Dancing with Ghosts

As a creatively repressed person (I still tend to do the obvious when painting and lack the confidence to be really brave and not worry abou the result,) I’ve gone back to repeat the art course I have just finished. At the time I completed the 12 week course I thought Aha! I’ve arrived. And then I’ve gone out and ignored a lot of what I’ve learnt and lack creative innovation. So this week I started at the beginning again as there is one year access to the course.

Assignment 1 is to do a painting of my subject without looking at my paper. (Blind Painting). Whilst listening to a piece of music - I thought I’d combine the assignment with my wish to paint graveyards - whilst ignoring any impulse to dance and look as if I’m attempting to drum up the Devil - whilst looking like a mad character from a Fargo drama.

There’s a graveyard 6 miles along the road which would have served the community of Mucomir. That was this weeks target so I thought I’d walk the dog close by to use up some of his energy and give me peace to paint afterwards. At the start of my walk I met Roddy Moy (who farms next to Moy Bridge Graveyard, and has already learnt of my apparently goulish penchant for hingin’ aboot with the long dead.) He was on his way for his morning cuppa in the household that is directly across the road from the graveyard. So I did mention to him that I was heading that way after my walk and would have headphones on listening to music while painting - in case they should look out the window and worry….

He gave me a steadfast, farmery kinda look and said “Ah well, everyone needs a hobby!”

I’d chosen 250 to Vigo as a piece of music that stirs feelings of love and loss as well as love and celebration. Angus Grant wrote it and his version on the Venus in Tweed Shooglenifty ablum is wonderful Duncan Chisolm also plays an exqusite version. It’s a Lochaber song about a road in Portugal.

My sister Marion has been a bit worried about my health in damp graveyards and made me a beautiful mat with waterproof underside to protect me from the damp. She said it only lacked dirt on one side and paint on the other and I should go get it dirty. I set up my paints and laid out my new mat……

There appeared to be some kind of misundertanding between myself and the dog. But he was certainly giving me peace, so I turned on my tune and covered my view of my sketchpad and pretended I was playing the fiddle. Weilding the fiddle brush enabled me to resist dancing. Bizarrely, despite thinking I’d put loads of paint on the paper, there was hardly any!! I’d sprayed the paper with water first, and used an inktense pencil and then painted.

The dog had settled down for the long run, so I painted another, as one listen of 250 to Vigo is never enough.

This is the version from after I’d got home and added to it. It’ll be getting ripped up and rebuilt. I did do one more painting whilst just listening and looking at the paper and enjoying yet another repeat.

I was really enjoying myself now and my fiddle playing was coming on a treat. Unfortunately I have lost this one as I placed it on the roof of the car while putting all my stuff in the boot and I think I drove off with it still there. I’ve since sent Roddy Moy a message asking him to keep an eye out for it, which I’m sure he’ll be diligent about. I’ve resisted calling the police for danger of being fined for wasting police time, nor put out a notice on Buy, Sell, Swap Lochaber. The sketch book may get buried in the forthcoming snow and the painting may age beautifully until the thaw. One can only hope.

The path of the artist does not run smoothly. That’s a given. I did buy some tulips to paint in between the graveyard pics but every time I looked at them they’d changed shape. It’s a tulip thing. But I worked away at them, in between dancing with the ghosts (which I only did once I’d extricated the dog from his luxury mat and woo’d him with a walk in the gardens next door, still with the headphones on and glancing about to make sure no one was around - so still repressed.)

When I came into my house today, Running Girl was ensconced in the kitchen eating her lunch and wating for us to come home. We were a little late so she occupied herself between bites of her oatcakes….

She runs, she cycles, she swims. And now she paints.

While we ordinary mortals were lurking around graveyards and the likes on a dull day, at the very same time, my husband’s colleaque was above the clouds in a different, more heavenly place.