Paintings at Pashley

above painting in the garden last September

Pashley Manor

3rd April to 29th September 2012

Gardens, Café and Gift Shop Open
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Bank Holiday Mondays and Special Event days – 11.00am to 5.00pm.

There are also several special events for garden and art lovers, for more details click here

I have been invited to show some more silk paintings this year at this beautiful place. I took the paintings there last week. As I waited for the huge wooden door to open I noticed that 1550 was carved in the wood over the door as well as some decorative carving. After I had handed over my work I had a look at the garden. It opens to the public on April 3rd and the gardeners were working hard to get things ready. It was almost a year to the day since I last delivered my paintings there. The garden was waking up again after the winter with daffodils in flower and the promise of so much to come. I visited the garden several times last year observed the changing of the seasons and I painted and drew there. I felt a sense of anticipation seeing it again. The daffodils are in flower again and the leaves of the tulips herald an amazing show of around 22,000 flowers. Last year I drew a rose named Just Joey. In the midday heat of the July sun the rose opened further as I was drawing it. There it was, pruned and beginning to produce new shoots. Back in my studio I did a silk painting of this rose. There will be limited edition prints of it in the Pashley shop.

Chihuli in London

CHIHULI 5th Dec - 31st March UPDATE now extended till 21st April

at the Halcyon Gallery 144-146, New Bond Street, London W1 2PF

I would like to give a big thank you to the Halcyon Gallery for giving me permission to photograph these beautiful works.

The Mille Fiori Garden fills a whole room and is 24ft long. It was made specially for this exhibition. The photo below really doesn't do it justice.

I came up the stairs and through the door (at the back of the photo) The lighting in the room was dimmer than in the previous space and the glass garden glowed with rich saturated colours.

The colours and reflections in the glass danced as I moved round it and the relationships of the colours and sculptural shapes changed.

There were Chihuli paintings too in this exhibition and this illuminated glass panel shown below.

There was also a video of him at work. Fire and sand and the huge energy of Chihuli and his team combine to create huge flowing masses of molten glass. Skillfully and creatively handled. Now no longer molten and hot I find they convey something of the energy from which they were wrought. The paintings too seem alive with energy and movement.


I glimpsed the piece below through a doorway and from a distance and was drawn in by the electric effect of the blue and orange. This one as many of the pieces is like mysterious underwater life.

Cranberry and clear chandelier with part of the quartz and gold chandelier showing beyond.

The beautiful Waterford wall sconces above the door create patterns and colours on the wall.

The gold and quartz chandelier below reaches from floor to ceiling and can be viewed from above as well as floor level as here. It is made from hundreds of glass made pieces assembled on a metal frame.

These were some of my favourites out of 57 works/groups/installations.

Do go if you can as there is so much to explore and discover.

The following video is from Halcyon's website

Reid's Palace in Aquarelle Pencil

Reids Palace Maderia Aquarelle pencil (c) Tessa Spanton

I started writing this blog 2 years and I day ago. Last year I posted some paintings I had done of Reids Palace To see the post click here

I visited Madeira again last month and did some new paintings while I was there. I drew Reids again, this time from the other side as seen from the Cliff Bay hotel. I chose roughly the same time each day, around 11am, to make some sketches and a tonal study. I spent between 1/2 hour to an hour at a time. Much longer and the lighting had changed. It was sunny so the lighting of the building was good though some days so windy that my papers would have blown away if they hadn't been clipped down.

The image above was done with a blue aquarelle pencil and a little water, inspired by the Portuguese azulejos. Very convenient when working outside as all you need is one blue aquarelle pencil and a small brush that can be filled with water like a fountain pen.

When this was finished I started a watercolour of the same view. The building looks amazing, high up and rising up from the rocks where the sea is pounding below and looking like a pink confection against the backdrop of mountains.

This painting is not quite finished so I'll save it for another post.

I also had the opportunity to visit the gardens at Reids and that too will be for another post.

Blues and Greens

This is my latest silk scarf done with azure and soft green as a commission for someone. I packed it in a deep blue scarf box tied with cream organza ribbon. Below left is done with spring green and veronese green. I used shibori techniques, the scarf above was folded and rolled and the other was twisted and rolled round a tube before applying the dyes.

Candied figs

Candied figs Sikalaki Gliko

above: candied figs with ginger

below: ginger sugar

I have a fig tree that specialises in producing unripe figs. To be fair it has produced some ripe figs too. The figs from the first crop ripen well and are large. Those from the second crop are plentiful small and don't usually ripen. This year we had an usually warm April and October and the tree has produced a supply of ripe figs from July to November. We ate them fresh from the tree and I made fig chutney and fig jam too.

I picked the last few that hadn't ripened and this year found a recipe that requires unripe figs.

The recipe is for candied figs and comes from Mama's Taverna a Greek food blog.

Figs are preserved in this way in Greece and Turkey.
For the recipe follow the link above.
 I made some additions and I used less sugar. For the first batch I added lemon zest to the vanilla and cloves. For the second batch I added ginger and cloves. I made some ginger sugar by blitzing about 1 oz peeled root ginger with the sugar till the root ginger disappeared. It smelt wonderful.

I used this to make the syrup. We could taste the ginger well enough. Next time I will experiment with more, maybe double.

The recipe has several stages but each one doesn't take too long and the end product is well worth it.

Romantic Roses

This is the latest addition to my etsy shop here. I made this scarf from silk devore velvet It is lined with silk satin and has a 3in fringe.

It is also available from the Corner Gallery's Christmas exhibition, ( see previous post)

Art for Gifts at Christmas at the Corner Gallery

OFFICIAL CARSHALTON BEECHES CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
Switched on by Time and Leisure magazine editor CHRIS WOODS.

SAM FRANCES – city in lights installation.Thursday 1st December @ 7pm

Free gifts, reduced price gift tokens on the night. Mince pies, mulled wine and hot chestnuts. Christmas brass carol band.

Art for gifts at Christmas continues at the corner Gallery until 24th December

to find out more click here

I have a collection of paintings, silk scarves and pendants on show there.

The calendar in the photo below features paintings by John Stillman