IRIS
Do you also draw breath when you see a blue iris in May?
Alive against a blue sky,
its paper wings,
curling
petals open like a bird in flight,
the skirts of a dancer,
bailaora.
‘Blue Moon’, is it?
Mixing ultramarine and cerulean, alizarin, white and a touch of yellow
smokey, thick brush, downwards moving.
Blueish and yet not quite.
Not
the blues of wisteria,
not
forget-me-
not,
lilac, or violets.
Fading, crumpled, tissued beauty blue.
Do you?
~~
STUDIO NOTES
Opened a fresh Payne’s Grey tube
Made it to Andrew Cranston at Modern Art
Picked up an old Paul Klee catalogue at Thomas Heneage
Visited irises at Shutler’s Mill, in Somerset. Mattie gave me Hockney’s A Yorkshire Sketchbook
Took tulip paintings to Constable Burton
Wisteria flowered for the first time, took a cutting to colour match, making all sorts of blue tones
Drew an ideas map for my Seasonal Watercolour course at Old Slen
Elements in Indigo finds a home from The Old School Gallery
Wrote a poem about irises
