Artist Spotlight: Ann Blockley RI

The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours Annual Exhibition opens Thursday 30 March and runs until Saturday 8 April.

You can already browse and buy the works online, but we hope you are also able to visit us in person! The show features over 400 of the finest contemporary water-based media paintings, and amongst them you will find a selection of works by Ann Blockley RI. We spoke to Ann about her beautifully mesmerising nature-inspired work.

Q&A with Ann Blockley RI:

Ann Blockley at work in her wild garden.

Your paintings are extremely atmospheric and immersive, with the viewer being transported to other realms. Are you able to describe some of the experimental painting techniques you use to achieve this?

I use a wide range of techniques in my work. These are done to achieve certain textures or marks that echo my chosen idea or emphasise the atmosphere. They might also be used to abstract and fragment prosaic reality into something enigmatic. These techniques are more about the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’, but I like to use good quality craft tissue paper as one way to achieve fractured paint effects.

Ann Blockley: 'Creativity Through Nature', 'Poetic Woods' and 'Watercolour Workshop' Batsford Books

My book, ‘Creativity Through Nature - Foraged, Recycled and Natural Mixed Media Art’ (Batsford) has a chapter about exploring alternative materials to reduce the use of plastic and I found that thin tissue paper worked as a substitute for cling film. I place it in a crumpled way onto wet paint and leave it to almost dry. The bonus is that often the paint effects transferred on to the thin tissue paper are interesting in themselves. These can then be recycled by sticking pieces back onto the dry painting as collage, building up layers of texture and used, like paint, to alter the composition or design. 

Another favourite technique is to forage natural materials, such as ferns, leaves or tangled hedgerow debris from the place that I am immersed in. I imprint marks within the fluid mediums and create a link between my imaginative painted interpretation and the real version.

What are your favourite materials, mediums and experimental tools to work with?

I am continually exploring and experimenting, so my favourites are also constantly changing. Generally, I love combining acrylic inks with watercolour but I also use opaque mediums like gouache. I am not a traditional watercolourist. Anything goes if it feels and looks right.

The Night Tree Echoes, Ann Blockley, £625

Granulation Medium is a fun way to add texture but I think it is important not to get too addicted to any one particular idea. I also like using the end of my brush rather than the fluffy bit to drag paint around or a twig if I am in the woods!

Nature is central to your work with trees in particular having a strong and powerful presence. Are you able to talk about your relationship with nature and the way it inspires your artistic practice?

Nature is everything. I love the way it inspires and feeds our emotions. In my ‘Creativity though Nature’ book, the undercurrent theme is exploring how an immersion in nature can help release you from artist’s block. This has certainly worked for me in tough times. Writing the book even led me to moving house to a wilder location within a six acre, ‘lost garden’ nature reserve. It is filled with trees, ponds, and streams. We share it with hooting owls, dazzling damsel flies and a visiting heron and moorhen. It is close to Dartmoor and coastal walks which inspired some of the paintings in the RI exhibition.

'Frosty Moonlit Tree', Ann Blockley, £950

Have any of the pieces of work featured within the RI Annual Exhibition got a specific story behind them that you are able to share or do they draw direct inspiration from any landscpaes or places you have visited?

‘Coastal Hawthorn’ was seen on a coastal walk near my studio on a wild, exciting day. The bracken was sunlit to a rich orange/red and the sea behind was an uplifting blue. I had no materials with me but gathered some broken twigs and pieces of old bracken to use as tools in the studio to keep a connection with the scene. 

I took a large piece of watercolour paper and, impatient with convention, threw water at it, squeezing paint directly from the tube. I used my hands to smear the paint, sometimes scrubbing with the bracken, or scratching with the twigs. I wanted to prolong the energy of my walk and subject and transfer this into the painting. It will be featured in my new book ‘Poetic Woods- experimental watercolour and collage’ to be published by Batsford in September 2023. ‘Ghostly Copse’ in this year’s RI exhibition will also feature in the book.

 

Ann Blockley, Coastal Hawthorn, 52 x 65cm, £2,250

In ‘The Night Tree Echoes’ the rich and magical atmosphere of where we live, especially at dusk with bats and rooks flying over the trees, has permeated into this abstracted scene.

‘Frosty Moonlit Tree’ was inspired by a walk on Dartmoor. It was frosty and everything was highlighted or edged with white. The finished work is not a direct representation of the real scene because it took on a magical life of its own as it developed, but there are strong memories of a particular moment woven into the interpretation.

As a member of the RI, are you able to share what this membership means to you and how this community has benefited you?

My father became a member of the RI in about 1966 when I was a child. My parents’ excitement was contagious. This was clearly a momentous event! It became my ambition to be elected as a member myself. It is wonderful to be part of a community of like-minded artists who share a passion. It has boosted my confidence as an artist but also given me the opportunity to reach out and meet other aspiring painters.

How did your father, John Blockley, inspire you and did he encourage you to pursue the arts?

My father was completely obsessed with his own painting and I think I was an adult before he realised that I was ‘good at art’! I remember an article he wrote for The Artist Magazine about the challenge of capturing the fragility of a dandelion clock and it became my ambition to see if I could do this in my own way. Whilst he was painting the wide views of a mountain, my mother and I went hiking, looking at the closer view of mountain mosses and ferns beneath our feet. These walks informed my interest in natural history. She was as much an inspiration as my famous father. In 2000 my dad suggested that I submit work into the RI and they were accepted! It was a few years later that I became a member.

Ann Blockley, Scarlet Moorland Thorn, 45 x 35cm, £950

What is your favourite thing about the RI exhibition and is there anyone's work in particular that you are excited about seeing in the show?

I think it is the variety of work in the RI that I like - anything from highly detailed to abstract work. Personally, I am always drawn to work that has elements of the magical; particularly nature painted in expressive, imaginative, or painterly ways. Naomi Tydeman’s work is always beautiful. I am keen to see the work of Teresa Lawler, who combines nature with the man-made using unusual colours and light. They are like theatrical, contemporary fairy tales.

Having work by non-members included in the exhibition keeps it fresh and lively. I am drawn to Julie Collins’ other- worldly figures in ethereal landscapes and I really love Hannah Goodman’s selectively abstracted, subtly coloured watercolour landscapes. There are lots of others too that I like and I am really looking forward to the Private View!

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Find Ann’s work amongst over 400 incredible paintings in the RI preview online now.

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