{"id":1297,"date":"2020-05-28T10:09:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T09:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2020-05-28T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T09:09:08","slug":"thoughts-on-the-present-discontent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1297","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the present discontent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The discontent is not the current Solitude.\u00a0 It concerns the rediscovery of a Layflat Sketch Pad I bought a month or two after the publication of my book &#8220;The Bridges of Dee&#8221;, when I was feeling artistically rudderless.\u00a0 I had been painting the bridges pictured therein for some years, a very strong focus, and now I had none.\u00a0 Being somewhat circumscribed by caring responsibilities, I couldn&#8217;t go as far as thought might take me (my other river, the Tyne? more bridges? Chester?).<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by a article in either &#8220;The Artist&#8221; or &#8220;Leisure Painter&#8221;, I decided to make a painterly record of the garden.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The advantage of the layflat layout is that you can paint\/draw across the fold so a painting could grow sideways if necessary, and gardens do grow.\u00a0 Unfortunately I hit a &#8220;only painting rubbish&#8221; phase and was inhibited by the acres of white paper, and the idea of a rubbish painting trapped in a book!\u00a0 I&#8217;m no better off now either.\u00a0 As soon as I saw it, the old doubts reappeared, even though my paintings, currently, are not rubbish.<\/p>\n<p>What to do?\u00a0 Displacement activity required.\u00a0 How about starting with the title page &#8211; it is a book, after all?\u00a0 What do I call it?\u00a0 The Garden, My Garden, Garden, Gardening Notes, Flowers in my Garden, Heaven on Earth? (eek! I say,steady on). And what font?\u00a0 and where to put the title?\u00a0 Up high on the page with wisteria drooping from it? In the middle surrounded by a wreath of summer flowers? Bottom right, alone?<\/p>\n<p>Some decisions have been made, title &#8211; My Garden;\u00a0 font &#8211; my own handwriting, which isn&#8217;t neat but probably has a closer affinity to the garden than a more formal font.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not an accomplished flower painter, so although I&#8217;m attracted to the wisteria idea (the crossbar of the pergola would be a good place to sign) I&#8217;m a lot nervous about launching into flowers on page one.\u00a0\u00a0 Come on, Steve! You&#8217;ve got to start somewhere!<\/p>\n<p>Because I don&#8217;t like a post without a picture, I&#8217;ve included one from the book.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the Old Dee Bridge on a misty morning.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OldDeeBridge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1299\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OldDeeBridge.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"619\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OldDeeBridge.jpg 800w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OldDeeBridge-150x116.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/OldDeeBridge-300x232.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The discontent is not the current Solitude.\u00a0 It concerns the rediscovery of a Layflat Sketch Pad I bought a month or two after the publication of my book &#8220;The Bridges of Dee&#8221;, when I was feeling artistically rudderless.\u00a0 I had been painting the bridges pictured therein for some years, a very strong focus, and now &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/?p=1297\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Thoughts on the present discontent&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1300,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions\/1300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.williamsonfineart.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}