Frances Jill Studd

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2016

Thursday 17 December 2015

A Christmas Angel from New Zealand

A Christmas Angel

This is a painting called Mt Tarawera, it is composed of pieces from several famous works,

paintings and architectural. The angel is from the 'Personification of Fame' by Bernardo Strozzi,

Mt Tarawera from 'The Phantom Canoe on Lake Tarawera' by Kennett Watkins, both of which

are shown above The Arch of Titus in Paris.

When I made this painting and collage in 1990 I used many appropriated images pieced together

for my work, now, so many years later, I feel as if I had a bit of a cheek.

However I still like this work and I like the angel, so here she is to wish everyone

who views my blogs a very Happy Christmas.

Mt Tarawera is a famous mountain in the North Island of New Zealand,

in 1886 it erupted with such force that a chasm was made across the whole mountain. It buried

the local landscape and villages in ash, about 120 people lost their lives and the

Pink and White Terraces a tourist attraction on the mountainside were completely destroyed.

Kennett Watkins made a painting of a phantom canoe which was seen on Lake Tarawera

the day before the mountain erupted and which is now believed to have been a

warning of the devastation which was to follow. It can be seen in the top

right of this painting with the moon behind.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Friday 20 November 2015

November Wild Garden Painting from New Zealand

A November Painting from My Garden

This is the latest painting from my garden. I love to see the bees and birds fliting

about so it is hardly a manicured or managed planting. Made in three

panels this work shows some of the plants now flowering.

As a contrast here is a photo of part of my actual garden. When I was training at art school

one lecturer gave us some advice about painting from the natural world 'always take a small

thing from the large, do not attempt to make the whole thing small'

I try to remember this.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Thursday 22 October 2015

New Wild Garden Painting from New Zealand

Wild Garden II

Here is a new wild garden painting which I have just finished. Our Spring

had been windy and has blown blossom off the trees with a wet and squally blast.

The birds don't seem to mind though and there are baby tui and black birds sitting in

the flowering cherry tree. They enjoy the high perch where they can safely watch

the neighbourhood cats and practise their song.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Wild Garden Painting in New Zealand Wins Award

Wild Garden Painting at the Mahara Gallery

My wild garden painting won the highly commended award in the local Arts Review exhibition.

This is one of a series I am working on, now is the perfect time as the garden is bursting into early Spring flowering. Although somewhat buffeted by the stong winds we have had it still looks very cheerful and promising.

The wild cherry has been full of tui chortling away and celebrating their nesting season.

This exhibition is now on at the Mahara Gallery, Waikanae, visit it and lend your support to a very hard working and dedicated team.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Wednesday 16 September 2015

A Painting from Enclosure Bay, Waiheke Island, New Zealand

A Painting from Enclosure Bay

I made this painting during our stay at Enclosure Bay on Waiheke Island. The central figure is a pheasant who came to visit us on several occasions, also a preying mantis and a small butterfly which I couldn't identify. The large leaf is a taupata and the small ones were fallen from a pohutukawa tree which grew right by the beach.

Some flowers from the puawhanga or New Zealand clematis which was beginning to bloom in

the bush surrounding our accomodation and a piece of a low growing native shrub which is commonly used for plantings whose name I am not sure of.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Tuesday 8 September 2015

A New Exhibition at Tivoli, Oneroa, Waiheke Island, New Zealand

Touches of Silence

The Art of Stitchery

My new exhibition at Tivoli opens this week, if you are visiting Waiheke Island come and pay us a visit. I have gathered together a collection of work concerned with the art of stitchery, here are a few photographs.

Christening Gown
A watercolour of a Nineteenth Century Christening Gown from New Zealand

Beaded Cardigan

A New Zealand made cardigan from the mid Twentieth Century

Wedding Canopy
Paintings from an Indian Wedding Canopy

I will post some more photos of the exhibition in situ.

Frances Jill Studd website
Midnight Collective Blogspot

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Tuesday 18 August 2015

A New Exhibition for September at Tivoli

A Preview from my New Exhibition at Tivoli

Opening at Tivoli on the 12th of September is my new exhibition Touches of Silence.

This exhibition is made up from a series of my work which is concerned with needlecraft and textiles.

This is often considered to be the work of women and is regarded as a feminine persuit and interest, but this was not always the case. Workshops which embroidered many of the clothes worn at court during the reign of Elizabeth the First in the 16th Century were run and serviced by men who used real gold and precious stones to embellish their work.

Silk and Velvet Garden

A painting made from an ancient embroidery from either Iran or India 16th - 17th Century.

Talking Tree

The origins of talking trees are found in the tales of tree worchip from remote antiquity in India.

Yoke

A small photograph of the yoke of a New Zealand made evening gown, date unknown.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Wednesday 15 July 2015

The Bumble Bee from a New Zealand Garden

The Bumble Bee

Even in mid Winter we have bumble bees in the garden. Today I saw some small ones busy on a flowering jade tree. I did this drawing in a spare moment thinking about their industrious nature and how I love to see them around. They particularly favour the lavender and sunflowers but it is unusual to spot them at this time of year.

Midnight Collective

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Thursday 18 June 2015

The Three Mountains, central North Island New Zealand

Mount Tongariro

Last Tuesday we were returning to Kapiti from Taupo, the Desert Road was closed by ice and snow and so we took a detour around the back of the Mountains and I took a few photos.

It was a beautiful clear day, but obviously a huge dump of snow had fallen on the mountains and the surrounding area on the previous day and night. This photo shows the Mari crater on Mt Tongariro, showing continuous wide bursts of white smoke and steam

This photo shows Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe with its' distinctive cone.

When we turned and looked in the other direction we could see Mt Taranaki far away on the West Coast.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Midnight Collective

Saturday 16 May 2015

Fishing for Art around New Zealand

The Last Moki

Ko te hopu whakamutunga o te ika

Moki is a trumpeter fish which is found around the Kermadec Islands, the Three Kings Islands to Snares Islands, the Chatham Islands and Auckland Islands but rarely further North. I have used the Moki as a token species to represent the sorry state of our fishing industry world wide.

We watch the plunder of our oceans by factory ships where waste is just part of the process and threatened species are taken alongside the commerical catch.

Pollution is one of many other issues which I cannot hope to address with one small art work but I have made a start on it.

These fish are knitted with embroidery silk and measure up to 12cms long, I am making a large number of them.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Thursday 30 April 2015

A Mantua from New Zealand

I recently made some more photographs for my Mantle series, this one I think of as being a New Zealand mantua as it shows a tropical palm leaf on the dress.

This one shows specifically the Pacific Ocean.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Friday 17 April 2015

Rare White Heron in Thames New Zealand

The Kotuku or White Heron

We saw this rare and beautiful bird last Tuesday as we were passing through Thames on the Coromandel Coast in the North Island. It is a large bird and it floated in to land on an old fishing vessel on the intertidal mud flats. .

The mud flats provide a habitat for mangroves which are prolific around the Hauraki Gulf.

There were not many other birds around, some pied shags and a few ducks so it was a great surprise

to see a kotuku. They only breed on the West coast of the South Island so it had travelled some

distance.

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

Friday 3 April 2015

A Garden Painting from New Zealand

A Friend's Garden

This painting was made from the view in a friend's garden which backs onto an area of New

Zealand bush. On the left there are Black Mamaku tree ferns which can grow to

twenty metres, they have a distinctive curled frond before they unfold into their large umbrella branches. It is the tallest of our native tree ferns.

In the foreground is a large red flax and in front of that a patch of blue iris which seem to become

a dark purple when viewed against the flax.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Sunday 22 March 2015

More Garden Paintings from New Zealand

More Garden Paintings

Here are my two latest garden paintings, they will form a series eventually.

They are made from wild roadside verges which provide food for

many of our insects and birds as well, while looking at them I am

struck by how often the small things which we miss are so important.

A patch of weeds like this can be teeming with life which

goes by barely noticed. Hovering around here were blue dragonflies, bumble

bees and some little blue butterflies.

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Thursday 12 March 2015

Settler's Cottage in New Zealand

The Settler's Cottage at Mahana

Last week we visited the Settler's cottage at Mahana near Upper Moutere in the South Island.

The cottage was built in 1859 for an English couple, George and Cornelia Harvey, it was built for them in eleven days. It seemed to be a typical sod cottage but I was struck by how large it is, it had several rooms downstairs and even a garage on the side for the family buggy.

Originally it only had two rooms downstairs, the kitchen dining area and the master bedroom. An attic area was later used as additional sleeping quarters. The other rooms and the garage were added later by a new owner

The walls were made from a mixture of local clay, grasses and water - they are about 48 to 61cms thick. By the begining of the First World War the cottage was in the hands of the Bensemann family, who belonged to the German settlement of Sarau or Upper Moutere.

The cottage is now maintained by The Somerset Farm Settler's Cottage Trust, they have done

a wonderful job of re-thatching and setting up the displays. The following photograph

shows some of the surrounding land and just what a hot and dry Summer we have had.

Sunday 1 March 2015

Red and Pink Sunflowers

Red and Pink Sunflowers in My Garden

I photographed my sunflowers which are the only plants thriving in the long hot Summer

which we have had on the Kapiti Coast. The soil is extremely dry and we are having

to use washing water to keep the garden alive.

The bees seem to love them, this pink one is just covered with a dusting of pollen

and you can see the bumble been busy collecting it.

I have also grown some dwarf varieties which are mixed colours - this

one is a lovely deep yellow with orange tinges.

They also attract the butterflies, we get mostly monarchs and sometimes a yellow

admiral.

Midnight Collective

Saturday 21 February 2015

Fireweed on the Bomb Sites

Fireweed

I grew up in England after the second World War, fireweed or Rosebay Willowherb was common on old bomb sites and ruins. It prefers to grow in areas which have been scorched and the rosy purple flowers are perfect for bees and other insects to feed on. I made this painting after thinking about my early years and the different wild flowers which I was familiar with.

My brother was born during the war and my Mother said that he never slept at night for the first two years of his life because of the constant air raids over the south coast and the nights spent in air raid shelters. This is a photo of one of the early meetings between by brother and father, my father was on leave from the Fleet Air Arm but to my brother he is a stranger and he wonders who he is.

After the war and when I was born we lived in this cottage, we were deemed to be living in overcrowded conditions by the health authorities as there were now four of us in two rooms, my parents were made to move. The house we went to was larger and because food and petrol were still rationed my parents were able to keep goats for milk, hens and a pig in the back garden. This seemed to work well until the goats ate the petrol coupons which they found poking out of someones pocket. My mother managed to buy two bananas, she wrote our names on them so that my father would not eat them, he probably deserved them more than we did.

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Cathy's Garden

Before Christmas I photographed a friends garden with the idea of making a painting.

Cathy Stewart loved gardening, she had an ethic that the whole point of gardening

was to share the plants with other gardeners and in that way 'people' your own

garden as well. It is an ethic which was shared in my family, and some of the plants

in my Mother's collection were so named. It is a tradition which I have continued

with my garden too, I have Rosie's Canterbury bells, Helen's lily of the valley,

Jenny's orchid and Cathy's salvia to mention a few.

Cathy died tragically last Saturday, she will be greatly missed.

Haere ra Cathy

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Painting Gardens for New Zealand Insects

A Garden for the Insects

I have just made a new painting of a wild garden. I have been thinking about the value of wild gardens and unmown roadside verges as they provide such good habitat for insect life and food for birds. Yesterday I spotted a little blue butterfly in our own garden, an unusual visitor especially in the very hot day weather which we are now experiencing. They are common in pasture land where they feed on the wild flowers, but our own lawn is now completely dry and brown. My puarangi or native hibiscus is the only plant thriving in our heat and sandy soil at present.

Wednesday 21 January 2015

A New Red Spanish Frock

Thinking of the Infanta Magarita

I made some new photographs for 2015, this is one of them - a mantua bringing to mind the paintings made in the Spainish court by Goya in the eighteenth century. It is titled Mantle 27 from my series by the same name.

I like to view it as an attempt return to the natural world from our most artificial extremes.

But I love the shape of the mantua and its forceful presence and the way it draws attention to the the bearing and stance of the wearer. It must have been a difficult garment for a child to wear.

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

Monday 5 January 2015

Taupata leaves

Taupata leaves in the Summer

I painted these taupata leaves showing Autumn colours during the Summer. They had fallen from the small tree and were carpeting the ground around the trunk, the tree itself was sporting bright green shiny leaves so I could only imagine that these had been lost because of a dry spell.

The taupata is a shiny leaved coprosma which grows in coastal areas around the North Island of New Zealand and in the north of the South Island too. It is very hardy and withstands salt winds and drought conditions for long periods, I have an affection for these tough stragglers, their fallen leaves vary in colour from brilliant yellow to deep purple. After flowering they produce bright orange berries for the birds.

This is part of a much larger work.