All Things Arty Joan

Work in progress: folded concertina books and boxes project on the theme of lockdown, confinement, travel and places and faces missed during the year to March 2021 living under Covid rule(s).  Mixed media and collage including acrylic painting, Gelli Plate printing with acrylics and waterbased ink, stamping, photos, photo transfer via Gelli Plate, monoprints. Print outs of Met. Office weather charts, pages from an old road atlas. Also a recycled liquer chocolate box which I kept from Christmas 2019, thinking it might come in useful for something - art about caged animals, perhaps. That's now in the process of being filled by 15-16cm square prints and collages about house arrest, isolation, rivers anti-socially distanced by fencing curtailing rivers / water spirits from meeting people, except those in a select group. Later in the year, the Great Conjunction not only of Jupiter and Saturn but the second Covid wave becoming a surge just as people were hoping to enjoy Christmas. Thanks...

This is a selection of mixed media studies (mainly collage and acrylic) done in the Artroom at home last month.  I worked from photos taken during my walk to the area around Hill Head Harbour, at the mouth of the River Meon, during the cold spell in the second week of February. Unusually here for an easterly, the wind was strong enough to lap up waves, including inside the small harbour between the Solent and the Titchfield Haven bird reserve, which is built to shelter from prevailing southwesterlies. February is a short month but, even during lockdown, it often feels like a race against time to recreate the more muted wintery colour and light in paintings before the weather and season moves on. The second half of February was much milder and the last weekend was bright and sunny, with a very springlike feel. The cold spell provided temporary relief from the mud everywhere as the muddy paths froze but as it was dry and cold without any snow here, no problem with slippery pavements....