'Resilience'- Thistle Meadow

Title:           Resilience

Medium:   Oil on Canvas

Size:          91.5cm x 61cm (36*x24*)

About this Painting: Painted in september 2021 'Resilience ', part of my 'A tear in the meadow', series. The series of Devon meadow & hedgerow paintings was a direct response to the Covid crisis,when our worlds were reduced to the immediate surroundings close to home. The canvas radiates warm, natural colours.
I felt incredibly lucky to be in the countryside, surrounded by wild hedgerows & the wild meadow which my neighbours allowed to grow through the year.
My experience of the meadow was as a place of quiet solitude where I could spend half an hour gathering my thoughts & feel grounded in Nature
Painting the meadow through the seasons took me on a journey of gentle lessons about life & the desire to share the mellow peacefulness of the meadow with those who don't have Nature so close to their home.
This painting was started during a live painting session at RHS Rosemoor where I was exhibiting some work. I Worked from the deeply ingrained memory of the meadow, sketches made en plein air & a series of photos which you can see in the attached video.
The weeks around creating this painting I had been rushing around from one end of the county to another, juggling two exhibitions & a list of other commitments. I was feeling very ragged around the edges & exhausted. The time I could take to work on the painting & my brief moments each evening in the meadow are what kept me going.

The little meadow thistles why become little clouds of lilac fliff in late summer , then fluff out to send out hundreds of gossamer seeds in the Autumn are amongst my favourites in the wild meadow.
So the name of this piece is ‘Resilience’, as the hardy little thistle symbolises. Those scattered moments & snatched hours of doing what I love best was what kept me going whilst juggle a myriad of activities.
It’s the things which we are passionate about which feed our energy. Doing what we love & finding the time for it, however scattered, is what gives us the strength to deal with everything else which saps our time & vitality.
So this canvas of humble meadow thistles was what fed me while I was pulled away by life’s demands. Even in small bursts that creative flow is enough to ignite a spark which re-energises the soul & gives the body a little boost to keep going..