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Shelley Art Group had a session with Cath Brooke yesterday evening and I had a go at making a copy of an etching I did nearly 60 years ago. Everyone produced some interesting work.

When people are taught to paint landscapes, they will often be told to make things further away tend towards lighter and bluer. Unfortunately sometimes people tend see this as a rule, rather than a painting trick to emulate the effects of distance and atmosphere on colour saturation. There are lots of similar guidelines that can become a hindrance if taken too literally.

If you read about the painter John Constable, you will almost certainly come across the tale of him and Joshua Reynolds, where constable puts a violin on the grass to demonstrate that they are not the same colour, after Reynolds objected to the colours in Constable’s paintings.

When photography came along it changed the way we see things and motion photography even allowed us to see how things actually move for the first time. At the same time photography took away visual art’s dominant role in capturing a likeness for posterity. This in turn allowed artists to investigate other roles for their art. Increasing awareness of science, particularly relating to colour and vision, also gave artists new ideas about how to do their job. There have been many debates in art history about how to do things and some of these relate to vision and how we see and remember the world around us.

If you ever stand in front of a wide open landscape and enjoy looking at it, a temptation is to take a photograph. I’d be pretty surprised if you weren’t often disappointed with the result. All the magnificent detail and sweep of light you see will have been largely lost. Even a sophisticated camera has limitations of focus, whereas we can focus near and far repeatedly and rapidly without really noticing that we are doing it. Most of the time it doesn’t even make us dizzy. The vision we have in our head is then a combination of what we have seen and felt, with special emphasis on all the things we have been most interested in.

The next element of perception that is important to highlight separately is memory. While our memories are unreliable, they are still ours. We are capable of holding a lot of detail about a scene, as well as host of related generalisations and also feelings. I know of painters who repeat the same scene repeatedly from memory. Each version is different but also alike. Whether intensionally or not, each painting will often be recognisably by the same person.

That last bit about repeating a scene painting also relates to our ability to produce and recognise schematics of things. Every child does it very quickly in their development and even animals are able to do it. Those Captcha tests that have popped up over the last few years, designed to demonstrate your humanity, would be within the capability of a pigeon or crow, as long as they had been taught to associate the schematic with food.

In the pencil sketch below the are no colour hints about what we are seeing and little difference in tone between near and far. In fact the mast at Emley Moor has more definition than it might have in a photograph, representing what we would see by changing our focus temporarily. Within the picture there are plenty of hints about scale and perspective from the lines and objects. The effect is strong enough for us to recognise that the field in the distance is just a different shape, rather than badly drawn.

So if you do want to paint a scene, reasonably realistically, for someone, based on a photograph, don’t be afraid to paint it as they might see or remember it. Equally don’t be afraid to represent what you want to represent without being a slave to the myth of realism.

In one way or another, I’ve been studying and doing art and craft for more than sixty years. I’ve also been involved with performance of various kinds, crossing art boundaries. For more than a decade I’ve taken people round the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, on the historic West Bretton Estate and talked to every sort of person, from different parts of the world, about art and history. One of the things I stress to people about YSP is that the park itself is a giant sculpture.

Talking to people has made some things particularly clear to me and below are some key points I have learned.

Art is both subconscious and conscious. Most animals, including us, seem to have a sense of shape and form and also sound. Some of us animals use those senses for display and communication purposes. This means that art can have multiple levels of appeal.

Because art has been around as long as we have it is plain that it is important to us in some way.

Art has never had one particular way of doing things, though there have been plenty of attempts to enforce a particular way.

The separation of art from craft is not really helpful.

Even the best artists never fully achieve what they want, let alone satisfy all the people all the time.

Human competitiveness means that arts are often used to show off and to demonstrate superiority and thus other people’s inferiority. You should never let that last tendency put you off trying out your artistic skills, if you, and even someone else, might get enjoyment from the attempt.

Some people can just control themselves better and practice doesn’t make perfect in such complicated skills. Equally, even with control and practice people can still produce neat, colourful but not very interesting art.

We all borrow ideas from others. It can’t be helped. Children’s art is already full of borrowed ideas and styles but can still have a personal impact without complicated skills. We all have to make a compromise to achieve whatever we want to achieve.

Art can look like something but it doesn’t have to copy that thing completely.

Art can be abstract but that doesn’t mean it can’t also represent something or some idea or emotion.

When you produce any form of art you are representing a subject, an idea. On top of that, what you produce is influenced by all the things and people you have encountered. Those two things should influence the tools you use to produce the art and those tools should influence the art itself.

Art doesn’t have to be pretty. All forms of art can be used to highlight unpleasant things. There are all sorts of messages in art and the art reflects that.

If your art has a particularly strong emphasis on message then it is of little use if only a small number of the already converted pick that message up.

The, never displayed, work above was called ‘Modern Gods and Heroes’. It is a visual rant about cars, overcrowding, shallow celebrity and eco-failure from around forty years ago. The fact that I’m explaining it speaks of its relative failure. That doesn’t mean that art shouldn’t have a title or explanation.

You are right to question the value of art and the need for public funding but think of all the other things that command higher prices than they perhaps deserve.

Keep looking, thinking, enjoying and trying.

We’ve had snow, sun, storms and the surprise appearance of new rails in what was the shunting yard. Firstly storm Darragh versus Ellie the wind vane a tenacious trunk tale.

They have been slowly removing more remains from the yard for years, then trees grew up, then they were cut down and the last rolling stock and rails removed. Now they are apparently preparing for electrification and repair and storage area.

Ruth is visiting her Grandchildren and I am pootling as usual. A few flowers are still hanging on and the Winter Jasmine is coming into its own. We didn’t get round to picking the apples on the slippery hillside tree, so we are getting near the end of this year’s store.

We had a few visitors late on today.

There is tons of work going on in the former shunting yard below. It seems they are putting new rails in, perhaps as part of the upcoming electrification of the line and also to provide a storage area and workshop for rolling stock.

This is quite a shock when the woodpecker arrives alongside the little birds.

This Acer is always spectacular and changes quickly. Some of the trees have lost all their leaves and the Maple and Hazel in the background are still changing. At the same time there are still flowers.

Elsewhere there are various paintings and images containing snatches of what I think was formerly one of the largest shunting yards in Europe. Currently a new life is obviously planned for it. There is frantic work clearing and levelling going on. It is sometimes as noisy when the yard operated, but he lights are more localised and so less bright. Who knows what out view will contain next?

My first short stay on this wonderful island (helped by glorious weather). Day 2 and we’ve walked and cycled loads already. Ruth has been up Goat Fell, while I walked round Brodick Castle grounds and the local area. We’ve been to see the Stone Circles at Machrie and Ruth walked to the Kings Cave, while I sketched below the basalt columns of Drumadoon Point.

The result so far.

For a lot of people part of the joy of a garden is wildlife. Ours is certainly built to attract it, though the birds always seem to ignore the bird boxes in favour of the scruffy hedgerows.

We also have bird feeders. The arguments for and against are difficult to balance, but we have them. Considerable time has been spent stopping grey squirrels getting at them and making sure that large birds don’t dominate too much.

Recently I have been filming from the house using a little telephoto attachment on an old smart phone. Below are a couple of mixes from the filming. Warning – the first contains a sparrowhawk. The second is a medley of clips with bird sounds recorded in the garden.

A short trip round some Scottish favourites, with time for some sketching.

November 2023 and it has been wet, but today it looked good. Ruth, Simon and I set to. First off was reducing the lawn yet again and planting some grasses, kindly donated by some friends. The other two are currently planting spring bulbs in the middle of that lawn.

Next up was to re-fix a rail along the top cross path and plant some similarly donated raspberry canes.

Finally, I had already halved the size of one of the benches, but it was a bit high for shorter legs than mine, so I adjusted that and then put some steps in next to it to start another access path through that bit of shrubbery. I put in a willow arch to highlight the entrance at the other end.

Over a couple of sessions before today, Ruth had also been clearing and planting grasses in a section of the hillside below the shelter, which are also looking good.

Time for a sit on the adjusted bench and look at the view.

Amidst a chaos of building work, a day of path clearing, pruning and bed sorting alongside a harvest that was edible and one that spreads plants to other gardens.

Ruth was away for a couple of weeks, so I was in charge. These are some of the photos I sent her as updates. The weird mixture of rain and drought has led to some giant plants, virtually no apples and an absolute glut of red roses. The Heron surplanted the usual crows and magpies. The cut and come again cauliflower is very successful. A change of location and regular watering brought a smile to the face of a sad fern.

In the beginning there was landscape, then came life, then life developed rituals (Dogs going round in circles before lying down, Elephants visiting the remains of dead relatives), then creatures made things and altered the landscape (nests, burrows, display sites), then humans started taking these things a lot further.

We have been altering the landscape and making art since pre-history. The sculpture park is a piece of altered landscape, that is a display site and a piece of show-off theatre, that is now also a place to see works of art.

I am just about to start giving Art and Landscape tours of the Park again. Here is the old document for the tour. A new one is on its way.

https://valleycreations.me/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/YSP-Talk.pdf

Thanks to Ruth, a couple of days away before an operation. For me a chance to paint and a bonus swim.

Although most of the leaves have now gone, some are still clinging on to green. The weather is cool and damp, rather than cold and the sun was so warm the other day that I couldn’t leave milk outside while we had a cup of coffee. There are quite a few flowers around, some early some late. There were seven female pheasants and one male in the garden at once one day.

The strange weather continues with some trees going into leaf drop routines early and others late, giving an extended display. We have a confused hazel that has green leaves and catkins, when most trees are now bare. Fungi all over the place, as usual and I improved a table top in time to match the Acers outside.

A short trip to Ambleside Manor Vegetarian guest house. Some sketchesfor me, walks up big hills for Ruth and some lovely meals at Zeffirellis.

I’ve been doing the equivalent of ‘no mow May’ for a very long time, by leaving patches with daffodils, snow drops, daisies and buttercups, but for the past few years Ruth has been working more seriously on meadow planting sections of the grassy areas. Yellow Rattle is one of the ingredients of this style of planting and we have had varied success, using both seed and plugs. This year it has suddenly arrived with a bang.

Winter is here, so it’s time to sort out structures, prepare for next year and enjoy the subdued colours. The platform down the hill has a new floor and roof, the old sycamore is becoming a totem with an owl at the top. Paths and steps have been repaired, beds have been weeded and mulched. A whole raft of pruning is underway and cuttings are developing. Even when inside, you walk past a window or glass door and pause for a view that brings a smile.

Addendum to the text below. Since this I have had all sorts of nuisance health problems, such as a failed hip replacement, but I now know that practice has enabled me to ensure that I generally make a better fist of painting such as this example. So the heading is even more apt four years later.

As we enter Covid Tier 3 and full England Lockdown threatens, I resolve to get back to painting, but I have hit a block. I have just decided I don’t like one I did before and taken it off the wall to redo and the sketch below is the last I did in Wales and I really dislike it.When I did it, Ruth went of for a walk and I set out on my folding bike for this spot. The gears suddenly stopped changing and the battery started threatening to run out faster than expected (I later discovered that the charger had fried three expensive batteries). As I set off it went a bit cooler and the wind really got up. By the time I got to this spot I was a bit cold. As I decided to pick an angle to sit and work from, I realised that, while the view was lovely, it was hard to capture on paper, because of the scales. Determined, I started and the water-filled brush I carry in my little travelling set decided to play up and wasn’t delivering water.I was sat on a 35cm high stool balancing a small sketchbook, a pallette, a source of water and myself as the wind increased. The sketch book kept trying to close and the tiny pallette lid kept doing the same, spilling my paint mixes into each other.Suddenly I realised that the tree I was sat under was an oak and was raining acorns down on where I was sat. and that the numbers were increasing. As I intinctively flinched when one hit me, I sent paint flying over the painting and had to rapidly find the rag to mop it up.I hastily captured some last details and fled the scene.The sad thing is that I know, even after sixty years of practice, I could neve capture that scene to my satisfaction. I am lucky that there are paintings I have done, especially little ones, that make me smile every time I see them, but there are more like this that sit there accusing me.Undaunted, I must pick up my brushes again. Maybe a cup of coffee and a few little jobs first.

It has been a funny year of course but work is well underway preparing for winter and next year. 100m of hedges cut, trees trimmed, meadow beds cut, scarified and extra perennials and seeds added, more cuttings started. Manure has been hauled and is waiting to rejuvenate beds, pumkins have been collected and stored, late vegetables are being picked and used, we have started using the wood cut and stored last year. There is always more to do but looking at the meadow bed as it is now, reminds me of its earlier glory.

Designing a garden, painting or sculpture, or even looking at one, involves choices. Do you open everything up to view straight away or do you keep some things temporarily hidden? Do you make it obvious or do people have to make an effort?

Today I had a quick wander round YSP to see some spots I haven’t visited in a while and it made me think about layers of vision.

Sometimes people ask about the views in our garden and the top two pictures here illustrate how it has changed. In the first, you can see hills beyond clearly, but there is nothing really in the foreground to hold your eye. In the second, the foreground is so complicated that it is possible not to notice the hills. The foreground now has its own layers of detail and hints of other views. To see the hills more clearly you have to walk down to the shelter that can just be seen bottom right in the second picture. The whole picture has become richer.

Similarly with the Seated Man sculpture from YSP. It is often depicted from the side or three quarter front, giving a clear view of who it is. While I was up there today. I noticed that the man is actually not looking at YSP at all, but at Emley Moor mast, which adds a new dimension to the thoughtful face on the sculpture. Similarly, if you pause and look closely, you can see the hairs on the man’s chest, which takes some doing in a huge solid object like that. The level of detail in this representational piece is there to make you think about the object in a more complex way.

The sculpture itself takes some effort to get to as well. I used to point people to a previous sculpture on this spot from right across the valley, but, despite its size, you can’t really spot this one easily from that far away. This means that like the garden and YSP itself, you have to walk around and give it time to disccover more.

End of the season and these sunflowers have decided to hide