"Butterfly Bramble"
Ann Blockley is a renowned watercolour and mixed media artist with an individual style. developed over thirty years of professional painting. Her pictures are evocative, atmospheric and intuitive. Her longstanding passion has been for flowers and nature, inspired by the gardens and countryside close to her Cotswold studio. Ann has a worldwide reputation for flower painting but her landscapes and animals are also collector’s items. She has written seven books on her painting methods covering many subjects.
In all her pictures, Ann uses painterly textures, marks and edge values, using watercolour especially in a loose and flowing style. She stretches the boundaries of the medium, sometimes working on a gesso surface to create unconventional textured images. She is continually exploring, experimenting and re-evaluating her work. This theme is continued in her latest book, ‘Experimental flowers in watercolour’ published by Batsford books in June 2011.
Ann has established a reputation as an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher at the workshops she holds near her home in Gloucestershire and on painting holidays in UK and abroad. Her work is exhibited in galleries throughout UK.
Her father was the inspirational artist, John Blockley RI PPPS RWA.
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ANN'S DIARY
January 2012
I have a guilty confession to make. After all my travelling last Autumn I went away again over Christmas and New Year. I escaped to the Costa Rican rain forest and met up with crocodiles, monkeys and sloths! It was wonderful.
I have seen so many inspirational subjects over the last few months that I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all now I am back in England . On my first day back in the studio I did not know where to begin! I took myself for a walk until I started noticing small flashes of colour in the cold, grey day. Patches of vivid yellow fungi or lichen on trees, richly coloured blackberry leaves still clinging to thorny stems, a flash of orange sun through branches, fretworks of red tinged trees fringing a pond. These accents of colour lifted my spirits and it reminded me what a difference small injections of bright pigment make to a painting. I rushed back to my studio to explore this idea adding dots or patches of oil pastel or gouache to some abandoned watercolours, even sticking tiny patches of coloured paper on top with PVA glue. The idea of accents and echoes is not new but I think we need to remind ourselves all the time about old ideas and revisit them, especially when we need a boost. Now, I feel ready to begin the year!
I have a busy month ahead doing paintings for exhibitions and art societies, writing magazine articles and planning some exciting events for the year ahead. My New Year's resolutions are to go for more walks but eat more chocolate! I am also intending to learn more about how to use Facebook and link it with my website. Finally, I am hoping to start including the occasional demonstration on my website with some practical ideas for your own painting.
Happy New Year!
December 2011
I'm back!! I have been travelling for the past seven weeks and the time has flown by. It has all been a great adventure. I visited some amazing and inspiring places including Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Bali and have met many wonderfully warm, friendly and generous people at my workshops and demonstrations. It would take all day to write about and individually thank all the new friends and other artists that I have encountered on my journey but it has been a very special experience and I feel really lucky to have had this opportunity.
In Queensland, the highlight was the laughter and sharing of ideas with the lovely Australians who attended my seminars at a special art retreat, Frog Hollow. I will remember them for their enthusiasm, sharing of ideas, the many glasses of wine, marshmallows round the campfire, and for snapping up with such energy and cheerful greediness every single splodge that I made on paper! Visual treats were the old farm sheds; patchworks of timber and rusty red tin surrounded by rough old fence posts. Scarlet bottlebrush shrubs and mauve jacaranda trees greeted me everywhere. I am also looking forward to painting the multi-hued parrots flitting through rainforest foliage and the clouds of cockatoos which clattered through the tops of pale ghostly gum trees.
South Island, New Zealand was totally inspiring with its woods and rain forest, dripping and festooned with incredible ferns and mosses of every shape and size. At night, corners of the forest turned into enchanted glow worm dells, straight out of a fairytale. The scenery was amazing and I saw some fantastic skies with shafts of light slicing through the dark clouds onto the lakes, fiords and mountains. Deserted silvery beaches were strewn with bleached sea sculpted driftwood and fringed with wind-pruned trees.
After the green palette of South island the amazing multi hued thermal areas of North Island appeared even more sensational. Mists of steam drifted over bubbling pools and craters of coloured water. The vivid colours of these were echoed in the orange and crimson, lichen covered rocks, trees and wooden fences.
In Bali, my interest in flower painting was rekindled with a vengeance. What a paradise of colour and shapes! I have never seen lotus flowers quite like the ones that grow there. Instead of hugging the water they are tall and sway on long slender stalks with huge blue- green leaves like umbrellas. We had fun splashing the leaves to try and make small silvery puddles collect inside their bowl like shapes. Enormous seedpods pitted with holes contain blue and mauve tinted seeds. Dragonflies in dazzling shades of turquoise and gold flash by or hover on the tips of waterlily buds. Frogs plop off the frilly edged, crimped leaves of a different type of white water lily which open out at night and mysteriously close up in the morning. Heaven.
So now I am home, armed with paint sketches, memories and a wealth of ideas and it is time to disappear into my studio for the winter and PAINT! I really must put my preaching into practise and focus on a new body of work. Having experimented with new techniques throughout the development of my new book and dvd it is now time to build on what I have learnt and move forward. Watch this space!
October 2011
My studio exhibition seems ages ago there is so much happening at the moment. It was lovely to meet so many of you and to have such a positive response to my paintings. I advertised my workshops early this year as I will be away for the rest of the Autumn . All the dates on my website are full but I may add new ones next year as I hate disappointing people and turning keen students away. I have had a lot of enquiries form art groups requesting workshops and demonstrations but am not making any more commitments now until next year.
I am racing around at the moment trying to savour the English Autumn while I can as I am soon off on my Big Trip! It is all very exciting. I shall be visiting Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Bali both working and on holiday. My suitcase is filling up with so many paints, sketchbooks, paper, drawing materials and camera that I am worried that there will be no room for any clothes! I think I shall concentrate on lots of paint sketches rather than If anyone will be in New Zealand in November watch out for my colourful floral painted camper van! I will be back at the end of November and am expecting to be very inspired with lots of new ideas.
While I'm travelling my studio will be looked after by Charles Pearmain. Online orders will be shipped as usual and he will handle any urgent enquiries. Charles designed this website and helps me with administration. If you are looking for someone to create a special personal or business Website I can recommend him highly. His company, Select Systems, can be found HERE, his email address is enquiries@selectsystems.co and his direct telephone number is 01608 650778.
I will have my lap top with me while I am away and am hoping to have access to WiFi every now and again but I may be slower than usual in replying to your messages.
September 2011
I have had such an explosion of ideas over the last year and have been so busy that I feel I need to stop still and take stock. There is so much to still explore and I feel that I have just been dipping my toe in the water as far as experimenting and mixed media is concerned. My collage ideas have potential and I am teeming with thoughts for taking this much further but contrarily, I am also increasingly drawn to loose watercolour techniques. My task now is to decide which processes to carry forward and which ones to put on the back burner or store away for another time. The avalanche of sometimes contradictory ideas has had the effect of stopping me in my tracks so my September exhibition is coming at just the right moment.
A Studio exhibition forces me to tidy up. It also creates the ideal opportunity to get all my paintings out and review them whilst I plan how to display them. At the moment there are paintings everywhere, propped in odd corners, on the wall, up the stairs, even the floor. Although, in spite of recession, it has been an amazing year for me selling pictures, I still have a lot here. New paintings seem to appear by magic as fast as they go and for the first time in years I have paintings that I feel a little bit proud of. It is useful seeing them all laid out as it helps me to focus on what to do next.
I am very lucky in the fact that my studio can double up as a space for occasional workshops and exhibitions. It was a derelict 17th century small barn in the grounds of our Cotswold house. We converted it into a studio, leaving the old beams but taking up the brick floor and replacing with stone. The bricks now make lovely herringbone paths in the vegetable plot. We took out a large amount of the studio wall and replaced this with glass which means that I look out onto runner beans, rocket and roses. A gnarled lilac mingles with an apple tree and there are lots of seed heads: poppies, teasels, onions and angelica. The garden attracts birds and butterflies and the bees, although a nuisance at times, have given us record amounts of honey this year. The courtyard, through which you reach the studio, has become a bit of a junk yard. I am an avid collector of just about everything. Pots, interesting stones and shells, an old mangle, bunches of rusty keys, piles of shire horse shoes and spanners from the old farriers opposite all jostle for space. All this combined with the hollyhocks and teasels makes rather a jungle. which I must tidy up…later.
Do come and see my studio, during the exhibition if you can, say hello and maybe even look at the paintings! Details are on the News and Events page. Looking at paintings in books and on screens is never quite the same as seeing them for real, especially in the environment where they were created. If you live too far away I will let you know next month how I got on.
August 2011
August for me has always felt like an ‘in between’ month as if I am slightly in limbo and waiting for real life to start again in September. I was one of those weird children who couldn’t wait to get back to school! I have been so busy in recent weeks that I have given myself permission to potter around this month, experimenting with paint, gardening and making jam and endless ratatouille. My time spent walking through fields and lanes has been divided between trying to sketch and think whilst preventing my small terrier Maisie being lost forever down rabbit holes! A wise friend remarked that artists can be painting even when not painting. In other words fresh ideas are being percolated in our subconscious all the time just waiting to bubble to the surface when they are ripe and ready. I have just finished some new watercolours for my studio exhibition in September (please note the extra dates), and am about to launch myself into a thistle themed extravaganza! The thistles have been especially wonderful this year with clouds of silvery thistledown, rich purple plumes and exciting graphic patterns of spiky leaves. I can feel some mixed media interpretations brewing.
I am doing a series of workshops this August at home and away. Demonstrating in workshops always stimulates my imagination. I plan my demonstrations very little, preferring to be almost totally spontaneous and work on something found or seen that day. I do not feel that I have a formula like ‘proper’ demonstrators. I never know exactly how my work is going to progress but I believe that this helps people see the thinking behind my work as well as simply showing technique. I sometimes feel a little on edge until I actually begin and then I relax and often have quite a hilarious time with lots of things going wrong and finding my way out of the messes I create. My latest dvd, by the way, is now Townhouse film’s ‘fastest selling dvd’. They have described it as ‘a super soaraway success’. ! A big thank you to everyone who has bought it and for all the wonderful feedback.
I have just planned some more workshops for next year based both in my village and elsewhere. I am only putting a few dates on my workshop page to start with as I need to make sure that I reserve enough space for my own painting .It would be all too easy to become a full time tutor as spaces get snapped up but I am going to be very mean! I have had a lot of requests from art groups all over UK to do demonstrations and I will try to get back to you all in the Autumn. I will be able to visit some of you, but not all, as I need to reserve time for generating new thoughts and making my own experiments. It is a juggling act ,retaining a balance.
Do please keep sending me your requests and comments by email. It is really lovely knowing that there are people out there actually reading this and I have received some fantastic comments! It is actually quite strange to be here in my studio leading what feels like a very simple and ordinary life, struggling with my work like everyone else then suddenly getting messages describing what an influence I have been on people thousands of miles away. It makes it all worthwhile and I feel very privileged.
July 2011
It has been a wonderful couple of weeks and I am feeling on top of the world! My exhibition at Bourton house was a huge success. Not only in terms of great painting sales but also the fact that everyone who visited had a lovely day out. Some people stayed all day, starting with coffee and cake, a good look round the paintings in the enormous tithe barn and a wander round the gorgeous garden which was in full bloom. Many visitors then went out for lunch at the nearby arboretum and returned for my demonstration in the gallery before heading home armed with books, dvds, paintings or cards or in lots of cases all four! The owners of the venue have commissioned me to paint a corner of their garden in my semi abstract, impressionist style. I can’t wait to create a painting of ‘structured chaos’ to describe the jumble of white shapes and silvery greys within the formal ‘white garden’.
I am thrilled and relieved that I had such a positive response to my latest work .I spent almost two years locked away in my studio, working on my book and struggling to develop my painting. I felt instinctively that I was moving towards a particular time when things would come together but I was often plagued with doubts. It feels fantastic to have had my work displayed, praised and packed off to start a new life on new walls, including many overseas, and I am really motivated now to focus on my latest ideas.
Apologies to all those who came to the exhibition and found I had sold out of books and dvds. I thought I had ordered loads but somewhat underestimated. Anyway, I have plenty more now in stock. Many thanks to Henry Malt at www.artbookreview.net for his wonderful book review and for all the enthusiastic and encouraging emails from all over the world.about the book and dvd
The Society of women artist 150th exhibition is on this month at the Mall Galleries in London. The private view was packed and the galleries looked stunning with a huge variety of paintings. I am looking forward to going again next week to do my demonstration.(See News and events page) I must decide what I am going to paint? We walked through the most amazing poppy field yesterday evening; large expanses of textured red broken in the foreground with patterns of dancing dots. Perhaps this could be the theme of the demonstration? As one of my paintings at The Mall is called ‘Poppy dance’, it would be apt. The other pieces on show are the ‘Bluebell wood’ shown on this page, a flowing, textured ‘Primrose Bank’ and a mixed media interpretation called ‘Meadow clocks’ which is featured on page 64 of ‘Experimental flower’ book.
June 2011
My big exhibition is fast approaching and I am rushing around getting work framed. Most of the pictures in my book were with the publishers for a year whilst I continued to paint new work in the meantime. This means I have a lot of paintings to hang! The tithe barn belonging to Bourton House gardens, where the exhibition will be held, is a magnificent and enormous building so there is plenty of space. I am planning to group pictures according to subjects and style. My latest atmospheric landscapes, including some of those in my website Gallery section, will all hang together. I will also have a section with mixed media and watercolour animals, mainly sheep and cockerels. There will also, of course, be lots of flowers. However, it is amazing how unfloral the exhibition will be, considering that the book and dvd are both about flowers! I think it is because I try to avoid being too pretty and because I have really been working hard at taking my paintings forward and making them more contemporary. I became very engrossed in hedgerow subjects during the Autumn and Winter whilst putting the book together and my interest has continued to grow. The more recent work involves textured surfaces, layering paper and using bits of gesso, even tearing and fragmenting the edges to give them a very tactile look, almost like fragments of old manuscripts. Some of the hedges have birds or butterflies within the branches.
If you want to see what else I will be exhibiting, please do come along and say hello.
People sometimes ask me whether I mind my pictures going or whether I ever feel I want to keep them . The answer is a loud ‘no! I like sending them off to start their new life. It is not to do with money, it is more about clearing my head in order to start afresh and try again. I am continually driven to attempt something better or different and move forward.
THIS MONTH'S TOP TIP!
Look in this month’s (July edition) Artist Magazine! I was amazed when a big envelope arrived in the post the other day and out plopped a copy of the Artist magazine with one of my sunflower pictures on the cover! I had no idea I was going to be the cover artist. Inside, there are four pages with excerpts from the book.
May 2011
I have just finished filming my new dvd and it is now all in the hands of the editor! It is six years since I made my last film and there is definitely a difference in my style. I think it is going to be really exciting because I cover such a variety of fresh thoughts. I find it hard to keep secrets and always end up unintentionally giving my ideas away!
I was advised to stay in my comfort zone for the demonstrations but as this goes against my usual painting philosophy I deliberately made some experiments using new methods and materials, genuinely unaware of how they would turn out. For example, on a recent trip to Turkey, a wonderful lady invited me into her house to share coffee. She also gave me some seeds from sunflowers that she had grown . I decided to incorporate them into a sunflower portrait using lots of gesso. I had used hogweed seeds before in a painting featured in the ‘Experimental Flowers’ book but this was new. The result is quite dramatic and interesting.
My enthusiasm did cause a few mishaps. I got somewhat over exuberant with my new Jackson Pollock style method of splashing red paint which ended up on a patch of uncovered carpet several metres away and an unfinished painting propped against the wall. The lid fell off the glue pot as I squeezed some out and the entire contents landed in my palette and a pile of sequins. I expect the clever editor will carefully cut out my moments of hilarity and panic! He has to shrink about seven hours of footage into a two hour film. I will put a trailer on the website soon for you to have a preview.
THIS MONTH’S TOP TIP
Inktense blocks by Derwent. What fantastic and versatile fun these little intense sticks of colour are. You can draw into a wet wash to make soft edges or use them on a dry wash for sharper marks. These can then be dissolved and smudged if you like with water. Scrapings can be shaved off with a knife and sprinkled into wet paint to create lovely mottled textures in backgrounds or around flower centres. Endless possibilities for experimentation.
April 2011
WOW! I am so excited. An advance copy of my book arrived yesterday. I left it unopened for hours before I dared to peek inside! A whole year’s worth of painting at stake, not to mention months of writing, thinking and designing. I have to say, I am thrilled with it. The pictures are really huge and vivid and I think you can see how my work changes as you progress through the chapters. It feels like I have reached the end of the project with renewed inspiration and I am hoping that it will inspire other artists to challenge themselves and give them lots of ideas. The quest to develop your painting is not always a straight forward route and although I explored many new techniques I also felt it was important to recap on familiar themes before I was able to relax and move forward. The book’s main purpose is to demonstrate how experimenting can help you to grow and I feel that my own latest paintings are proof that this advice really does work! My paintings are becoming increasingly loose and I am so pleased with the wonderful response I have had from people.
I will soon be filming a new dvd with the same title as the book; ‘Experimental flowers in watercolour’. It is very scary to paint in front of a camera ,but it is another challenge and if I do make mistakes I am sure you will all just love that! I shall be experimenting with different techniques, looking at ways to loosen up and make ‘familiar’ subjects really different. I will be giving you plenty of food for thought and hopefully, have you all racing for your paint brushes.
THIS MONTH'S TOP TIP!
Try experimenting with some of the cheaper brands of artist’s watercolour. Sometimes we are fearful of being wasteful with our paint, especially as it can be so expensive. This stops us from loosening up and if you are mean with your colours it always reflects in your paintings. I have been using Shin Han watercolours this month and am really very impressed with the quality and the vibrancy of most colours at a low price for a big tube. You can get them from www.jacksonsart.co.uk
March 2011
I will be exhibiting two watercolours in the annual Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour exhibition (RI) at the Mall Galleries in London. This is a fantastic gallery on the Mall, which is the road leading from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. The Society of Women artists will also be holding their 150th celebratory exhibition there in July. I am frantically working on my paintings for that at the moment.
One of my RI paintings is the Hedgerow picture featured on this page. Last Autumn I spent weeks immersing myself in a series of paintings based on ideas inspired by things seen on walks around the fields and countryside around my home. I have always been interested in hedges, their history and meaning, the wildlife that inhabits or uses them and above all the vast array of plants that weaves itself together to create them. I am not a botanist, however. Although I like to think about the background information , as a visual person I am excited by the abstract qualities of the subject. I love the tangles and shapes, the gaps and dots of bright colour. I love the way these patterns constantly evolve and change throughout the year so that there is always something to paint. In the picture opposite I was involved with the light shining through the gaps between some bryony leaves and their slender stems which gave an almost stained glass window effect. I used watercolour textures to create the jewel like berries and twisted stems which meander in pathways of colour and pattern. I have become obsessed with finding different methods to represent gaps, from using masking fluid to cutting holes in my paper!.
My other RI painting is ‘Gold Moon’ which you can see in the ‘Gallery’ section. It may look a bit dark on your screen but in real life the gold ink shimmers from the moon and in the gaps between the hedgerow trees. I have written about this picture in an article in the May edition of the Artist magazine. However if you want to see the original there is further information about the RI exhibition in my ‘Events’ section.
THIS MONTH'S TOP TIP!
Work standing up!. It is great for loosening up your paintings. I could not have painted ‘Hedgerow’, allowing the paint to flow so freely, if I had been hunched in a chair!
February 2011
I have so many ideas at the moment that I am spoiled for choice. Experimenting with a wide variety of methods whilst working on my new book and DVD has really stimulated my thinking. However, I still love working with the juicy liquid of watercolour and letting it flow into gorgeous colour combinations, sometimes adding exciting textures. I often do this at the start of the day, for its own sake, but also because it is a great way to loosen up. Often a thought or something seen subconsciously influences my choice of colour or mark making technique and a picture begins to evolve.
I think of watercolour as my playmate (sometimes my enemy!) and I let it think that it is doing its own thing whilst actually I am secretly in control, manipulating the paint by tilting or bending the unstretched paper to force the wet watercolour into a particular direction. I often add gouache in the next stage to add structure to the more spontaneous work. I find that adding an opaque medium to watercolour releases you from the constraints of only using transparent layers of paint. I also use textured gesso, acrylics and oil pastel to take my watercolours a bit further than I can if I stick to the traditional rules. To try and make my work a bit less representational I have been experimenting with collage, sometimes adding collage ingredients to a painting or even tearing paintings up and reassembling the pieces in different positions to create a more abstract look. I may then do further work on the painting with different mediums. Tearing paintings can be scary but very therapeutic!
Looking out of my studio window I can see snowdrops huddled at the base of an ivy etched tree trunk. I cannot see any detail in the small flowers. They are simply overlapping white shapes like little snippets of white paper sprinkled and stuck to a background: just like a collage. Seeing something like this reminds me that although it is fabulous fun experimenting with paint, mixed media, collage and so on, I must always relate my painterly discoveries to something I have actually seen that has inspired me. I think that is what being an artist is all about.
Next month I will tell you about my paintings that have been chosen for the RI annual exhibition (Royal Institute of painters in watercolour) and what inspired me to paint them.
January 2011.
Happy New year!
I thought I would start 2011 by updating my website and adding a new section within the home page. My plan is to write an occasional mini ‘blog’ keeping you up to date with what I am working on, some of my current thoughts and ideas on painting and anything else I think of!
2011 promises to be a really exciting year for me with the publication of a new book and dvd, articles for the Artist magazine, Art fairs and demonstrations, exhibitions and new gallery outlets. I will be continuing with workshops in my lovely Cotswold village but am going out and about more this year with painting holidays. I am even doing one in Australia in the Autumn! It is a long way to travel but it should be really stimulating and exciting. I will be combining it with a trip to New Zealand so if anyone out there has any suggestions of arty things to do in either country, do let me know!
My new book is finally being published in June. It has taken a long time to put together.128 pages is a lot of space to fill with paintings! However, I am going to London this week to look at the colour proofs for the first time and I can’t wait to see them!
When I was asked to do another flower book I struggled with the idea at first as I thought I might end up repeating myself. Having already written five other books with flowers in. what could I possibly say that would be different? As I began to paint my worst fears appeared to be founded and I felt I had nothing new to teach. However, I continued to paint in order to push myself through this phase and see what would evolve. Very quickly, ideas started to flow and I began to really enjoy experimenting. I ignored all negative thoughts and gave myself permission to have fun. Occasionally I crept back into my comfort zone but decided that it was ok to do that. It was never long before a new thought popped into my head and I would start on another exciting paint adventure. I will tell you a bit about some of my most wacky paint ideas next time!
The book is about flowers and finding methods and ways to paint them but an undercurrent theme also became clear as I was compiling it. We need to constantly progress as artists and not stand still but this process is often a struggle. It is important to fight and face our fears, stop procrastinating and overcome negative barriers and resistance. Experimenting and play can really help you to move forward and assess how you want to proceed with your work. Above all, when you are not sure of how or what you want to paint, my answer is to get your brushes out and simply BEGIN.
This section is not a ‘proper blog’ but if you would like to contact me with comments through my email address I will do my best to reply.
Have a fantastic and creative year!
Hi Ann,
Just want to thank you very much for a stimulating day on Monday. I really enjoyed the experience and found it quite inspirational. It's wonderful to be given permission to play. I've known for a while that I don't want to paint 'pretty pictures' but have had little idea of what I do want paint. I now feel more comfortable with this uncertainty and am continuing to play and explore what I can do with paint and mixed media.
It's exciting!
Many thanks
Christine