A Bench with a View

My back is painful at the moment and I didn't want to paint. It had been a couple of weeks since I had last picked up a brush. And then, I started to hear a quiet, wise voice, saying 'let's paint'. I didn't have anything I wanted to paint from my saved photographs. But my partner takes photos and says it's okay for me to use hers as a subject.

This scene, a light and wintry scene in February, stood out for me. With my partner, the photographer, we had taken a previously neglected corner of the garden* and turned it into this attractive area. We levelled the top surface for the bench, then dug out the steps in the earth, placing and fitting packed stones in place. Every time I walk up and down, it gives me a sense of pleasure and pride. Sitting on the bench gives you a secluded view of the garden, especially in the late afternoon sunshine. By our side is the Wayfarer verbenum we planted, looking stronger and beginning to bud again, coming into its second summer.

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If you have had works of art framed, you will know how expensive it is. If you make your own frames and mounts, you will know how difficult it can be. You can buy frames and mounts, but working out which size paper and mount fits a particular frame is challenging. To help, my artist partner gave some recycled, wooden pieces over which old canvases had been stretched. The corners slot together and we'd made two. The problem was they didn't fit the A2, 3 and 4 paper I painted on. Then, I had a brainwave! Resize the paper to fit the frame! I used masking tape to stick the paper onto the front pad of the paper, and, though it fell down,and I had to reinforce the tape, it worked! Having a painting inside a frame is so rewarding. The staple gun is useful to secure corners and the paper is held onto the back of the frame by masking tape. A staple, eased out partly, fits onto a wall nail for hanging.

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Gordon, my artist tutor friend, said to me when we'd last met to use paintbrushes, not artist brushes. He meant the ones we use for DIY! I had, in fact, picked some up but had sofar been reluctant to use them. But now, I was painting on larger areas, and larger brushes would be good, especially at the start of the painting, before adding details. In I went, mixing my own greens from blue and yellow. It was useful to work out tones from a swatch I'd made in class, when I'd first started. I made some mental approximations of the relative relationships in horizontal thirds and vertical halves. After sitting quietly looking at the scene for five minutes, I was ready to begin, having switched the pad from landscape to portrait, of course.

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Time passed. Sometimes, I stood up, not only to ease my back. I did feel at one point that it was not going anywhere but that thought quickly left me. More than anything, I grew to be lost in the process and, what's more, what was that feeling..? I don't know...was it pleasure? Yes, it was. I was enjoying myself, smiling, even laughing to myself at times. This was novel. I signed it before the end (a sign things have gone well and I am pleased with the painting). I lay down my brush and it was done. 

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Later in the afternoon, once it had dried, I tried it out for size on the back of the frame. It fitted perfectly! Then, I realised my mistake. It would be tricky to tape it to the frame as all the wood was covered. A lesson learned, maybe, more than one, to undercut the paper next time. And yet, I will try and frame it as it is. And when I look at it, it will remind me of the time we made steps up to a bench, the lovely views across the garden over the changing seasons, but especially during Spring and Summer, and, not least, the stories we tell there.

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*The Quaker Burial Ground, Community Wildlife Garden and Orchard