Celebrating the Snow - and Houghall, Durham!

Houghall - Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre

Our lovely landscape here in the North East UK is currently clothed with snow - how it transforms everything!

I realized that I hardly ever paint snow - and not having the time at present to go out there with easel and brushes, I dug out these two paintings I did while living at Houghall College of Horticulture & Agriculture in Durham City.

They are both quite small and painted in watercolour, white gouache and black ink on tinted Ingres paper.

While lecturing in Art & Design at Houghall I rented a wonderful house in the extensive and magnificent grounds. The first painting is of the view from the patio, looking beyond my beloved plants in tubs to the garden. The hedge always fascinated me, such a fantastic shape!

Houghall - Durham Artists Ingrid Sylvestre

The second painting is the view from one of the upstairs rooms, looking across the house garden to further lands belonging to the college. In the distance are the mysterious woods.

Whether in winter, spring, summer or autumn, this landscape and environment is a place of great beauty and wonder.

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Durham Artist Ingrid Sylvestre Durham Art for sale North East Artist

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Ingrid Sylvestre - Durham Art

February Moon

I've always loved February. The trees, with their wondrous forms still bare of foliage, seem to lift their branches in anticipation of the surging life of Spring.

The above painting, sold a few years ago, was composed looking up from the woodland in the University of Durham Botanic Garden. The tree-roots ripple along the grassy bank and the light snowfall is similar to ours earlier this week.

I painted it on tinted Ingres paper, using ink, watercolour and white gouache, a technique I find particularly expressive for sylvan scenery.


Above is another painting on Ingres paper, painted at the same time as the previous image. The group of conifers, also in the Botanic Garden, seem to be drawing together to gaze at the February moon and waiting ...


I love this group of trees so much that I decided to paint the image again, this time on a larger scale using acrylic on canvas. This painting is not quite finished - I often like to 'rest' a piece of artwork, to contemplate it for a while before completion.

Ingrid Sylvestre - Durham Artist

Edges of Hedges!

Browsing through recent photos I'd taken of Moorbank Botanic Garden set me thinking about a recurring 'motif' of subject matter which inspires me: light around the edges of hedges!



I remembered the above painting from 1998, of copperbeeches behind a low hedge at Houghall College, Durham.




Moorbank Botanic Garden has a magnificent copperbeech hedge, rising majestically behind a lower hedge of green. How could one ever have enough of such wonderful subject matter!



The contrast between light and shade, and the complementary colours of yellow-green and purple-red fascinate me, as well as the abstract qualities of the shapes of the hedges.



And the atmosphere ...





Gaps in hedges always intrigue me, as if they are leading somewhere magical.
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The painting below is of the view I had while living at Houghall College in 1998. The hedges seemed to flow down the slope, accentuating the gateway which led to fields and mysterious woods topped by billowing clouds.

Ten years prior to this I was lucky enough to live in another beautiful location. Deep in the woods grew a circular hedge which had formerly sheltered a rose garden. Now overgrown, it had a wonderful atmosphere, and I was entranced by the light along the edge of the yew hedge.

Do any of you fellow bloggers have a particular feature of the landscape or gardens which has fascinated you over the years?

Ingrid Sylvestre

Pleasant People and Water Lily Leaves

Sunday afternoon has a nice feel to it and today was no exception. There were a lot of visitors to my 'studio' glasshouse, and I had a very pleasant time indeed talking with them. Many had read about the mural on this blog, and were interested to see it in real life.

My painting task was to add some darker shadows to the boulders. I used Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue and a little Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.


I applied this colour sparsely to the crevices and lower edges of the boulders.

At present it looks rather stark, until I scumble and dry-brush in some medium tone to link the dark and light areas together. When I first used acrylics many years ago, I used to gasp in horror at this contrast - now I see in my mind what the next stage will be, so all is calm!

The above photograph was taken on Friday. Not being familiar with these lilies, I had wondered about the strange round orangey form that had appeared overnight. The close-up below shows its rolled edge and spiky appearance.

Today I was amazed to see a large new leaf!

It had a crumpled texture like seersucker fabric, and the spikes were just visible on the upturned edge.

I found it spell-binding. Looking at it closely was quite surreal, and I could imagine all kinds of artistic applications in multi media works! It is so awe-inspiring that this incredibly complex structure has grown over two-and-a-bit days ...

From Solstice to Succulents!

A leap of several weeks and a drastic climate change from wintry snow to the temperature of the desert!

I have the exciting task of designing and creating a mural for the Cactus House at the University of Durham Botanic Garden.

Adjacent to beautiful wooded areas just south of Durham City, the Botanic Garden is a glorious place to be at all times of year. There is atmosphere, aesthetic beauty, botanical interest and a very nice cafe serving a plethora of culinary delights!

The Cactus House is situated in one of several glasshouses and is home to a fascinating collection of cacti and other succulents.

The mural is to be situated against the glass 'wall' which you can see straight ahead on the above photograph. This should make the cacti stand out instead of being a little 'lost' against the mixture of metal struts and items visible through the glass.

The actual painting work will be done in the adjacent glasshouse room - you can just see the tops of the white panels in the distance behind the creepers.

Here we have a mockup of the blank panels.

Above is a tonal 'sketch' of the proposed design. It is intended to complement the real cacti situated in the foreground and to draw the eye gently back into the distance.

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The scene will feature a cloudless sky and sparse plant life as a contrast to other habitats, such as rainforest. This will provide a useful reference and demonstration to school and other groups visiting the Botanic Garden.

Four plywood panels have been smoothly primed with acrylic gesso and are now ready for me to apply the first stages of the composition.

Here the preliminary sketch I created on paper has been superimposed over the photo to show where the various cacti will be painted. Some of the species have since been changed to give more variety of shape and form.

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Watch this space! 

Ingrid Sylvestre 

Durham artist Ingrid Sylvestre, mural artist, North East painter & artist, Durham City, North East England UK.