Argentina's Lake District Immortalised

While browsing Khadi Papers online shop one day when I needed to purchase some more cotton paper I came across some beautiful looking paper which was handmade in Bhutan. I decided to buy a couple of packs in two different sizes to experiment with. When the paper arrived I admired its unique surface; smooth to touch on one side and slightly rough on the other side with flecks of natural material and a deckled edge. I thought that ink might work well with the paper so I took out my pot of black Indian ink and a selection of fine brushes. I decided to use some photographs from my trip around Argentina’s Lake District as inspiration, the flora of the area combined with the lake shores, water and mountainous landscape seemed like it would work well with the materials.

I used a watered down ink wash to depict the water of the lake with concentrated ink to draw the trees with a super fine brush. With each drawing I tackled a different viewpoint, mountains with trees bordering the lake edge, beautiful wild trees with boulders, delicate grasses and flowers, rickety old gates. The paper gives the drawings an antique feel, as if they’ve been stashed away inside an old book and left inside a cabinet for a number of years.

The first couple of drawings were quite restrained but as time went on I allowed myself to be more expressive and to embrace looser marks. My pen drawings are so tight and so detailed that I relished letting go a little bit, allowing the ink to splodge and utilising dry brush technique to create interesting textures.

This is a series that I really enjoy working on between making detailed pen drawings and watercolour paintings. There are several original drawings from this series available to purchase at claireleach.com/shop.

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2020: In Review

Well, where to start?

It has been such a challenging year and I’m saying that as a person with privilege. I cannot begin to imagine how hard this year has been for those working as nurses on the frontline of the pandemic, the essential workers, care home staff, those already in financial constraints who have had to face job losses. Those that have lost loved ones. My heart really goes out to you.

I usually do a round up of my year, the positives and the negatives but this year it just doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve continued to make work and I’ve managed to care for my beautiful son full time too. To me that’s a huge achievement and all I really want to focus on.

So, if this year has been difficult for you and you feel guilty for not doing or achieving everything you wanted then please, let yourself off the hook. You’re still here and that’s enough. If you can, try and think of the positives that this year has brought you. I hope there has been something. For me it’s meant more time with my partner as he was forced to work from home. But it’s also totally okay to feel broken by this year of never ending bad news. Be kind to yourself.

As always, I’m here if you ever need a friendly ear. Just send me a message or an email. And remember you are not alone. None of us are alone. I’m wishing you a lot of love and I just hope that in the not too distant future we can see and hug our families again. If this year has taught us anything then surely it’s shown what is really important?

Best wishes for 2021 and I look forward to sharing my art and life with you then.

Dream Art Destinations

Me and Water Lilies by Claude Monet at Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2017

This week on Instagram, Kate Bryan the art historian and judge on Portrait Artist of the Year gave a round up of her five dream art destinations, places she would transport herself to if she could to visit notable art works. It got me thinking about where my dream art destinations would be. Where in the world would I transport myself to if money were no object, covid-19 were not in existence and I had no responsibilities at home?

1. Monet’s Water Lily triptych in MoMA, New York. The one that started it all. I’ve spoken about this painting before, many times in fact. I first saw the painting on an A-Level college trip in 2005. I was taking Ceramics and Photography AS-Levels at the time and thought I might do photography at university because although I wasn’t particularly good at photography I really enjoyed it and liked the processes involved. It was a short trip and my first time going to the United States. We crammed a lot of art in to the time, visits to multiple Chelsea galleries, the Met and Whitney. What stuck with me most and set me off on a different path was the Monet in the MoMA. I’d never seen an impressionist painting as big before. The dreamy colours, the brush strokes. It pulled me in and mesmerised me. I’ve been back to see it twice since then, each time sitting with it for ages, hypnotised. I would book a plane ticket to New York just to sit in front of it again.

2. Monet at Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Following on from the Monet at the MoMA, a gallery that I would love to see inside is Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Home to eight of Monet’s huge water lily landscape paintings, hung one after another in two oval shaped rooms so that the viewer is completely surrounded by beautiful compositions inspired by Monet’s garden in Giverny. I visited Paris on my art and design foundation year but wasn’t able to see inside l’Orangerie or Le Museé d’Orsay which is one of my regrets, within reach but just missed due to a tight schedule.

3. Tracey Emin and Egon Schiele at The Leopold, Vienna. One I’d need a time machine for would be ‘Where I Want To Go’ which took place in the summer of 2015 at The Leopold in Vienna. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I have visited The Leopold before and I have seen Schiele’s incredible work close up. To see his intimate drawings alongside Tracey Emin’s work would be wonderful. I’ve seen Emin’s work in various places, at several Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and at her solo show ‘The Last Great Adventure Is You’ at White Cube Gallery. Emin draws inspiration from her personal experiences, themes of love and loss. Her ways of working span painting and drawing, neon, sculpture, writing - as the saying goes ‘a jack of all trades’ - I’d go so far as saying she’s a master of them too. There are parallels in Emin and Schiele’s work which would be fascinating to witness in person.

4. Michelangelo at The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. This one is lifted directly from Kate’s list because the more she spoke about it the more bereft I felt for not seeing it. I find it quite inconceivable that Michelangelo was able to produce such an incredible piece of work, quite frankly the scale and detail blows my mind and I haven’t even seen it in person. My art history knowledge is quite lacking really. Despite having Fine Art BA and MA degrees I have trouble retaining art history knowledge especially if it’s pre-19th century. I feel like seeing the Sistine Chapel would ignite a passion for art of the Renaissance period. Aside from seeing The Sistine Chapel I would also just love to visit Rome as I have never been and it does feel strange to have visited so many places on my travels but to have not been somewhere so culturally significant.

5. Cy Twombly at Tate Modern. Again I’d have to jump into a time machine for this one but I really wish I could have seen the Cycles and Seasons exhibition by Cy Twombly at Tate Modern in the summer of 2008. I have the catalogue which I picked up from Waterstones one day when I was fairly unfamiliar with Twombly’s work. The photographs of the expressive and scratchy paintings inside the book really spoke to me and I’ve had a passion for his work ever since. I have seen Twombly’s work in person before but I would love to see a whole collection of his work in one space so that I might be completely absorbed by it, with eyes tracing the deep lines scratched into the surface, trying to make out the writing scrawl.

So, there are five places that I would love to go to see beautiful art. Of course there are countless more museums that I’d love to revisit or see for the first time and I hope one day I will get to go. Alongside a regular ‘bucket list’ I have an art ‘bucket list’ and I feel extremely fortunate in that many places I have already been to (mostly on college and university art trips). The more art you see in person the more your life is enriched in my opinion. Where would you love to go to or revisit to see art?

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