Uncovering the past

The delightful Peter Ryder shows us some of the architectural features of Norton Conyers House and gives a clue to its age.

New painting

'White Horse & Belties', mixed media on canvas 100cm x 120cm

Norton Conyers Apple Chutney

The apple harvest at Norton Conyers has been huge this year and despite large quantities going into the making of Norton Conyers apple juice, they are still abundant so in order to help out a bit and despite not having a clue what I'm doing, I've decided to make some apple and sultana chutney. This, I discover, entails an inordinate amount of peeling and chopping; not only of apples but onions too and my......don't you need a big pot! My enthusiasm to get started means that I had failed to consider the subject of containers for all this chutney and half-way through the process I realise I'm going to need some jam-jars; but where to get them; and the recipe says 'cover as usual', what does that mean? I'm going to have to do some unexpected Googling and no doubt, another trip to the shops. This could turn out to be very expensive chutney!

The finished product.

New Painting

New Painting: 'After The Harvest', oil on canvas 100cm x 100cm. The painting is part of the 'A Summer's Lease' project which charts my summer at Norton Conyers - a kind of visual diary from May to October.

It will soon be made into a full size, limited edition canvas print and is also the image I'm using for the exhibition invitation:

If there's anybody out there reading this, do come along.

Art Classes

The first students of the winter term arrived yesterday morning. It was nice to get back into teaching again though I have to remind myself every time that I DO enjoy it - every morning of a class, nerves kick in and I wonder why I’m there but as soon as I start, all is fine. Even the weather held out for us so we could start with some drawing outside. One brave soul even spent the whole day in the walled garden painting.

Winter Cometh

On the day that Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, winter comes to Norton Conyers, both arrive on the scene with an unexpected bang - the former somewhat less welcome than the latter. Snow has fallen throughout the morning and in an effort to keep the studio at a workable temperature, I spend most of the time feeding logs into the wood-burner. By lunch-time, though the snow continues to fall, it’s clear that a thaw has set in: clumps of soft, wet snow flop from the trees and the sound of trickling water seeps music into the day. I pull on my wellies and head for the woods - I’ve been thinking of making an autumn woodland picture so I had a wander round with the camera yesterday to gather some ideas. The woods were full of spectacular colour from canopy to leaf littered floor and now I re-visit and see what overnight changes have occurred.  The changes wrought are subtle and delicate - a powdering of snow has filtered through the canopy and dusted the woodland floor and the sky has a steelier look to it but still the autumn holds on. Pheasants call throughout the wood, sometimes flushing from beneath my feet and a woodcock zips between the elephant’s legs of beech. On the way back to the studio I stop to watch the sun go down and as I stand a dog fox slides onto the track and stares me in the eyes. 

Autumn's Bounty

Autumn has arrived in a blaze of glory. The world looks and smells different, and strangely, it sounds different too: even though most of the leaves are still on the trees, somehow the acoustic has changed. Someone was shooting in the woods this morning and the echo reverberated for longer, but was softer. Perhaps it's just my imagination.

There are two cottages in the stable courtyard; one occupied by Walter, a horseman and milker of cows who sadly lost his wife a couple of months ago and the other by Stuart who I met for the first time today. He seemed shy and friendly; perhaps because of his news - his wife, coming out of hospital today has given birth to a baby boy. Stuart is strong, he works outside and his joy was gently evident. I spent the day working on two harvest paintings; one in oil, the other the big (5' x 5') mixed media of Ripon cathedral from Studley. I may post a picture tomorrow.

Woodburner

I saw it first in Giles's workshop: squat, bulldog legs and growling empty amongst tired tools.

A cast iron fire-dog fed on trees, it had coaxed fruit ripe in the greenhouses of Norton Conyers until supermarkets dazzled us with shinier, shapelier, taste-free options like fruity page three girls.

It is a Jotul 118; built in Norway and designed in the late 1930s by the artist Ørnulf Bast. It reminded me of the Bankdam-Crowther in J.L.Carr's 'A Month In The Country and like Carr's hero Tom Birkin, I'm looking forward to cajoling it to life and learning of its caprice and foible.

Perfectly timed for the recent drop in temperature (can't have an arctic artist), Dougie the sweep and son Paul arrived to infuse life back into the Norse fire-breather on Monday. In an effort to have as little impact on the fabric of the building as possible we'd intended to put the flue out through an already broken pane in the window. It soon became apparent however that we would have to make extensive alterations to the frame and louvres which appear to be original to the building so we ended up going straight up through the roof which has clearly been replaced in recent years and would, we felt, be the better option. The experts did the clever stuff, I replaced the broken glass in the window and all was finished in an afternoon.

So - here we go: for the first time in many years the Jotul 118 gets fire up:

It made for a lovely environment to work in Yesterday and we'll see how it copes as the autumn turns to winter.

Latest Painting:

'Fishing Boats, Scarborough', mixed media on canvas 100cm x 100cm.

Oft' maligned, Scarborough is one of my favourite seaside places: Mrs S. and I visit often and it always has something new to give. Yes it has something of the 'kiss me quick' culture, but the harbour that gave rise to this painting is as lovely as any in northern Europe and high above the harbour crouches the magnificent Scarborough castle with stupendous views of both the north and south bays, out to sea and inland to the moors. Just outside the castle walls is St Mary's church which is the final resting place of Anne Bronte who died at the tender age of 29. It seems she'd come to Scarborough for it's health giving air......Hmm!