© Copyright of the site and all pictures, poetry, photographs and music Marion Hebblethwaite.
Contact: marion-h@thequarryhouse.co.uk
| A Year in my Garden | Life Drawing | Oils on my own | Then came France | It's a PAINTING! | Bistre and charcoal | My paintings - Gallery | Pottery |
| Poetry and Prose | Photography | Music | |||||
The first sketchbook of watercolours is now out. If you would like one they are £25 each of which £10 goes towards the Oriel College Development Fund. Please contact me for how to obtain.
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It is easy to sound rather pompous about art. Reading artists' essays on the 'meaning' of their work, what inspires them, etc can actually be rather a pain so I've tried to avoid this affectation though I believe it is what is expected - that an artist must also be a philosopher/ psychologist with deep reasons for their work. Some of that is just a lot of mumbo-jumbo. What I have tried to do in my work is seek a response from the viewer. If someone just walks past a picture then I have failed.
I have now been painting for nearly 20 years, have exhibited and sold and pictures are now in a number of private collections.
While paging through my website you will see how I have explored various mediums over the past years. I started with ink on Goldline paper for a little series of books on my garden, drawing every day for a year. I drew flowers and seeds, grasses and leaves. On one day each month I wrote about what was happening in the garden including information on the plants, wildlife, weather and recipes after harvest. I then spent a day with Chris Hicks, master book-binder, who taught me how to sew my little books together and to make slipcases. These small books were then printed on an Apple inkjet printer on recycled paper and included the drawings which had been scanned and converted into a digital format. These twelve books, indivually sewn and collected into two slipcases each containing 6 volumes, were printed in a limited edition of 6 each and are now unobtainable.
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I attended a few terms of life drawing with my friend and successful artist Pete Ross, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. I was pretty useless but did discover that whereas many people draw with their hands I was using my whole arm and that for me large movements came more easily. Despite Pete's efforts I never really drew anyone who looked much like the model. I have only one left.
Oil paints are the most enticing medium and spending a small fortune on an easel, some paints, turps, supports and brushes I set about painting my first picture. I chose a photograph I had taken of my sister Carol and her husband Robert sitting in their living room in Johannesburg. I'm rather fond of this picture even though Robert looks a bit flat and Carol standing up would be about 7 feet tall - but you have to start somewhere and my trusty book Oil Painting Step by Step was always to hand. Their son was unhappy that I had added in the little chest but cutting it out left a blank wallI so perhaps it should be cropped.
I looked at and read art books about artists from many eras but always found myself being drawn back to the French Impressionists. All the while, when I was still living with my parents, I had had a print of Van Gogh in a straw hat on my wall and I never stopped loving his colours. I visited art galleries in Paris, London and went to Amsterdam to the museum devoted to him.
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I painted my mother - but could never get her head big enough, even putting a hat on her head didn't really do the trick, but I kept painting and was always searching for some way to simplify my pictures - to get away from detail to find the soul, the essence (that sounds a bit pretentious doesn't it?). Most of what I painted at this time was taken from photos that I taken, often with the express purpose of using them for a picture. I also painted outside - as with the picture of my mother in the hat. I was also learning about composition and colour. |
Keen to explore the possibilites of learning to paint in France I found, I'll never remember how, Patrick Fouilhoux, who runs an atelier in Paris and once a year takes his students away for a summer stage. In 2001 I joined his group near St Astier in the Perigord. No one spoke English and this was perfect for me who spoke virtually no French. I was steeped in the French countryside, French food and the wonderful ambience of French people painting, talking, eating and drinking in the warm, late summer weather. Patrick talked of "ze light" permeating everything we painted, of the contrast between calm and chaos, between light and dark. I painted and painted every day in plein aire.
Our day began with a talk, then we went out to a spot previously selected by him and painted until lunchtime. After a leisurely lunch at which I learnt to cut cheese the correct way, suck chicken bones for the marrow and prepare salads, we worked on our pictures in the studio. Around 4 we gathered again this time with the model, a young American girl, and went out to the fields where she posed nude for us each day with cows or trees or hills in the background. Evening meals were of course another joy and I gradually learnt enough French to take part, or at least to understand, some of the conversation around me. I have been back and keep in touch with Patrick and am off to France again in 2010.
 Private collection |
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From my trips to France I hoped that I had developed some sort of style of my own. Many of Patrick's own watercolours have been published in a series of small, illustrated travel books. He holds regular exhibitions in Paris.
Somehow, and again I don't know how, I heard about Robin Child. He is an inspirational teacher with more years of teaching behind him than he would probably like to admit. He approaches his subject from a different angle and concentrates on the language of art. One of his mantras is that art is art - it is not a photograph or nature or a copy of either. Of course it is all very well for those of us who paint to believe this but in order for us to sell or at least be appreciated the viewers must also understand this. How often have I been told - "the sky isn't quite right" or "you've missed out a tree, window, chimney ...". Well it's not supposed to be right and of course I could have put in the extra tree if I had wanted to. Its a PAINTING and paintings are flat, they are hung on a wall and are made of paint of some kind, applied to paper, card or canvas.
 Private collection. |
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Robin has encouraged me and his other students to stop planning, to discover and experiment with materials.
 Charcoal |
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 Bistre |
With Robin we explore the characteristics of various mediums. I personally rather like using bistre ink. This is made, mainly on the Continent, from the soot from burning beech wood. It has an interesting granular texture.
My paintings can be broadly divided into three genres which also relate to the mediums used;
OILS - some realistic scenes which satisy my family and are inspired by a specific place and still-lifes
ACRYLICS - abstract landscapes
WATERCOLOURS & INKS - some of these have been printed as sketch books by Senecio in Charlbury
I am fussy about framing and use only some of the best framers in the country.Here are a few details of frames that I have used. I do sometimes like oils behind glass, I hate to see the stapeles or nails on the sides of block canvases as I have seen in galleries, often with price tags in the thousands. So you will never see these when I sell a framed picture.
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Then one day during Oxfordshire's ARTWEEKS I discovered Mike Palmer, a potter in Witney. I was enraptured and immediately started a series of lessons. Mike is patient, knowledgeable and has an extremely diverse set of skills. With another equally enthusiastic student he has taught me to centre, throw and turn. I have begun to understand about glazes and have produced a couple of dozen pots.
In July 2010 I attended a workshop run by Lisa Hammond with two Japanese master potters, Rizu Takahashi and Shozo Michikawa. While there learning exciting new techniques I also drew a number of sketches which are being printed as a Sketchbook.
I have collected ceramics most of my life without realising that I was doing so. Now I look at them with more respect for the potter. I have studied manuals and specialist books devoted to one potter and have found the work I most admire and wish to emulate.
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So here are a few of my pots, each unique, each to me a minor work of art. I love them, I use them daily and hold them tenderly. For scale the blue pot at the end is about 7 inches high. |
Only my series of books One Step Further, on the George Cross has been commercially published. I self-published two small volumes of poetry some years ago in editions of about 10 each. I only have a couple left - where are the rest? Here are a few poems, some funny, some sad.
Poems are changed from time to time.
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Beside the Motorway
A discarded boot en route to nowhere. A cast-off shoe too.
Sometimes A cat on a wall reminds us all of the precariousness of life. |
Some recent photos.
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Click here to hear one of my songs.
Being a lover of Irish folk and of quite a small selection of singers I have written a number of songs, both lyrics and tunes. Because the fingering on the left hand and the chords was rather beyond me and also I wanted to have them written down I found Rory McInroy, a jazz pianist and music teacher. He and I spend many hours transcribing my singing from a tape to paper. We chose the rhythmns and played around with choruses. Then I spent more hours with Zac of JC Studios in his recording studio making a CD. Four songs were given backing both electronic and acoustic and one can be heard here. The singing isn't me nor is it great but I'm quite proud of the songs and had a wonderfully fun time putting them all together.
You can Contact me or you can go to my George Cross website at www.gc-database.co.uk or phone me on 01993 880223.