I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to paint. This question has raised it’s head a few times over the past year and requires a lot of deep thought. I’m not one of those people that’s just happy painting anything, I really need to be emotionally invested or I can’t muster up that laser focus and tunnel vision that I need and enjoy so much when making the work. It’s got to consume me or I’m not interested.
Apart from painting, my main interest is bikes. Push bikes, not motorbikes. Proper bikes. I love them and have ridden them all my life, whenever I can. When I paint at local spots, it’s almost always accessed by bike. Not having to look for, or pay for parking is an obvious bonus, but it’s more than that. There’s something about having your studio on your back and two wheels under your feet, it’s just so liberating.
Most weekends I get up early while the family sleep and go out into the woods on my mountain bike, either locally in Leigh Woods/Aston Court, or a bit further afield in the Forest of Dean. I’ve been exploring these areas for over 20 years now, but I am still discovering new trails, it’s extraordinary. There’s a distinct thrill I get from turning a corner on a trail and realising I haven’t been there before. It’s a childlike excitement that swells up just as it did when I was 14 and exploring my local woods in Oxfordshire. “I wonder where this goes…?” What a captivating thought. Let’s find out!
What’s bizarre is that I hadn’t, until recently, ever seriously considered painting the woods by bike. I had done it in Wales, painting views in the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons, but that is a 60-90 minute drive and involves some very serious climbing when you ride up there. Leigh woods is a 15 minute drive from my house and there are other beautiful woodlands just a 5 minute ride from my front door! The thing with plein air painting is it only really makes practical sense if it’s close by. 3 hours in the car to access a spot just doesn’t make sense when you have to pick your kids up from school at 3pm!
So, I put my mountain bike on the roof rack, dropped the kids off at 9am and then drove to Leigh Woods with my painting gear in my back pack and rode to some spots that I knew were beautiful. Good lord… I hadn’t realised how many options there are compositionally when you’re surrounded by trees… Literally every way you look there’s a painting. I’m normally incredibly fussy about my views and spend a lot of time scouting areas out, sometimes without my painting gear as I can cover more ground and save each potential spot to my phone, but the woods was different. It was more abstract. I was seeing shapes, not clearly defined foreground and background planes. This was about positive and negative space. It was about tone and texture. It was new and incredibly exciting.
Another thing… I like being alone. Painting in London, on the streets of the West End for example, is total sensory overload. It’s LOUD, there’s a lot lot of people, they’re right next to you, there’s bus fumes, sirens… well, it’s all a bit much for me these days to be honest. I’m 45 this year and something in me has definitely changed over the last 10. I’m quieter, I seek quiet. I move slower, I think slower, I want solitude, not crowds. Ironically, I feel more “surrounded” in the woods than on the street, but in a natural way. Walking into the woods, off the path is also glorious. Stepping over logs and ducking under branches, again, brings up those childlike feelings of wonder and when the dappled light hit the bluebells all around me, well…
I don’t want to gush too much about the whole experience as I’m not sure how it comes off, but I found it overwhelming in all the right ways. Shapes everywhere, texture everywhere, light pooling, and spring leaves glowing like kryptonite as the sun pushed through them. Wow, why didn’t I do this before…?
Starting the first painting was exhilarating, but daunting. A subject matter this different meant I couldn’t just start on auto-pilot, it was like starting again in many ways, feeling my way through it and just trying to be open enough to let the painting happen without over thinking it. Easier said than done. I was most pleased with this first painting of the day, there was an energy and rawness to it that I loved, something you can’t get if you phone it in, it only comes from being bold and letting go a bit.
I’m going to keep exploring this new realm. I’m at the absolute beginning with it as a subject matter and feel there’s just so much potential here. Scale is the main thing on my mind right now… The abstract nature of these natural compositions lends itself very well to painting large, I feel. This will put me squarely into very new territory but I am absolutely up for the challenge and can’t wait to get stuck in.
Onwards!