The weather has been relentlessly drear both here and back home in Berlin for the last couple of weeks until today, when we finally got to see the sun. I hated the grey weather, the light itself seemed grubby and brown, and it does affect my mood, I can barely be bothered to do anything. But, strangely, I’ve always loved paintings done in grisaille,  maybe because the monochrome allows the form, composition or the mark making to really stand out on its own, but i’m not really sure why I find it so satisfying.

At the moment the day job is eating up all my time and energy and i’m working full time for a short period with deadlines looming. So i’m snatching a bit of time here and there and working small scale, in grisaille, to just keep doing something, anything. Come April, though, and i’m going down to three days a week in the office and i’ll have more time to spend at the art table. Can’t wait!

I go back to the weird and wonderful landscape of Dungeness time and again. I first came across it when I read Derek Jarman’s book Modern Nature back in the ’90s but it was not till many years later, when I moved down to Kent after over 20 years living in London, that I actually made the visit. It’s a strange place, wild and beautiful in parts,  post-apocalyptic and shambolic in other places, strewn with fisherman’s detritus and machinery; it’s quite unlike anywhere else. The pale shingle reflects the light in such an unusual way and creates it’s own unique magic. And as you wander over the wide open beach (the second largest shingle spit in the world, after Cape Canaveral in Florida) you come across peculiar engines and mechanical structures, chains, levers, tanks, huts and stranded boats. The ordinary world feels very far away, even though its less than eighty miles to the centre of London, it feels more remote than most places I’ve been in the UK. It has a touch of the surreal about it, like a Paul Nash painting come to life.

While I adore classic, rolling green English countryside as much as anyone, I do feel drawn to Dungeness. Derek Jarman, after he had been diagnosed with HIV back in the 1980s when it was still pretty much a death sentence,  created a garden here that thrived in the unforgiving desert of the shingle. It’s deeply touching to think of him here, in a place that feels on the margins of the world, building something beautiful that would endure while his health declined. He also continued to make films, write, talk and campaign while he lived at Prospect Cottage, overlooking the sea; an inspirational man.

I’m going to develop some paintings based on the landscape here. so I’m just sketching and making some studies this week as I work out compositions and colour palettes. Here are a few more pages from the sketchbook:

As well as this particular landscape I’m also being drawn to the widescreen format which seems to suit it. I’ve always loved this format, even though I know it can be tricky to display in a normal sized room as the proportions just don’t fit many spaces. But there’s something satisfying in the shape, I find, and when other artists use it I’m often very taken. I’ve been looking at how other landscape artists have used this arrangement to get some inspiration. Dick Chappell, for example, an artist I admire very much, has used it to great effect; you can see some of his work at the Martin Tinney Gallery website here. And also at Martin Tinney, some other wonderful examples of the format in the upcoming exhibition by Sarah Thwaite. And finally, a link to the work of another artist I love, Ivon Hitchens, at the Tate, here. So lots of inspiration out there, we’ll see how I get on…