timwootton
Well-known member
Just back from collecting copious unsold work from my show in North Berwick. Taking home almost as many as went down is a sobering poke in the ribs but the trip had a most definite highlight.
I knew Darren Woodhead was showing at Waterston House and it just so happened his show opened on the Friday as I arrived on Saturday. Darren's work will no doubt be familiar to you all (http://www.darrenwoodheadartist.co.uk/), but I hadn't seen any of his work in the flesh since we bumped into each other on Ramsey Island sometime last century (about 20-odd years ago, actually) and to see 40 or so full scale paintings in situ is an absolute feast for the senses. Berries and winter birds proliferate; a quartet of snow-bound woodcock bristle and shuffle about across an expanse of Fabriano watercolour paper, yellow-browed warblers appear from behind foliage only to disappear again the moment you take your eyes off them, lapland buntings creep through mayweed and fieldfares and waxwings gorge themselves on berry-laden sea buckthorn.
Watercolour is a complex medium and true mastery of it, as with any process requiring great dexterity, imagination, flair and a squirt of good fortune, takes time to master, if ever one does. Woodhead has. His paintings are intricately beautiful to behold but all the more remarkable for the intuitive way he makes lightning fast decisions about colour placement whilst working on these massive sheets plein air. There’s an ethereal, almost zen-like connection made between the living creatures and the completed images. It’s incredibly instructive to see just how watercolour can be made to behave – more so how paper can be told to take on values unimagined.
As with all visual media, the only way to really appreciate it, is to view it. If anyone is in the vicinity (and even if you’re not) please do your soul the power of good and pop along to George Waterston House, Aberlady and gorge on the natural bounty which is currently flourishing there.
Show runs til Jan 2012.
I knew Darren Woodhead was showing at Waterston House and it just so happened his show opened on the Friday as I arrived on Saturday. Darren's work will no doubt be familiar to you all (http://www.darrenwoodheadartist.co.uk/), but I hadn't seen any of his work in the flesh since we bumped into each other on Ramsey Island sometime last century (about 20-odd years ago, actually) and to see 40 or so full scale paintings in situ is an absolute feast for the senses. Berries and winter birds proliferate; a quartet of snow-bound woodcock bristle and shuffle about across an expanse of Fabriano watercolour paper, yellow-browed warblers appear from behind foliage only to disappear again the moment you take your eyes off them, lapland buntings creep through mayweed and fieldfares and waxwings gorge themselves on berry-laden sea buckthorn.
Watercolour is a complex medium and true mastery of it, as with any process requiring great dexterity, imagination, flair and a squirt of good fortune, takes time to master, if ever one does. Woodhead has. His paintings are intricately beautiful to behold but all the more remarkable for the intuitive way he makes lightning fast decisions about colour placement whilst working on these massive sheets plein air. There’s an ethereal, almost zen-like connection made between the living creatures and the completed images. It’s incredibly instructive to see just how watercolour can be made to behave – more so how paper can be told to take on values unimagined.
As with all visual media, the only way to really appreciate it, is to view it. If anyone is in the vicinity (and even if you’re not) please do your soul the power of good and pop along to George Waterston House, Aberlady and gorge on the natural bounty which is currently flourishing there.
Show runs til Jan 2012.