TIM BAKER

I did three pieces around the equinox and solstice, two in March of the same view (night and day) and another piece at Solstice of the sun setting over one of the ‘sentinels‘ – what I call the red life buoy stands that seem to watch the river, waiting for something – my first modern times watercolour was of one of these.. I posted the equinox pieces back in March on my Instagram page, but the solstice one is exclusive to here. You can see my development in styles over the year in one set!

The first of the equinox pieces was done in graphitint, very wintry and after I did some work at the Bushy Water Gardens, this is a view from a bench just outside of there. The moon is a difficult thing to paint and draw, since that glow is there, but you don’t want to overdo it, but the surrounding sky is darker than you’d think to support that glow. Hard to do in Graphitint anyway….

Then we have the next day, where I weny back and painted the trees in the golden wintry sunshine. Big use of cadmium red light (basically orange) and I think indian red or mahogany as well as burnt sienna – a lot of rust colours to show the colour of the new buds on the trees before they sprouted, those trees have very reddish brown branches. I like the clouds as well, and the expression with the dip pen…

I should do more of this. The looseness and fluid lines and abstract nature is definitely where I was headed, and what I try to do while drawing even now is be more expressive and less literal. It also reminds me of 1930’s pieces, which is about par for the course given my influences (Nash, Piper and Epstein, all the children of Van Gogh in many ways)

And finally and rather boldly we have a paint stick piece – I think done on the night before solstice, but it might be the day itself. Unusually I drew a loose fountain pen lins of the birds and the ‘sentinel’ before laying down the paint sticks – this was an experiment in that. Interesting but I feel the ink gets rather swamped by the paint sticks even though they are only around 50% opaque.

But certainly more defined that some of my other paint stick pieces, like the last sentinel one. Over the years like benches and cranes they have developed an iconography in my work. Not sure yet what they mean, but they watch the river, silently.

I was reticent to post this as it’s a little too like a child’s drawing…but then again is that a bad thing? I fight with that feeling all the time working with those materials, because I want that freedom and not caring but hard to deprogram myself from my art training, which is as much a curse as a blessing. You definitely lose something being ‘trained’ – which is loaded with many ideologies, some very toxic – and this is why people especially creative ones like outsider and child artists, those outside the system.

To be able to be that free and not loaded down with history and feelings of ‘is it X enough?’ with added technical control, well that’s the aim.