Paintings For The Equinox
Time is part of every painting I make. The effects of time from the passing of years, the changing of seasons and the day to day differences in the plants I like to paint are all recorded. I found a notebook from 2009…I’m not a big sketchbook person but I absolutely always have a notebook on the go. The entry I was reading was from the autumn equinox
“I want to be aware and respect the natural rhythms around me”
True then and true now. One of the ways I feel I can do that is to mark the key points of the year with a painting. In the Northern hemisphere we recently experienced the Autumnal Equinox. Because the sun was immediately above the equator as the earth turned we experienced 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night.
Here is my Autumn Equinox painting from 2021 from the Somerset Levels. Half dark and half light.
Equinox 2021 Mixed Media on canvas
And here is an even earlier one from 2016 called Precession of the Equinoxes. As you may have realised I have an interest in astronomy and created this piece when I was thinking about how the view of the stars and planets changes over very long periods of time due to the tilt of the earth axis and the ‘wobble’ that creates. I was interested in this because the ancient monuments that point to stars may have been pointing to other stars when they were built…this is archeoastronomy…a whole other story!
This piece is encaustic wax on wooden panel, very hard to hang as I remember!
Precession of the Equinoxes 2016, Encaustic wax and paper on wooden panels
So this year’s equinox painting started at the Equinox 23rd September 2023 but really I didn’t finish it or understand what it was about until the September’s full moon a few days later which coincided with a 5*bore, a large wave, on the River Severn. I usually go and watch the bore once or twice at the equinoxes when it is the largest. I didn’t get there this September but it came out in the painting anyway. It’s a painting about the full harvest moon and standing by the Severn waiting for the bore to arrive.
Harvest Moon 2023 Mixed Media on canvas
Happy Equinox!
Winter Solstice (21st December) is the next event in my annual calendar. I’m sure there will be more paintings before then!
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Stillness and Life Exhibition
Framing my Paintings