Carolyn Nicholls - Artist

Blog

Cuckmere Haven

I’m thrilled that my painting of Cuckmere Haven has been chosen by The Council fro the Protection of Rural England fro their Christmas card this year. This beautiful place is unique and the environment is very fragile and already been battered by storms, extreme weather, erosion and climate change.

I painting this before Storms Denis and Chiara made their disastrous inroads into the meanders and flooded them. The Cuckmere River, and the valley are at the mercy of the increasingly dramatic weather we are now experiencing. I’m very happy that my Painting  will help raise awareness of this beautiful place and help preserve it.

Painting in Lockdown

I’m very lucky to have a studio right in my garden. So when lockdown hit, all I had to do was walk down my garden steps and into my studio. Painting became a way of staying sane. I did lots of sketches and doodles rather than serious paintings- that came later. I tidied my studio, made it untidy again, took the tops of paints and cleaned them up, soaked brushes in cleaning fluid and joined a few artists friends in 10 minute daily sketch challenges.

The virus is still with us and as my main work is a ‘hands-on’ therapy, I can’t return to it any time soon. So I decided to plan and paint some serious big works. My own landscape is right here- right outside my window, right onsite my door. The hills of the SouthDowns National Park with that wide wide sky is with me every day. I find it majestic and quite overwhelming. How do you paint something so big and so beautiful?

Sketching, editing, looking, feeling and thinking let me to this one big work and two smaller ones.

Portraits of my family

Painting those you love is a challenge. How to get a likeness, how to capture a feeling, and essence of character and a sense of relationship. I have always found portrait painting both powerful and exciting. I love the National Portrait Gallery- especially the old masters covered in layers of shinny varnish. The skill and mastership (that’s why they are called masters) is stunning, and not a little intimidating.  But the eyes of love are forgiving and my daughter is delighted with her portrait and that of her young son, carried on her back, wearing a coat I had bought her for Christmas. .It captures that moment of love, togetherness and the joy of belonging to each other.