I’ve been an infrequent blogger of late (something I intend to amend) however I am a more regular creative, there’s so much I could write about, but today I really wanted to write bit about my annual Artistic safaris to our local National Trust property Ickworth House, something I’ve been meaning to write about for along time now.

I’m a plein air painter by choice, I’m many other things as well but if we’re talking about paint my choice is outdoors. Like many artists before me, I find it fascinating to return to the same spot; it’s like rooting oneself in a place and letting it settle around you. Since 2011 one of my spots has been Ickworth House.

I’ve mainly found myself painting architecture or trees and occasionally conjunctions of the two.. rarely do people feature. I don’t know why they are scarce in my paintings so far, they may feature more in the future. The house and gardens have at times contextualised my life, in each successive year an ever changing theatre of arrivals and departures; children growing up and some people’s last summers, but mostly the house and gardens remain the same. This is of course emotive, the marks and flourishes, shades of colour and permanence or not, make these paintings entirely personal, but I like sharing their story and would happily in person or via any of our communication choices. Art if nothing else can be about story telling which is a vital component of who we are.

Some years its been hard to find the time to paint, these paintings find their moment amidst life in all its shades. Some years I either didn’t finish or almost didn’t start, but each year I was there and will be next summer if graced with the opportunity.

As I said my frequency of blogging has been infrequent. It occurs to me that line could be descriptive of these paintings over 12 summers, I will do more of both in the future.