Castles In The Sky

I have just returned from a visit to Bodelwyddan Castle in North Wales where the aim was to explore their extensive grounds and gardens and paint some quintessential English landscapes and visit the National Portrait exhibits displayed in the castle museum. The only set back to my plan was that the castle is a rather excellent hotel with leisure club, entertainment and fine food which tended to stifle my creative processes. When I did manage to drag myself away from the spa pool, I wondered into the victorian styled gardens and surrounding natural woodlands to find a dreamlike experience of cultivated exotic plants and unspoilt wildness. I did have time to sit and do some watercolour sketches and, although they are not very exciting, the process was rewarding because of the conversation I had with myself:

ME: Why are you sat painting wishy washy watercolours of scenes that can be better represented by a good photograph?

MYSELF: Because by sitting and sketching (it is only a painting if someone says 'I would like to buy that.') I can work out what might work and what might not

ME: And have you worked it out?

MYSELF: Yes, wishy washy watercolours won't do it for me. They are OK for illustration and greeting cards but I want to put tangible richness of colour into my work and capture the imagination.

ME: Wow! You are starting to sound like someone who knows what they are talking about. Have you been on a course?

MYSELF: No. I have taken some time to sit and think about what is important to me and what I want to do rather than trying to be something I am not. Maybe becoming a famous artist and having major international exhibitions is all 'castles in the sky' -  an impossible dream but I may be able to produce a series of works that I can be proud to exhibit and that will be good enough for me.

ME: That won't pay the mortgage though will it?

MYSELF: You can't think like that! That sort of talk will lead to commercialism and I have visions of myself cutting the card for another set of greeting cards and displaying my watercolours of local scenes in the church hall.

ME: So the plan is?

MYSELF: The plan is...to get a plan. No, planning is structured and uncreative. Each idea should just 'happen' and the 'happening' will be spontaneous and expressive of my mood.

ME: Sounds a bit hippyish and all very nice and that but will it work?



Thomas Arnold

by Thomas Phillips
oil on canvas, 1839
48 in. x 39 in. (1219 mm x 991 mm)

© National Portrait Gallery, London



MYSELF: You will never reach the castle in the sky if you don't even try to get there and the journey will be exciting anyway. Also, I might get run over by the number 7 bus tomorrow and I don't want to be lying on the road wishing I had done something I could have done in the time I was given.

ME: Well you have convinced me. Now get on with it!

Before I left Bodelwyddan, I visited the castle gallery and had a good close look at the magnificent display of portraits from the National Gallery. I say close look because this is what I like to do. Get up real close and study the process the artist has used to create the masterpiece. I like to see brushmarks and blobs of paint. I am desperate to see splashes of paint going over the edge of a line and I especially want to see disportionate hands or feet. All these things make the artist human and the paintings become a repesentation of what the process of applying to paint to canvas can achieve bringing me a step closer to my castle in the sky.