More Good Press

Another nice write-up in the 9 November edition of The Courier, Newcastle University's student newspaper. This time I get compared to Hockney, rather than Thiebaud. Who am I to grumble?

I've slipped into The Crack!

Local listings magazine, The Crack, gives Figure8's current show at Red Box the thumbs up in a quarter page review! How absolutely wonderful to be compared with Wayne Thiebaud, high in my pantheon of artist influences. All that looking at his work must be rubbing off.

Red Box Gallery opening

Last night, Figure8's new show opened to great acclaim. This was quite possibly our best attended preview ever, with some famous faces scattered amongst the crowd, and everyone seemed to have a good time. We should perhaps have had a photographer there, because all in all it was quite an elegant occasion worthy of recording.

Special thanks go to all my friends, especially The Groupies, who helped make it such a successful evening.

Where do we go from here? I dunno. There are no new shows planned and although the comments on my work were all positive, I always feel the need to retrench and consider what I want to do next.

At the Club there are two Rock & Tree pictures I want to complete. But maybe I want to work small after those big Views from the Keep. I have a few small paintings crying out to be finished and a number of ideas which I think would benefit from being ensmalled.

Meanwhile, I'll relax a little, I think, and remember - the show at Red Box continues until 20th November, so if you're in the area, make an appointment to look in and see it.

High Level

High Level (oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins.)

My, but I found this taxing. An awful lot of close colours made it difficult to get the buildings in recession. Anyway, this will be the last one I'm doing for the Red Box show. I'm simply out of time to do more, although there were a couple I had intended to finish. On Saturday, Pat and I are flying to Croatia for a couple of weeks, so tomorrow will be taken up with last minute arrangements.

Night Station

Night Station (oil on canvas, 24 x 30 ins.)

Sorry it's been so quiet here, but I'm desperately trying to finish the Red Box pictures this week. This is another you've seen before, if you're a regular reader. I wanted to finish this one for the Red Box show, too, because I thought it fitted nicely with the other views of Newcastle I plan on showing.

The photograph is as accurate as I could get it, but still displays a little lightness in the upper half (from my strip light, I guess).

The Second Big One

View from the Keep 2 (work in progress)

I know I have to have at least two large paintings for the Red Box show, so this is the second of the 3 x 4 feet canvases. Although I can still easily work on the first one, there'll come a time when only small amounts of work will be possible due to drying issues. By having two on the go, I'll be able to switch from one to the other. This is my preferred way of working anyway.

The red brick building at the right is the Turnbull Building which featured in a recent post. The view here is looking up the Tyne, with the Metro Bridge (as yet only showing as a remnant of the orange imprimatura) in the background. In the immediate foreground is the East Coast mainline, which shows up in the bottom left hand corner of the first Big One.

More Work on the Big One

View from the Keep (work in progress)

Yesterday's work went well. I defined the buildings more and developed the relationships between them. The roofs on the main structure at the right are starting to make more sense and the grassy ares on the left (which lie alongside the main London-Edinburgh railway line) sit better than they did yesterday.

The large open car park in front of the railway station looks a little odd, but should start to work better when it gets more attention - tomorrow, I hope.

First Big One

View from the Keep (work in progress)

Having said all that about unfinished work, I have to leave one or two that I was keen to finish, unfinished for now. For most of the year I've been conscious of needing to get some work done for the Figure8 show at the Red Box Gallery in September. Red Box is a prestigious gallery and any work there will, I hope, be seen by people with good connections.

What I wanted to do for this show was to find a way of reviving my interest in painting Newcastle. For some time I've felt that I'd exhausted that interest (and it was a passionate interest!) but recently I began to think that looking at the city again, taking into account my more colourful approach of the last year or so, might produce something fresh.

I appreciate the danger, discussed in the previous post, of building up a "mere" interest into a false "passionate" interest, but I believe this time I've got it right.

Last week I ordered a couple of canvases, 3 feet by 4 feet, and they arrived on Thursday. On Thursday night I began by laying down an acrylic imprimatura of raw sienna and by teatime on Friday I'd reached the stage you see above. Sorry about the quality of the photograph - it's going to be difficult to photograph this one.

Open the Box

Yesterday proved very productive. We've been in correspondence with the Red Box Gallery in Newcastle for a short while, and yesterday Mo and I went to see the curator there. We met with a very enthusiastic response and I'm delighted to say that Figure 8's first confirmed show in 2009 will be in September at Red Box!

This is quite a triumph. Red Box is a very prestigious gallery with a knowledgeable and affluent clientele. We'll be the first group to mount a show there (with one exception of a family of artists, they've always shown solo artists) and the curator is very excited at the prospect. As am I.

Now to get some work done.