WIP - Holy Island Water Tower

 

WIP - Holy Island Water Tower

(oil on canvas, 12 x 12 in)

Not a great day at the North of England Art Club yesterday. I put this painting back on the easel to resume work on it and squeezed out some fresh paint onto my palette.

Then I noticed that a bottle of Liquin had fallen over and leaked out quite a bit of the contents into the bottom of my paint box. Liquin sets like a particularly sticky toffee. So, scraping out the Liquin as best I could, I started to clean the residue with white spirit and soapy water.

Almost done, I knocked over the inside tray, spilling all my brushes and tubes of paint onto the floor. My back is giving me real trouble at the moment, so by the time I’d dried off the paint box and picked up all the brushes and paint, all I was fit for was storing the painting back in the racks, putting away the easel and going home.

I haven't been back since, which is a situation in need of remedying.

Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne Boatshed
(Oil on board, 8 x 8 in)

Coves Haven, Lindisfarne
(Oil on board, 8 x 8 in)

On Monday I went back to my old studio, unpacked the oil paints and finished off these two paintings over two days. There was always going to be the problem of drying, but a judicious mix of W&N Underpainting White and Liquin helped them dry by Thursday, when I handed them in at the North of England Art Club in Newcastle.

After handing them in, I made a final attempt to find my lost pencil case. The only place I hadn't checked was the Discovery Museum where we held our February Sketch Crawl, so I asked the nice man behind the desk if it had been handed in.

He was very helpful, even reading out some of the items that had been handed in.

"A ham sandwich and a bag of cash?"

"No", I said.

"A wallet with £100 in it?"

"Yes, that's the one!" but he was having none of it, and didn't find any mention of my pencil case either.

A brush with Barbara

Edge of Town (second stage)

No Club for me today. Dr Pam stayed here on Monday night and through Tuesday afternoon, on her way back from Edinburgh. We had a good time catching up and talking into the small hours, while I introduced her to the wonders of The Imagined Village and Lhasa's The Living Road.

Enjoyable though it was, Dr Pam's visit meant that I felt I'd fallen behind in work on Edge of Town, so I decided to stay at home and work today. But first, I had to go to the Post Office and collect my lovely new book on Barbara Rae. In addition to a wealth of plates, the book has an illuminating interview with her, and I was reminded of how her career has been more or less based on work made with collage and paint

In the past, I've dabbled a little with collage in my pictures, using it to give some texture. Here are a couple:

The Presence (Oil on board)

Old lady (Oil on board)

I've always liked the result, so I thought I might employ the technique again in the construction of Edge of Town. I dug out some tissue paper and pasted it onto parts of the canvas, using Liquin and Spectragel. There's always a danger that oil can make the tissue rot, but I figure these two mediums should be safe and so far I've noticed no untoward effects on other pictures.

After that, it was only a matter of waiting a short time for the collage to set and I was able to paint over the tissue. I think I've reached the stage where I feel the picture will never work, but experience tells me that once I'm able to start scumbling and glazing over the existing colour, things should work out fine. The sky is reflecting unduly in the photograph, by the way, but I think I'll try darkening it more, anyway.

Incidentally, if you're interested in Barbara Rae's work, I think it's still possible to hear a radio interview with her here. And, of course, there's a link to her website in the sidebar.