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I’m drawn to how colour can shift mood and meaning. My work begins with people or places, shaped by memory, notes and poetry. I aim to create emotional resonance through a subverted palette and layered form. My practice evolves constantly, reflecting my deepening connection with the world around me. 


hayseed_art

“Colour is about desire. It is delicious, it is emotional, it is disturbance. I am now going to be an arbitrary colourist.” Vincent Van Gogh 1888

This is Honey She shared a long and happy life wi This is Honey

She shared a long and happy life with our friend Tracey and when Tracey lost her some years ago Tracey was devastated. Some time after her loss we we were talking about our deep affection for our dogs and she gave me a photo of Honey in case I wanted to draw her. I dutifully set it aside to make sure I didn’t loose it and as is the way when you do such things, when they are tucked away safe and sound, it didn’t see the light of day for a couple of years. 

When Covid struck, while it affected us all to a greater or lesser extent, for Tracey it was overwhelming; losing not only her father but her partner in the space of two weeks to the disease. 

It was during this time that I unearthed the picture of Honey and decided that the fates must have decided that now was the time to deliver on the suggestion to draw her. When I had finished the drawing I framed it and gave the picture to Tracey, in the hope that in a small way it may provide her with some solace.

The picture is drawn on watercolour paper using #Derwentartofficial drawing pencils. 

#mixedmedia #fineart #newlynschoolofart  #contemplation #dogs #lovedogs #labradorlove #dogsofinstagram #dogsofinsta #memories #love
The Wharfe above Barden Bridge – A river is a thin The Wharfe above Barden Bridge - A river is a thing of motion, talking as she goes. Before any Roman legion ever set foot in the dale, the Wharfe was already old and wise.

On this bright February morning she softly sighs, light glistening off her surface as the lowlands draw her down. She tells of Oughtershaw, far-off among the fells where the little rills that were her childhood gathered from lone mountain slopes and of Hubberholme, where Hubba the Dane raided and settled long before the Normans hunted the ancient thickets at the edge of the high moor. She tells of centuries of countless precarious lives, the fragments of which remain only in the shadows of the barns and meadows that hug her banks. Lives consumed in the mile upon mile of dry stone walls. 

Suppose you linger, letting the Wharfe lay these spells upon you, The river’s wide, unhurried flow mirroring a never ceasing change. Colours; green and gold, grey and eager blue; and through the sky’s delicate filigree  the waxing moon looks down on the river’s profound depths. 

Little murmurs creep among the twigs and branches stirred by a soft breeze. Blackbirds call sharply from the hornbeam. Two wagtails dip and dance. A cockerel crows lustily from some distant Barden farm. Another answers him across the valley. Dogs here and there take up the cry. 

Curlews lift their haunting calls from the riverside meadows.

The day seems eager to get on with its work; but enchantment is abroad. It is said that in dawn’s first light, as the night receding into the west still lingers in the undergrowth below the larch and beech on the hillside above Barden bridge, you can hear the music of unseen elves scarcely louder than the forest’s silence. Soft, Puck-like laughter seems to rustle through the branches, blending with the Green Folk’s forest song, an echo of all that is ancient and forever alive.

This picture is painted on plywood using #danielsmith pearlescent watercolour ground,  watercolour and gouache. 
 
#watercolour #gouache #mixedmedia #fineart #newlynschoolofart #yorkshiredales #barden #contemplation #folklore #riverwharfe #memories #jacksons_art #mystery #professionallandscape
If you follow the path south alongside the River W If you follow the path south alongside the River Wharfe from Hebden Swing Bridge through the woods and glades, you will pass a spring boiling up near the river called St. Helen’s Well, and then another called St. Margaret’s Well. These wells were formerly connected with well-worship, and re-dedicated doubtless to saints after being sacred to pagan deities. 

Your attention, however, will more likely be taken up with the river whose course suddenly turns for a short distance to the north-east due to a mass of limestone, this is Loup Scar.

Loup is said to be derived from “leap,” by most of the authorities who have written about the word; there is certainly a significant jump from the top of the cliff into a deep plunge pool beneath if you are brave enough. There is however also a suggestion that the origin of its name is linked to the Norman word for “wolf,” and so it may in fact be Wolf Scar.

The name Wharfe derives from the Old Norse hverfi meaning ‘a bend, crook, turn’, However, this Old Norse form was probably adapted from an earlier name: a Roman altar found in Ilkley is inscribed “VERBEIAE SACRUM” (‘sacred to Verbeia’) apparently referring to the River Wharfe as personified as a goddess. 

In an often chaotic world, maybe take a moment to sit for a while and take in the view. Feel the damp from the ground and a light breeze against your face as the morning autumn sunshine breaks through the branches and warms your body. You may hear the fluting call of a kingfisher or the trill of a wren in the bushes while high above a buzzard wheels letting out its mournful call to the mountains. 

If you sit quietly for long enough, maybe contemplating the ever constant river; the manifestation of Verbeia, you may even be lucky enough to hear the whistle of an otter or even spy its fleeting shadow on the bank. 

This painting was from a walk we did on a beautiful October morning in 2023 and is painted on hardboard using #danielsmith pearlescent watercolour ground. I used watercolour, gouache and acrylic inks. 

#watercolour #acrylic #gouache #mixedmedia #fineart #newlynschoolofart #yorkshiredales #burnsall #contemplation #sunshine #riverwharfe #memories #jacksons_art
Those that know me, know I have a deep affection f Those that know me, know I have a deep affection for cows. Who would have a number plate with MOO on it if that wasn’t the case? 

One of my earliest memories is of pushing between the cows in their stalls in the cowshed on my Uncle’s farm, giving them their scoop of feed as my Uncle put the milking machine on them. 

They used to lean into me and squash me but I loved their warm musky smell and big soulful eyes. With the brain the size of a grapefruit there can’t be a lot going on in there but to be honest that’s another loveable trait. There is nothing that personifies contentment more than a cow lying in a field in the summer evening sunshine, chewing the cud. 

My awesome brother-in-law Mike (husband to @kt.wade18) loves Highland cattle and I drew this image for him for his birthday. 

There is a mystery in the image that I was drawn to. That sense of the inscrutable nature of cows, that I mentioned, the gentleness and stoicism that I love so much. 

When next you meet a cow, say hello from me. 

Image created in Procreate on iPad. 

#cows #highlandcows #gentleness #stoicism #mystery #sayhello #procreate #ipad #fineart #newlynschoolofart
In August 2020 we went to the Cévennes region in In August 2020 we went to the Cévennes region in France. 

With sheer limestone gorges where vultures and eagles ride the thermals and updrafts, between vast steppe grasslands this landscape provides a combination of grandeur and raw beauty that feels close to a true wilderness. 

The goat bells chiming from the steep slopes and darting sheep dogs working with Cévenol farmers can be linked directly to a 3000-year-old agro-pastoralism tradition that has been recognised by Unesco as an example of a living and evolving cultural landscape.

We hiked the Causses (steppe grasslands) and wild swam in the beautiful rivers that flow through the gorges

This painting is a watercolour of one such dip in the Gorge du Tarn on 22nd August. The water was beautiful and clear and fast flowing, but to find ourselves alone (just the three of us - Sal @quiltsallyquilt , Jake the dog and me) in this vast, soaring, ancient landscape was extraordinary. 

#watercolour #wilderness #wildswimming #cevennes #france #wild #fineart #newlynschoolofart #magical #aquarelles #peace #beauty #gratitude #freedom
In 2021 we visited the Outer Hebrides. Coming out In 2021 we visited the Outer Hebrides. Coming out of Covid lockdowns it had felt like a tough time and to travel to the very wild edges of the UK, to this most ancient archipelago was something of a release.

Much of the islands have a bedrock formed from Lewisian gneiss. These are amongst the oldest rocks in Europe, having been formed in the Precambrian period three billion years ago.

The Greeks and Romans first wrote about the islands but they have been inhabited much longer than that. 

While on our wanderings we visited the Callanish Stones. These were erected around 2750 BC (so nearly 5,000 years ago) from Lewisian gneiss. In the centre of the stones is a small chambered tomb that was constructed some time after the stones were erected and was used for a number of centuries. 

This is truly a land of precarious lives. Any outward signs of the long toil through the ages all but lost save these fragments of past existence. A defining quintessential element of the landscape. 

Lives long ended; assimilated and absorbed. Fragile, intense, hard, brutal lives; lived through and in the moment, knowing only insecurity and uncertainty. Nameless, boundless souls. Standing there amongst the stones I felt assailed by these ghosts. 

It felt, below the big open expanse of sky surrounded by the ancient stones and the now dark abandoned tomb, as if all four dimensions converged at this extremity of the world. 

In this painting I have tired to convey this implacable and inscrutable monument and that most enduring of human traits, within our fleeting existence, a belief in a perpetual power beyond our knowing. 

This was painted on canvas using acrylic ahead of our last session at the #studiopractise course at #newlynschoolofart

#outerhebrides #callanishstones #peace #awe #acrylicpainting #fineart #memory #dreams #isleoflewis #jacksons_art #newlynalumni #landscapepainting #professional_landscape
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©Roger Kerr 2025

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