Coffee Shop Readers

Coffee Shop Readers

(Acrylic on mountboard, 10x10 in)

Another small painting started last week at the Club and finished during the following week. Something a little different perhaps, but I’ve been looking at paintings of cafes recently and it’s had its effect. The coffee shop on which this is based is in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh.

 

Edinburgh Florist

 Edinburgh Florist

(Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Another day in good company at North of England Art Club and this painting is finished. Or finished for the moment. There’s always the possibility of a little glazing and tickling after it’s had time to settle. Another addition to my series of Shops and Stalls.

Edinburgh Florist (WIP)

Edinburgh Florist (WIP)

(Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Nice to finally get back to the studio at North of England Art Club after a break of over two years and get some oil painting done. Of course, after a lay-off of over two years, it was a struggle to get the caps off the tubes of paint and I’d forgotten how messy my hands get with oil paint. Still, I enjoyed getting to grips with the old medium again, an experience made even better by amiable chat with members I haven't seen for a long time.

My Dad's Diary : Thur 11th September 1947

"Very dull days. Still no rain. Overtime every night.

--------------------------------------------------------

Mother and Winnie leave for Edinburgh today.

Slight rain during night."

They'd have been going to stay with Grandma's half sister, Jessie, in Edinburgh. Here's a photograph of the two half sisters together in 1954, Gran on the left.

Eye Opener

Archie Dunbar McIntosh RSW

Lanark 
(Acrylic on board, 58.5 x 56 cm)

Pat and I made a special trip to Edinburgh yesterday to see the Archie Dunbar McIntosh exhibition at the Open Eye. There's always a good welcome at the gallery and the paintings were terrific. I've always liked his work, but now that I'm experimenting with acrylics it was particularly rewarding to get up close to it. I was conscious of what a great range of greys he employs, as well as his little personal symbols. Well worth the trip.

And as an added bonus, I had a wonderful lime and ginger scone at another of our favourite Edinburgh stopping points, Bon Papillon, before coming home.

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Unravelling a bit of string, I left the darkened corridor last night to see if I might get at least one new painting finished this year. I knew this Edinburgh churchyard painting could be brought to a conclusion very easily; all it needed was the addition of some grave markers and crosses and a bit work on the tops of walls. 

I didn't much enjoy the experience of painting while wearing my near distance specs, but later it occurred to me that, given the small size of the painting, I might have been better off using my reading glasses.

Following the string back along the dark corridor, I'm standing here, finger tips on the wall, musing on the quaint Chinese method of making the stretcher on which this picture is completed. It has three sides 30cm long and one, 12 inches long. An interesting problem for my framer.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Churchyard (work in progress)

Sorry for the pause in blogging. Pat and I went to Edinburgh at the beginning of the month and I came back with a three-week cold. Writing came a poor third on my list of priorities, after coughing and wiping my nose. And painting stalled altogether until yesterday.

The trip to Edinburgh was a birthday present from Pat and timed to coincide with the exhibition of FCB "Bunty" Cadell's work at the National Galleries of Scotland. A wonderful show! Not a poor picture in the whole collection; his work during the 1920s was particularly exciting yet at the time he didn't find much commercial success with it.

We also paid two visits to the Open Eye Gallery to look at Kirsty Wither's new work. Previously known for her figure paintings and flower still lifes (both of which were represented here), she's recently turned her hand to landscapes and I thought these were really successful. Lovely subtle passages of colour laid on with a painting knife, with some of it scraped through. Gorgeous.

The cold started to show up on the last day in Edinburgh and by the time I was home I was ready to vegetate. But by yesterday I felt I should make the effort to get working again, so went off to the Art Club. Inevitably, the last person there was just about to leave as I arrived, so I spent the afternoon in splendid isolation, working on this small painting which you may remember from its last appearance in August.

I think I still have reservations about the lighting in the studio at the new Club premises. It's a combination of natural light diffused through ceiling panels together with some strip lighting. On an overcast day like yesterday the light coming through the diffusion panels seems poor and I was uncertain of my tones while painting. As a consequence, this painting looks different when photographed in the Club's common room, where the light comes through big windows, than it did in the studio.

Starting up again

Edinburgh Churchyard (work in progress)

After a week of sitting on my laurels, last Friday I began another Edinburgh painting, only to have to leave it to go to a private view at the wonderful Art Noveau offices of Opus Art in Newcastle. And what an interesting evening that turned out to be! I'd been invited to the opening because April Jarocka had some of her lovely paintings of chocolate bars included in the show, but she hadn't told me she'd be there herself. What a delight, and a somewhat surreal one at that, to finally meet someone I've only known through emails and websites.

On Saturday, Pat and I went to Edinburgh again, this time for the private view of the Festival Exhibition at the Di Rollo Gallery. It was a good opening, with a decent flow of people in and out (including a science fiction fan I've somehow never managed meet in my 45 years of involvement in the field), but the weather turned inclement and I think that made the supply of people eventually dry up.

No sales on the day.

Pat and I decided to go for lunch in Stockbridge and then wander along Princes Street, but as the rain became heavier we were starting to feel not a little damp and uncomfortable. Back on the late afternoon train, we found the rain had been even heavier in Newcastle. I do so love a British summer.

Saturday in Edinburgh

For various reasons I ended up going to Edinburgh on Saturday, despite the Private View being next Saturday. It gave me the opportunity to see my work framed and on the wall, without the crowds I'm hoping for next week getting in the way.

I think they make a good display and should attract buyers, but what do I know?

The best part of the trip, however, was catching up with my old mate Jim Barker, whom I haven't seen for 30 years. We had a great day out in an unusually hot and sunny Edinburgh and it seemed like not a day had gone by since we saw each other last, although the amount of catching up proved how wrong that was.

Private View

Chambers Street, Edinburgh

Chambers Street, Edinburgh (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

I am not interested in 'copying' what is in front of me. I find copying pictures very useful and enjoyable up to a point, but copying nature is a different affair. It is, at best, a dull occupation, though I much enjoy using a camera, and find photographs of people and places a good jog to the memory and they can see and record things in a fresh light, or an aspect that had not struck you before.

John Piper (The Artist and the Public, published in Current Affairs No. 96, 2 June 1945)

I quote this for a number of reasons, the first being simply that I admire John Piper's work a great deal and am always interested to read something he said. I suppose another reason is that - justified or not - this painting reminds me a little of Piper. More than anything else, however, is that although I use photographs as source material, this is not what Chambers Street looked like on the day I took this photograph. The details of the structure are more or less accurate, but the whole thing has been filtered through my imagination (and the filters of Photoshop) to bring me closer to what I felt said something to me about the place (and in passing, about colour).

The same process was applied to all of the Edinburgh paintings.

Deacon Brodies Tavern

Deacon Brodies Tavern (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

Deacon Brodies Tavern is also on the Royal Mile and it's another I haven't been in. I must make more of an effort in future.

Wee Scotland Shop

Wee Scotland Shop (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

This fine emporium of .... Scottish memorabilia and ... um..... tartan stuff is on the Royal Mile leading up to the Castle. I think peculiar little shops like this help to make a city human.

Jekyll & Hyde

Jekyll & Hyde (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

This pub is on Hanover Street, not too far from the Di Rollo Gallery. Amazingly, I've never been inside.

Evening, Hanover Street

Evening, Hanover Street (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Paint what you see, not what you know, is a useful maxim and one I usually subscribe to. So why did I question the way this painting was going? Because I didn't believe the evidence of my eyes, or at least what I could see in my own photograph. I knew the spire in this view was a long way behind everything else, so I wanted aerial perspective to make it fall back.

When I went to Edinburgh again recently, I made a point of looking at this view again and again and sure enough the visual weight of the spire (which appears to belong to The Hub) is such that it really does force itself forward. So finishing the painting turned out to be far easier than I'd persuaded myself it would be.

In my report of the research trip to Edinburgh I neglected to mention the very warm welcome Pat and I received when we called in at the Di Rollo Gallery. A special expedition was launched to bring in a supply of very good biscuits and wine and coffee flowed. We really enjoyed what was intended to be simply a brief "hello".

Pub No.2

Second Pub (work in progress)

Late last night I decided I needed another Edinburgh pub painting. This is the result. It's moved along quite nicely, so I'm confident it can be finished in time to take them all to the gallery on Saturday where they'll be framed.

Shop Work

Shop (work in progress)

Some corrections and redefining on this painting today. One of the dangers of buying relatively cheap Chinese canvases is that they're not always perfectly made. In this case, I realised yesterday that the canvas is not a true square. It's slightly off-square, enough to throw some of my earlier work out of square too.. I reckon I've put that right today and when the canvas is framed, there won't be anything amiss.

More Pub Work

Pub (work in progress)

An hour or two today moving this pub painting along. Forget what I said about one painting being more difficult than the other. In fact, this is likely to prove the more difficult, whereas I thought the shop painting would pose problems.

It was unfair of me to ask you to say which would be the difficult one and even more unfair to ask you to say why. The actual reason is because the photograph I have of the shop is full of people milling about in front of the door and downstairs window. Luckily, the Interweb managed to fill in the missing information for me.But you weren't to know that. I think I was just talking to myself out loud.

The Race is On Again

Pub (work in progress)



Shop (work in progress)

The race in the title is a race against time, of course. I have just over a week to complete my pictures for inclusion in the Di Rollo exhibition, if I want them to be framed by the gallery.

Pat and I spent a day in Edinburgh last week collecting material for paintings but I've had trouble with my printer which insists on printing everything far too dark. Eventually I had to resort to having my photographs printed professionally but this meant some delay in getting started on the new work.

Nevertheless, here I am now with two new small paintings begun of a pub and a shop in Edinburgh. One of them may prove more difficult to complete than the other. Can you guess which, and for what reason?