Jet & Pearls is exhibited and for sale at the Business Design Centre in London at the "It's all about Art" event 23 ~ 25th July. Come along and meet Jan on the 24th when she will be attending for a presentation at 1pm!
Jet & Pearls is inspired by Du Maurier's novel Rebecca. The stormy night when Rebecca's boat capsized in the bay ~ you feel so close to Du Maurier at Menabilly when the winter Atlantic storms are rolling in. You can feel the spirit of Rebecca! Daphne Du Maurier lived at Menabilly, her inspiration for the novel and for many years it has worked its magic indeed haunted me as no other literary classic.
The creative process
Initially sketches, photographs plus my thought written month by month:
"Today is cold, damp & misty. October ~ fewer seabirds but still the cry of the gulls. A big wave plunges flinging up a blizzard in a cascade of rivulets that gleam on the jet, black rocks. The Atlantic gathers its strength. January very cold ~ the sea dark ruffling into white. Rocks doomed ivory with barnacles and limpets. Stormy night the sea thick with suds, taste of salt on my lips".
I knew that it was the rocks that held the fascination and it is the rocks that held the key to the composition. They stand as sentries in lines out to sea ~ the guards of this magical secret bay!
The experimental process
Firstly the medium just had to be oil.
Secondly I wanted to push the boundaries and experimented over a period of 6 months. I had to achieve a ghostly, iredescent quality to the work with the rocks as the main feature. Rebecca had to also be represented in my painting so the decision to use pearls seemed perfect. Pearls feature in one of the portraits at Manderley!
So Jet & Pearls the experiment was born!
I set myself the challenge of using only one colour ~ grey!!
The other important factor was creating the wonderful shapes not only of the dramatic rock formations but also of the surrounding hills. The sky dark, thunder grey and foreboding as a storm approaches. The hills leading to the famous Gribben Head lighthouse seem part of the sky with two ghostly tree shapes wind blown on the hozizon as the storm approaches.
It was very important for this painting to be ethereal and indeed ghostly as I wanted the viewer to sense the spirit of Rebecca at Menabilly.
I decided to work my oil thin using a wet into wet technique developed with trial and error. Strands of glass bead gel were dried separately prior to fixing and then more used before painting together with pearls. Small amounts of sand gel and flint allowed me to fix a few broken iridescent shells with a few small particles of sand from the bay. All my paintings incorporate something of the place I paint and in this work it was the glimmer of the inshore from Menabilly.
After many months of experimenting I feel pleased that the final painting has achieved what I wanted and hope that others will see with my eyes Menabilly on a cold, wet & stormy night!
