intrusive black leaves. I need to shift some of the blur I’ve made adjusting the tops but that should not be a big job.

Modified painting, modified video.

Slightly altered version of the video to make cards from stills.

It made some exemplary prints.

SCH 2024

28th November. NB: WP isn’t letting me edit text at the moment.

29th November. But I can add new text blocks. And also edit into this one (saved) but not the one above. 28th November. NB: WP isn’t letting me edit text at the moment. I can also copy and paste a block and add text. The pasted block appears in italics. Perhaps this is a new feature preventing post-publication changes, although it seems to me this began happening before I’d published. And then it reverted! And functionality suddenly restored.

16th December. Lost functionality again but found closing the page and reopening it seems to correct the problem. Restored on the 17th.