Air and Water
Terns Sea and Sky (Oil on board 2007 - Height 28” x Width 36“)
For the greater part of the Covid 19 period, I have re-visited the subject of Terns. These exquisite mainly sea birds can be seen on the coast, particularly on the Farne Islands, fairly near to where I live in the Scottish Borders.
The Arctic Tern flies the furthest distance of any bird during its migration, covering about 25,000 miles, ranging from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The Arctic Tern, also called the Sea Swallow, is my favourite Tern visiting the British Isles, with its beauty and grace, and its bravery. Their flight is delicate, lyrical, and, flying en masse, the ever changing contrapuntal patterns they form, like music of many parts, totally bewitch the eye.
I was so inspired and enthralled by the Tern flights, that, when I started to paint them the first time round, several years ago, (the oil painting is one of the results of that time, I experienced an intense urge to join them painting their sky patterns.
So I did!
I flew, once again, in a glider as a result of this inspiration and rediscovered the greatest sensation and joy in the sky. Gliders, also, being ultra aerodynamic, are also very beautiful, with their long slender wings, so very like the wings of Terns. It was an exhilaration, both of sensual excitement and aesthetic wonder. I became a bird, as the glider pilot and bird painter, Peter Scott described his own experience of flying gliders.
Recently Gliding and Terns have come together again, after a period of painting Big Cats, and I have begun again with another series of paintings (watercolours) of Terns.
Arctic Terns
Terns, in streaming Flight, above and all around, surging, screaming, diving and taking flight again . . . In this large painting, I wanted to express the experience of being crowded by these dynamic avian rockets, whirring over my head and around me, screeching and diving and soaring in a great explosion of energy. The noise, the blur of their beating wings, the speed of them, the weaving intertwining patterns . . . I am overwhelmed and consumed by them, and it is this totality that I had to express in this painting of thirty two birds.
White Flight Dazzling (Watercolour Height 22” Width 30”)
Tern 1 (Watercolour Height 19” Width 13”)
In Paradisum (Watercolour)
Terns - Courtship on the Wing 1 (Watercolour Height. 21.25” x Width .22.25”)
Terns - Courship on the Wing 2 (Watercolour Height 22.25”, Width 24.25”)
At Play with Light
Tern Tornado Height 17.75 Width 22.5 (45 x 57)
At Play with Light 2 Height 16 Width 22.5 (40 x 57)
At Play with Light 3 Height 16 Width 22.5 (40 x 57)
Tern Dance
Night Terns Height 16 Width 22.5 (40 x 57)
Swans
Swan Beating His Wings on the Water (Watercolour Height 17.5, Width 21”)
The Swan almost disappears into a dazzle of white spray, white feathers and the clap-slap of his beating wings.
Swan Splash (Height 22.5”, Width 28”)
Swan Displaying - (Height 19”, Width 25”)
Swan Beating the Water 3 : h.17.5” x w. 21.25” (44.5 cms x 54 cms)
Swan Chase (Height 22”, Width 30”)
Swans on Bright Water
Peace, Passion and Purity at Sundown (h.15” x w.22”)
Swan Swerve Curving
Other Birds
Kestrel with Mallard Duck Kill (Height 10”, Width 8”)
Diving Gannets (Height 19”, Width 25”)
Egrets at Evening (Height 15”, Width 22”)
Horses and Flamingoes of the Camargue (h. 13.5” x w. 22”)
AMA La Dance Engloutie (1)
AMA La Dance Engloutie (2)
AMA La Dance Engluotie (3)
AMA 04 La Dance Engloutie (04)