Westering Home!

Westering Home is a song by Hugh.S.Roberts and the title of this new seascape! 

Westering Home

40cm x 40cm 

Why the title? Well, we used to sing it so often at school and the words really say how I felt about Scotland and Troon. Little did I know that while I was belting the tune out in music class that 40 years later I'd be sitting in Germany and those Scottish days would lie long behind me. 

Westering home and a song in the air,

Light in the eye and it's goodbye to care.

Laughter ’o' love and a welcoming there

Isle of my heart, my own land.

Let us just say that you are very fortunate not to have to listen to me singing it, as a siren I would have done a miserable job! Any sailor who heard me rather than being drawn to the sweetness of my singing, would be rowing twice as fast to get away. The lyrics however really hit a chord, last week I discovered a great Welsh word ''hiraeth'' it describes a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past. Yes, indeed Autumn is making me a bit melancholy and I'd die for haggis and chips from the Barassie Chippy. 

So, before I start snivelling we can take a quick peek at ''Westering Home'' in progress. 

Hmmmm, demonstrating my ''Canny Scottish'' side here, I'd started a landscape which wasn't to be and so I decided to recycle the Sennelier LaCarte support, it being pricey and as it takes loads of pastel, I know it could cope. My first step is always to set the horizon, draw in large shapes then start setting the darks and lights. 

Here I'm blocking in the larger areas of colour and then I tend to smudge over with the side of my hand, fix and move onto the detailing, here that would be working on the curls of the waves and the pooling onto the shore. 

Looking closer, those waves are certainly crashing in onto the west coast aren't they. 

My seascapes really use tonnes of different colours from turquoise, over lilacs, blues and browns. The white is also deceptive, there are probably about 6 different hues there, all subtly different. 

At least getting stuck in to all those waves helps me to get over my ''hiraeth'' and I haven’t thought about haggis and chips (the fish is great too) for at least 10 minutes. Unfortunately the longing is now back, wonder if the Barassie Chippy delivers, bet it would be an interesting telephone call too. ''And the delivery address? Well, North Germany!  I can just imagine the outpouring of extremely descriptive Scottish expletives! There’s no place like home!