Back in May 2015, Lucy Gardner, owner, manager and chief hard worker of Woods of Whitchurch approached me to ask if I would be willing to take on painting her lovely village shop to celebrate the soon to be launched Woody’s. Woody’s is her brand new and beautiful licensed coffee shop nestling above the village shop which will be opening to the public any minute now.
I was absolutely thrilled to be asked to create the new painting of Woods, and here is the journey I went on in creating the painting that was unveiled last night at the private preview night…
Lucy bought the shop in August 2011 but the earliest image I could find of the road was from 1910 with a dusting of snow and a fair bit of Photoshopping too it would seem.
My offering to historians other than the photograph is this … Woods has been the beating heart of Whitchurch village life, for a very long time. The A40 connecting Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye split the village in half in 1966, a year after I was born. And for literally as long as I can remember, the shop has been a constant important facility for the communities it has served for decades.
My first real memories of Woods, which would have had a different name way back then, start in 1971 when Mum would wait outside the shop to collect my sister off the school bus. I would have been six years old, and the shop from that day became a daily part of my life for the next 12 years. One other amazing thing to me is I was 50 last year, which means my relationship with Woods has lasted over four decades.
You can imagine therefore what an absolute joy it was to be offered the commission, and to be simply told by Lucy that “I trust you to do a great job”. Lucy’s passion for the quality of the product she offers has created something so special that I knew the brief was to create not just a painting but to evoke an emotion, a warmth, an image that summed up Lucy and her brilliant team. Every single brush stroke from the very first moment until the day of completion has felt as though it has oozed Lucy’s delight and charm. I feel I’ve had her joy working over my shoulder the entire time.
So here it is - I offer a bit of a photographic record of the journey – Woods of Whitchurch, introducing Woody’s!
The first shots of Woods - and it doesn’t even have Woody’s Cafe sign on the building.
Together we outlined the first ideas, agreed the brief, and then she let me loose.
Here are my first sketches.
I always feel slightly sick when I reach this stage. The palette, previously thick with the colours of the just finished commission, is now pristine. It’s the stage Rolf Harris called “killing the white”. It’s what I call The Point of No Return!
This particular commission is so huge I had to tape it directly to my table protector as none of my wooden boards can hold it.
It’s always a Heart in Mouth process starting a new commission, but this time I have an extra uncertainty – that I am using Arches Watercolour paper instead of some of my more familiar manufacturers because it’s the only brand that makes a big enough sheet. This paper has a natural graining tendency which means an instant texture and sedimentation effect. I’m not sure what I think of it … yet!
Yay! First tones begin. There’re 6 different blues here along with a couple of red hues to begin to create the sky. Oh, and about a litre of water too.
So what do you do with a foreground that invariably consists of vehicles I ask you?!
Because Woods of Whitchurch is such an invaluable asset to the village, either side of the road is cars, cars and more cars. I didn’t want to paint in cars! So Lucy and I had one of our rare conflabs and decided on flowers. I love the effect.
Getting into those trees now. This is where tracing paper comes to the fore to protect where I don’t want the splashes to go.
I’m not happy with the granulating sky though … so before I go to bed, I’m going to re-do that
It’s the next day now and this next image was taken first thing after a late night second wash over the sky. The granulation effect of the Arches paper wasn’t what I was looking for, it drew the eye away from the shop too much and made the painting about the sky instead.
I’m really pleased with the effect of using gouache blues - four different ones - and a healthy splurge of Chinese White too.
Now that the sky has the life that I want it to exude, I can begin to layer up. It’s a slow process, darting around all over the painting to create matching depth. This process takes days, and in some cases weeks. But we don’t have weeks for Woods so it will be a long day …
After a few layers …
… We reach stand back, admire, and let the painting say what needs to happen next. This process can also take anything from minutes to days throughout the painting journey. Needing to give time to not only see where work needs doing but also give time to the “How will I achieve that?” Question, which is sometimes easily answered, but sometimes takes a lot of trial runs to get the desired effect – for instance, adding the “woofs” and turning the lights on!
This is the smallest snapshot of the number of photographs I have taken, and the number of hours involved, but rather than boring you to death now that you have got the gist of it, I’ll show you this Stand Up Piece.
This means the painting has arrived on the kitchen table, where we all have to worship and work around it while I am watching it over and over again for the final touches. Thankfully, there isn’t a great deal of difference between this version and the finished result – Ta Daaaa!!
What an amazing adventure I’ve had with Lucy, Woods, and Woody’s. From the first days of the commission to yet another exquisitely framed piece thanks to Rachel Fisher of Country Brush Framers, I have loved every second of the process.
And here are a few snaps of the Grand Opening of the new coffee shop which happened on 17th March 2016 – at which point we also announced the beginning of The Quirky Quickie!
If you love the painting, or are considering commissioning your own Amanda Hamilton design, or would like to know more about Amanda’s Quirky Quickies at Woods on “Watercolour Wednesdays” do please feel free to contact me either via my website – www.amanda-hamilton.com or via email amanda@amanda-hamilton.com.
I make no apology for the fact that I loathe history. Perhaps if I had been lucky enough to be inspired by a more swashbuckling history teacher at school, my story about history may have been a gripping tale of fascination of the derringdids of the Cake Burner, or Ethelred the Unready. As it was, I spent most of the Upper Fourth year struggling to keep my eyes open and playing Hangman at the back of the class with Helena Gibbons.
So the truth is, I can’t remember a date unless I’m making vegan chocolate truffles with them.
However, I do love a story. My Dad was a fabulous storyteller. Stories flowed through his veins like water down the Mississippi. From bath time stories when my sister and I were allowed to start the first sentence to tales of his very real and frightening wartime derring do. So I grew to be hooked on stories, which is what drew me to choose to draw, and then paint just a little, of the Sacre Coeur, the crowning exquisite glory of Montmartre, the Mount of the Martyrs, in the northern quarter of Paris.
My dear friend Karyn and I were on a mission this day to see as much as we could while our feet remained plausible walking aids. Blisters had been tended, muscles stretched, and after a trip on the Metro to Abesses, we began to slowly climb the steps towards what felt a bit like the Holy Grail. The Sacre Coeur means a lot to me – but only since returning to the UK. At the time it was, without a doubt, “up there” with the glorious Duomos of Venice, the stunning Cathedrales of Malaga, theAlhambra in Granada and the Mezquita of Cordoba, all places I’ve been lucky enough to see. However, it was only on returning back to Base Camp after my trip that I decided to look into what the story was that brought “The Sacred Heart of Jesus” onto the Mount of the Martyrs.
Here’s what I learned.
In 1870, when the Franco Prussian War was being fought and war broke out between France and Germany, France was in a desperate situation. Two men, Alexandre Legentil and Hubert Rohault de Fleury were so despairing for their country, they made a pact between themselves and their Beloved God. They vowed together that should God see willing and fit to spare their beloved France, they would build a church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ as an act of Reparation, for they believed that the misfortunes of France were caused by spiritual, not political problems. It was at the end of 1872 that Cardinal Guibert, the then Archbishop of Paris, approved the vow and chose Montmartre, and in 1873 Parliament declared that the Basilica was in the public interest, thereby making the land available for a church to be constructed.
The work was entirely funded by donations, many very modest, that were collected throughout France. And what was most lovely was that the names of the donors were carved in the stone.
The statistics make horrifying reading. 138,871 dead; 143,000 wounded; 474,414 captured
By the time I read that statistic, I had a pencil sketch in front of me. Suddenly, all those wounds, all those stabbings, gun shots and dismemberments became real for me in my heart, and I knew exactly what I needed to create with my pencil and my brushes.
I needed to honour all the lives lost while still capturing something beautiful and healing at the same time.
So I started to mix greens, but instead of painting greenery, I began to watch as the different greens dripped, like blood from an unstaunched wound, down the paper. And then I turned the paper upside down, as if I was the “enemy”, and began again with shades of blue, purple and pink to create the sky, still dripping, oozing, ceaselessly flowing from this central point.
The work took on a life of its own. My own emotions went on a roller coaster of sadness as I painted, dried, painted more, waited and watched. The process of building and layering was deeply cathartic for me. The journey of bringing all those tens of thousands of lives lost into a place where they could feel the love of these two men, their vow, and the endless love of God, in whatever form, was my sole aim. The painting has been criticised by many as appearing “unfinished”. And I make no apology for that. While we still fight each other and generate dis-ease among our brothers and sisters on the planet, how can anything be truly “finished”. And yet I see great joy in the journey, after all, some wise person once said to me “it’s not the winning, but the taking part that counts”.
I hope you too will love this beautiful depiction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, created by two men with a heart felt wish to make something beautiful out of so much pain and sadness. After all, we can all look at our sadnesses and run from them, or we can turn to them, learn from them and grow, can’t we?
Paris in October? Don’t mind if I do – especially when it comes with free accommodation 5 minute’s walk from Notre Dame. I turned 50 at the end of September, so the trip became my “50th Present to Self” – all the while knowing that actually it was going to be all about the paintings.
My only goal this glorious Tuesday was to somehow end up at the feet of Rodin’s Le Penseur - the Thinker.
So here I was, on Day 4, my host needing a quiet day at home. I had the day to myself. All options were open to me having already “done” the iconic necessaries to create a portfolio of traditional sightseer picture postcards. The Eiffel Tower? Quirked. The Arc du Triomphe? Likewise. The Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur? Also.
Found on rue de Varenne, it was an easy walk from the apartment but I wanted to let my feet take me on an unknown journey before I arrived there. I was minded to play the Left : Right Game, starting from the foundations of Notre Dame.
Crossing the bridge south with a vague idea that I might cross paths with the Pantheon, I turned left. My feet quickly found a rhythm of lone walking. Karyn, my dear Australian buddy from WAAAAY back was a good mate to walk with, but it’s a different rhythm when you walk alone. The ability to look around, absorb the atmosphere, soak up the very Parisian sounds echoing around me was something I hadn’t done until this moment. I relished every second as my eye caught sight of a total juxtaposition that made me giggle – my very dear Will Shake in the middle of a Parisian street!
I was so tempted to stop for the longest time and read, but I kept on going, playing the Left Right Game, and within two streets was rewarded with what is possibly one of my most favourite painting muses of all time – ODETTE.
Here’s the view that stopped me in my tracks!
Odette is a profiterole shop – chou as they are known in French. But not just your typical chocolate profiterole, they offer every colour, flavour, inners and outers. If I did eat wheat (or dairy, or sugar for that matter), I wouldn’t have been painting the shop, I’d have been eating the contents!
Instead, it was time to settle and create, through photos and sketches, my interpretation of this divine corner of old fashioned Paris.
From there I found my way to Rodin’s exquisite Thinker via all kinds of adventures including a mouthwatering French Sunday market. I resisted the urge to buy all manner of sumptuous treats, but allowed my camera to take it all in rather than my mouth!
I walked my socks off. I can honestly say that it was one of those walks where I felt at times slightly nervous that I’d taken on too much. Living with an underactive thyroid can mean that I have all the energy in the world, but as those of you who also live with this condition will know, you can also be in the middle of something, somewhere, and you simply have to go to sleep.
Well it happened – about 200 yards from the exit of Rodin’s Museum, and about 40 minute’s walk from the flat. A whole system shut down was creeping in around the edges and I had no fruit, nuts or pills with me to “lift” my energy back up.
I CRAWLED my way back to the apartment and hauled my sorry bones up those 112 stairs.
When I got to the top, I honestly felt like this poor polar bear!
Once back, Karyn very kindly was there with tea, fruit and nuts, and I began to revive after a short snooze. It was time to start creating the painting I could see in my mind’s eye.
A colour wash begins to create a little shadowing ….
And then some exploring of the shadows, roof shades and light …
Beginning to define the spaces …
… getting splashy! …
Detail beginning to be introduced …
A few people arrive on scene.
The final 10% begins ….
The finished piece can be seen on the website – and is for sale as a card, post card, print, canvas or original.
I do hope you’ve enjoyed the journey with me – please do leave your comments below!
