Tower in the Woods

Tower in the Woods

(acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in)

I finished this painting fairly recently and took it along to a meeting of the Newcastle Painters' Group last weekend where it was warmly complimented. Silly, I know, but I needed that confirmation that my work, slightly changed by methods and medium, is going well.

Photographing artwork is difficult at this time of year, with the light quality being seriously reduced, so this is the best I could manage under the circumstances. I'll try for a better quality photograph in due course.

Monday Washing Again.

Washing WIP (acrylic on canvas board)

Apocryphally, it takes three weeks to establish an activity as a habit, so back at Gateshead Art Society on Friday for the second week in a row, I felt I might be getting back into a routine. Of course, although I plan to be back there this coming Friday, it'll be the Xmas Party that day and no work will be done. So unless I can get some work done on this painting this week, the impetus may be lost.

On the other hand, I took it along to a meeting of the Painters' Group on Saturday and for the first time in a very long time, our tutor, Bill Varley pronounced my picture "good." As is often the case, he'd rather I did very little more to it and I'll probably not take his advice, but it was encouraging to get some praise.

Willow Burn

I had a very pleasant afternoon tea with Lady Elsie Robson today, while looking round the lovely new Willow Burn Hospice at Lanchester. The Painters' Group has been invited to put on an exhibition of paintings there later in the year.

More of this in due course.

Nordic Transcendence

I suppose it must be something to do with Sod's Law that when I go to the last (and for me, the only) meeting of the Painters' Group this season, I should miss the bus because it came early. I shall be glad to be free of this one-an-hour bus service.

Sod's Law continued to apply when I got to the Hatton Gallery where the Group usually meets: it was Newcastle University's Open Day and the gallery was full of folk. And no one from the Group, of course. So by the time I'd trotted over the road to the Northumbria Gallery, the fallback venue, I was only just in time to put my Chalice painting amongst the others and sit down for the crit.

I wasn't sure how it would be received, but everyone seemed to like it, including Bill V., our tutor. The term he used in reference to it was "Nordic Transcendence" which I thought somewhat appropriate. I remember two years ago seeing and enjoying the exhibition  Van Gogh to Kandinsky | Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880-1910, not so much for the well known painters but for the lesser known works by artists such as Kallela and Willumsen. I found a a real connection with those paintings.

Whether or not Chalice represents a new departure. I honestly can't say, but it's stirring up some ideas from the past that may need to be looked at again.

Chalice (WIP)

Chalice (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 in) Work in Progress

The Painters' Group is holding its final meeting of the season on Saturday. Because of other commitments and not a little to do with poor health I've missed most of the meetings this year, so I thought I might make an effort to catch this one.

I could go without any work, but I do like to take something when I go, so I pulled this one from the racks and had another go at it. It's been through various stages and the addition of the chalice is only the latest attempt to make something of the painting.

I actually find it interesting and it certainly looks better than the photograph might suggest. The photograph is picking up too much of the texture of old paint and dropping the background away from the chalice. I'll look at it again later and get another photograph.

The Baker's Wife's Siesta

The Baker's Wife's Siesta (Oil on board, 12 x 12 in)

Since the operation on my eye in April I've been disinclined to do any work, but yesterday, with the approach of the first Painters' Group meeting of the season, I thought it was time to try to get something done.

I don't remember when I started this painting. It's been hanging around the studio for an awfully long time and now and again I'd put it on the easel and fiddle with it. I see that I last mentioned it here at about this time two years ago. I think I've finally got it to the stage where I won't do any more and in that sense, it's finished.

[Later: the painting was well received at the Painters' Group meeting, better than I think I expected. Someone even called it "lovely" which can't be bad.]

Dreamer

Dreamer (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

I finished this yesterday but as luck and the weather would have it, I couldn't take it to the Painters' Group meeting. It snowed most of the night and although snow fall has eased off today, there's no sign of a thaw.

I got up early to see if I might be able to get to the meeting, but the main road looked bad and the front street was covered in a thick blanket of snow. In addition, the painting was still tacky, which made carrying it in bad conditions not an attractive proposition. I put the central heating on and went back to bed. The painting will keep for another month.

Refining

Sleeper (work in progress)

It may not be obvious that much has changed. What I've done is refine the image a little, close up the gaps between planes of colour, modify the hair and add toes and fingers. The problem with working on a painting like this is that the paint has to be dry before small additions can be made and inevitably this takes time. My object is to get it done before Saturday, when the Painters' Group reconvenes.

Seven Cakes and a View of Glasgow

Seven Cakes and a View of Glasgow (Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 ins)

I've worked on this one off and on for some time and finally decided today to just have a good go at it and pull it together. I think it works now.

I'll be taking it to a meeting of the Painters Group on Saturday where I'm unsure of its reception. The tutor and several of the painters seemed to find the concept puzzling last time I showed it to them. I find that puzzling.

Sutherland Through the Hedge

Hedgerow No.1 (Work in progress)

Last night I set about quickly adding an horizon and a blue sky to the first of the Hedgerow paintings. Reviewing the result this morning, I realised how much my love of Graham Sutherland was becoming evident in this painting. There was no conscious decision to make that happen, but I can see it's there, I have no problem with it and in fact I was quite pleased when the influence was immediately commented upon at today's meeting of the Painters' Group.

The meeting was interesting in that I felt my work wasn't universally liked but that reinforced a renewed determination to plough my own furrow. I generally do that anyway, but in the last few years I think I may have drifted into market-driven thought patterns for understandable but unhelpful reasons.

Fallen Log

Fallen Log (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)

Have I mentioned the Painters' Group before? No, perhaps not. I began my painting studies in 1989 with the OCA and continued with them for quite a few years before taking a leap of faith and going to Newcastle University to study for a BA in Fine Art. In the last few years of being with the OCA, the tutor was William Varley. At the time Bill was also in charge of First Year Studies at the University and wrote exhibition reviews for national newspapers such as The Guardian and The New Statesman. He still writes some critical pieces, I see.

Anyway, Bill proved very influential in my development and, indeed, was instrumental in encouraging me to think it might actually be possible for me to undertake the degree course. Unfortunately, he retired from the University in 1998, a year after I started there, and frankly the quality and direction of the teaching moved away from what I had gone there to find.

Bill also gave up his role with the OCA but continued an informal critique session every month with former students. For some time it didn't seem to be something that would meet my needs, but recently one or two friends of mine, including Maureen Stephenson and Elizabeth Talbot, joined what had come to be called The Painters' Group. That made the difference for me and I joined Bill's group again in October (in time to be included in the XIV Show, in fact).

The most recent meeting was on Saturday and I made a special effort to get this Fallen Log painting completed on Friday night. Inevitably this posed problems in carrying the wet painting on the bus to the session, but it was worth it. It's always good to get other people's input and on this occasion not only Bill but some of the other painters had interesting comments and questions. The questions, I find, are particularly helpful because they make me think about the painting and articulate my thoughts more clearly than might otherwise be the case.

The painting was well received and as has been my experience of the group in the past, I came home wanting to get straight back in the studio.