Seasons Greeting Cards

Last year I began a series of 4 paintings. I wanted to paint on large scale canvases for the first time. I also wanted to give myself a timescale and use the reference images collected on my camera roll. 'I'll interpret each season' I thought. And when that ends I'll move onto the next season.

I also wanted the images not to be literal. More so try to capture what it feels like, in these different parts of the year.

March 2024, I started 'Spring'. Now, many artists have used the seasons as a metaphor for life. Therefore Spring, to me, wanted to be bright, confusing, fresh, new and full of possibility.

The canvas I worked on got rotated regularly (ie. painted on upside down) to add to the mystery and create more of a pattern than a picture. It also became 2 paintings or 4 if you consider hanging it landscape as well.

This time of year in London is when the bulbed flowers start shooting up through the grass and woodland areas. The hope that comes with seeing winter unfurl is a yearly joy. This gave me a yellow & blue pallete to work with. Here's a time lapse of how that went:

Spring Timelapse

In late May I moved onto the 'Summer' canvas. This I see as the prime in your life. Whereas Spring felt like emerging, Summer feels like being on top of the world.

A fish eye lense effect, with London stretching out in all directions, around an exploding bouquet was the image I wanted to create. With hot neon colours and the favourite flower references I've collected added in. I hid landmarks, birds, bees and butterflies within the image. I'm still a kid at heart who stares at a picture to find little details. I popped those in for people who feel the same. Weaving in not-so-subtle symbology. Indeed it is the time in your life where all options are laid out in front of you.

Summer Timelapse

September, October and November had me working on canvas No3. Autumn.

How does Autumn feel? Messy, bright. The colour clash of the falling leaves. The cooler air, the feeling of 'time's up', that's it for this year. In life, as a woman in her 40's, I'm in Autumn.

The black berries remain but they lack sunshine and are the last left. The path stretches in front of you, but it turns and weaves in one direction.

I wanted a layered look, a complicated but beautiful image. Dark, brooding but always 'Moving towards the light' as the late Patterson Riley would've said.

I lost this mentor at this time. I miss him dearly. I listened to Pergolesi's Stabat Mata and remembered my friend. Painting falling leaves felt very apt, painting always helps.

Autumn Timelapse

December time. Winter.

To be perfectly honest, I had tired of working from reference photos (as fun as it had been up until this point). I wanted to see what my brain could produce without aid.

Initially, at the beginning of the year, when I visualised Winter, I was thinking, white, plump snow, with blue purple shadows. A thick, muffled sound, snowy scene.

I didn't feel like that any more. It felt cliche. If Artists have been painting the seasons as the representation of the cycle of life, then Winter has always meant Death. But what about it being the gap in the void before we go round once more?

Having lost a good friend again in January, Ellie, at just 35yrs old, the vail in my life became so thin. I could hear her. I could hear them both.

Simultaneously I had been listening to the telepathy tapes. I highly recommend. It talks of telepathy between non verbal Autistic kids, and the subsequent telepathy of those around them. It talks of the 'Grid', which stopped me in my tracks. I call it the Grid. The space where consciousness lives. That's what I'll paint. That's my Winter. Here's how it went:

Winter Timelapse

Now I appreciate this isn't a commission. It was a project for me, firstly to learn to paint in a background. I've painted characters for years, but where do they live? Where's the atmosphere?! Secondly, it was great to purge all these photos I collected on my phone. I thought, Isabel, if you photo one more rose without doing anything with it, I'll scream haha.

And Painting on a bigger canvas allowed space for detail exploration.

And what do we have to show for it all? Apart form the paintings?

My weird ass version of William Morris Cards!

A slice of London in a year, wrapped up in a gift set of 4 A5 cards.

Now available in the website shop>>>>>> HERE

If you've made it this far, thank you for looking!

Much Love

Isabel