For over a year now I have been working as a ‘visiting artist ‘ with Fern Verrow Biodynamic farm. The farm is beautifully situated in a deep valley on the English side of the Welsh border with the Black Mountain rising in the background.
I set out with the aim of tracking the seasons by painting their wonderful produce. Each month I would visit and Jane Scotter, the owner and farmer would take me out onto the farm where we would select something that best represented their produce at that time.
I would come home with a fabulous vegetable or fruit which I would then endeavour to keep alive for as long as I could, whilst I painted it in my studio. It has been a year of growth and discovery for me as I found a way of tackling sometimes very large subjects on a surface that I was not familiar with.
I opted at the beginning to use a handmade English paper from St Cuthbert’s Mill in Somerset with some idea that the paper almost shared ‘terroir’ with the vegetables I was painting. My painting style has changed over the year in response to the demands of the paper. I have painted some plants that I would never have ‘chosen’ to paint and struggled with them, but I have enjoyed the challenge of working quite quickly until each has ‘given up the ghost’ , in order to capture the character of Jane’s splendid produce.
The paintings will be exhibited later this year and limited edition prints will be available soon.
‘Castelfranco’ and me, down on the farm.