I am thinking about and painting shadows. In the land shadow pictures the subject is Maiden Castle in Dorset, which is a very large Iron Age hill fort which I visited last autumn. This fort has a commanding view over Dorchester and the surrounding countryside and it is characterised by a series of steep ramparts which under certain lights cast deep shadows, which create forms in their own right. Look on-line for images of Maiden Castle Dorset; most of them are pictures from high above and show clearly the strong rampart lines of this ancient and captivating hill fort. We are fortunate in our part of the world to have so many of these memorable sites around us.
Some of the paintings are of my shadow. The sun shines, our shadow is cast, a version of ourselves usually only seen in sunlit conditions and the length of our shadows varies with the trajectory of the sun.
This is another path I have just started to explore in paint and this concept of shadows I will try to develop further.
There is a sense of mystery with moonlight. It’s light can seem cold, ethereal and with a full moon shining, very bright in the night sky. There is a strong contrast with inky darkness. This can also seem unsettling as we cannot see what we know to be there in daylight. There is a stillness about night too, as everyday life sleeps and as an artistic subject it is often not explored. I hope to paint phases of the moon at different times of the year, though the full moon with its power of light gives the greatest contrasts.