Buskers

Buskers

(Acrylic on canvas board, 8 x 10 in)

The result of a suggested theme at Gateshead Art Society. The buskers were spotted on a wintry Charles Bridge in Prague, and very good they were too.

 

No Fanfare

(Black marker, colour in Photoshop)

The New English Art Club posted their chosen works on the Mall Galleries website today. My two paintings aren't on the list. Tsk.

I've been adopting the attitude that I probably wouldn't get in the show, in the hope that I'd not be disappointed. Didn't work, and the day seems somehow rather flat.


Prague Tram No.3 (oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cms)


Prague Tram No.4 (oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cms)

Prague Tram No.3

Prague Tram No.3 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

This has proven to be the most difficult in the series to complete, mainly, I think, because of the lighting conditions within the painting. At the time of day represented, colours lose much of their strength and I found this quite challenging to work through.

Nevertheless, I think it works well enough, and I'm particularly pleased with the way the windows give a suggestion of little abstract paintings in their own frames, running across the bottom half of the painting like the predella to an altarpiece.

Prague Tram No.4

Prague Tram No.4 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins,)

The muse returns! Or at least, the necessity to complete one of the Tram Series so that I might photograph it for the Preston Hall show publicity asserted itself.

I finished this one today, after working on it, on and off, over the last three days. There's the usual problem with reflections on wet paint which throw the colours in the sky out a little, but otherwise this is a decent photograph. I chose this one to finish on the basis that it's more colourful and therefore lends itself to publicity in brochures and the like, but there's no guarantee that it'll be chosen from the four images submitted. Just have to wait and see.

Getting this one finished makes me want to move the others along, so the prospect for work next week is good. Hurrah!

Two More Makes a Set

Tram 3 (oil on canvas, work in progress)



Tram 4 (oil on canvas, work in progress)

I discovered from the doctor that you can't get any medication for a prolonged cough if your lungs are uncongested. I'm delighted to report that my lungs are indeed perfectly clear, so I have to just cough my way to health. Meanwhile, life and art must go on, so it's back to the trams for me.

Very roughly blocked in, but these two new paintings mean I have four paintings of Prague Trams on the go. I suspect these four will complete the Tram Series, but you never know. The composition in each of these new ones interests me. They're put together from separate images - trams and street scenes - but seem to work and are further examples of a kind of whirling vortex that crops up occasionally in my work.

Tramcar to Sanity

Tram 2 (work in progress)

Does this mean my cold has gone? No, it certainly doesn't; indeed, I've been coughing and sneezing for over a week now. However, I can't get a doctor's appointment until next week and I'm acutely aware of our impending Figure8 show at Preston Hall, for which I have no finished work. So let's see what a couple of hours of breathing in white spirit fumes does for me.

It looks like there's going to be a Tram Series, to follow on from the Vaporetto Series. This is how my second Prague tram looks after an hour and a half today. There's still quite a bit to do in adjusting the sky and making more of the church (it's actually the Church of St. Ludmilla, in Namesti Miru Square). I think the curve of the windows has been exaggerated by the camera lens, but I'll check on that later. I also want to make sense of some of the marks inside the tram - some of those should look like people!

Gosh, but it feels good to be painting again!

Tram Beginnings

Prague Tram (work in progress - 1st day)

I know, I know, I've started another one, but I couldn't resist it. I needed to paint and couldn't get into one of the existing pictures. I wanted to make further progress on the Night Station picture, but the inertia was too great.

As is usually the case, I enjoyed working on the early stages of this painting. One of the things I'm trying to do as part of my vague plan for the year, is to shake up my working practices a bit, so most of this was painted with a painting knife and quite a bit of gloopy Spectragel [Note to self: buy new tin of Spectragel]. When I used a brush, it was a round, rather than the flats and filberts I normally employ. I like the freshness this approach has brought to the work and I'll have to see how I can retain some of it as the painting progresses.

Prague

I'm off to Prague for a week. Patsy123 bought me this short break for my birthday and we fly out of Newcastle later today. While there, we'll be linking up with Buddy K and Susie Sue and generally having fun.

Please try to have some fun yourselves.