Outcrop

Outcrop

(acrylic on card, 10x10 in)

I discovered this rocky outcrop on a painting holiday in Bishopdale nearly ten years ago and the collection of rock and tree root shapes has hung around at the back of my mind ever since. Bringing them to life in a painting has been fascinating, as they continued to evolve with the paint.

 

Near The Rookery

Near The Rookery (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

The first of the new Rock and Tree series paintings is finished. Titles are always a problem, and I'm not certain I'll keep this one, but I'm very happy with the painting.

Second New Painting

Rookery Rock (work in progress)

Another new painting begun today, continuing the Rock and Tree series.. This one is based on a sketchbook drawing I did last year at The Rookery in Bishopdale:



Sketchbook drawing.

New Work

Log Figure (work in progress)

Even though my two man show is currently running at Alnwick right now (still time for you to get up there and catch it!), I'm working out some new subject matter for my next show, which will be a solo effort throughout August in Newcastle .

I've been thinking about my Rock and Tree series and how that might be enlarged and expanded upon. The shades of Graham Sutherland and Paul Nash are sitting in the studio right now giving me advice and this is today's freshly started painting.

Private View

Here's the invitation to Figure 8's new show at the Biscuit Factory. I'll be showing eight of the Rock & Tree series paintings, including the two new Auchterarder Hedgerow pictures.

If you can make it to the opening, I'd be delighted to see you there. Come and say hello! If you can't get there, maybe you can get to the Biscuit Factory before it ends on 4 March.

Failing that, you'll find all of the paintings on my website.

Through the Hedge

Hedgerow No.1 (work in progress)


Hedgerow No.2 (work in progress)

I'm working under pressure again. I have about ten days to provide the images of all the paintings I intend to hang in the Figure8 show at the Biscuit Factory in February (details for you nearer the time) and so far I have only four completed. I probably need two or three more and recently have found ideas in short supply.

To clarify: I have lots of ideas for paintings, but having chosen a particular theme (Rock & Tree) for this show, I need to make some new paintings that fit that theme and ideas for such have not been readily forthcoming.

What I thought I would try, therefore, is see what I might be able to do with some hedgerows I found by the side of the road at Auchterarder when I was there in 2009 on one of my annual painting trips. I'm in two minds about how these are going; certainly I'm happier with the first than the second, but as I've put in more time on the first, that's to be expected. I'm very much feeling my way with these and intend to keep looking for more ideas in case they don't work out.

Meanwhile, if you have any thoughts on these paintings, I'd be interested to hear them, but do bear in mind they're very far from completion.

Rookery Time - Wednesday 11th May

Embrace (Brushpen, sketchbook)

By Wednesday I'd come to the conclusion the weather wasn't stable enough to warrant lugging out a lot of the equipment I'd taken with me. In fact, I'd settled into a realisation that I might as well make the most of being away from home, living in a comfortable country house with no pressing commitments. In other words, I was on holiday.

I spent Tuesday getting to the end of The Blackpool Flyer by Andrew Martin, the second of his Jim Stringer, Railway Detective, mysteries. I'd enjoyed the first of this series, The Necropolis Railway, but the second seemed to me to be terribly padded out. Clearly Martin has done a huge amount of research and felt that he might obscure the identity of the culprit by filling the narrative with details of Victorian life. Undeniably fascinating details, no doubt, but narrative cloggers nonetheless. As a result it's taken me months to get to the end.

Wednesday afternoon promised a spell of fine weather, but no sooner had I finished this two page drawing (and in the process become a real fan of the flexibility of the brush-pen) than the rain came back.

Thursday: rain all day.

Rookery Time - Sunday 8th May (pm)

Tree Round Rock (Brushpen, coloured Conte, sketchbook)

Rain had sent me back to the house after drawing the Tree with Green Head and it seemed set for the rest of the day, but when a break appeared that promised a reasonable time of clear sky, I set off for my newly discovered Rock & Tree.

I began with a futile attempt to work with my favourite Rotring Art Pen. The nib has dried up again. [Note to self: check your materials before going away again!] Back to the Brushpen again then and this time I began to find a new pleasure in its use. There's a nice fluidity about the way it handles and quite subtle changes in the line quality can be achieved.

I think I intended to give this drawing more colour, but the black clouds were moving my way so after quickly laying in two colours of Conte to push the subject forward, I ran for the house in the beginnings of a downpour.

Rookery Time - Saturday 7th May (pm)

Tree Circles Rock (4B pencil, A4 sketchbook)

Walking up to the waterfalls involved a lot of very boggy ground and several rotting gates held together by pieces of string, twisted wire and rusted metal. I think it must be a Yorkshire thing. I decided to forgo the pleasures of opening the gates and decided to take a walk in the afternoon along the lane that runs down the side of the valley through flocks of sheep.

I'd never been that way before and it came as a shock to see, on the top of the first rise, a fascinating example of my favourite country subject - Rock & Tree. Coming closer to it, I was amazed by it's structure. It's a huge boulder out of which an ash tree has sprouted, pushing roots deep into a crack on one side. But then, the tree had produced a root-cum-trunk which had wound it's way round the rock and along the other side, grasping the rock in its embrace.

Old Drawings #64

Tree and Rocks, Blawearie
(Charcoal on cartridge paper, 20 x 33 ins)

As those of you in the UK will be only too well aware, we're going through the Bank Holiday season, a time when nothing gets done because we're all too busy Having Fun.

In the absence of anything new to post, therefore, I'm posting what may prove to be the last of the Old Drawings series (I need to check - there may be one or two more). I need to think about how to replace this occasional series. Something called New Drawings would, in an ideal world, be a suitable replacement, but that's a series very long in the gestation it seems. I could start to post from my sporadic sketchbook drawings. What do you think? What would you like to see?

This drawing, by the way, is one of the first in what would come to be the Rock and Tree series, an ongoing project. I did it at University in 2001, I reckon, and it's taken from something seen at Blawearie. I'm rather fond of the way I simplified the forms.

Sawrey Farm

Sawrey Farm (Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 ins)

After some thought, I've decided to do no further work on this painting. I like it the way it is.

This means that there is one more painting outstanding in this series - the Split Rock painting still being worked at the Club. However, I've enjoyed making these images so much that I think it very likely I'll continue with them. I already have my eye on a remarkably deformed tree I found on one of the Compo & Clegg Painting Weeks at Duntrune in Scotland.

Easels and Trees

Sawrey Farm (work in progress)

I took the Sawrey Farm painting to the Club today. It was fairly quiet by the time I got there, but I couldn't help noticing a dismaying number of easels left for someone else to put away. Lot of new members, not enough explanation of studio etiquette perhaps, but who do they think is going to tidy the place up?

I've moved the painting along well, I think, but the trees in the background, which I included for what I thought were perfectly well-justified reasons are troubling me. I'll try losing them next week and see how I feel about it then.

Abroad Posting

Sawrey Farm (work in progress)

I've recently sold two paintings to a friend and client in San Francisco and had to make arrangements to get them there. My mate and fellow painter Mike Bell (no relation!) suggested I use an online Agent called Interparcel whom he'd used in the past and from their differently priced services, I opted for delivery by UPS. So on Thursday I had to wait for the UPS van to come and collect the parcel. At the time of writing it's in San Francisco now and on the point of being delivered which I think is pretty good service.

What this meant, of course was that I didn't go to the Club to continue with my painting, Above Harry Ramsden's . Nor did I go on Friday, so the painting awaits completion. What i did do on Friday was go to the preview of ØRNULF OPDAHL Mood Paintings of the North at the Northumbria Gallery. I love Opdahl's moody paintings of Norwegian fjords. In fact, although the oils are out of my price range, I have two of his lithographs which I treasure dearly.

Because of the usual chatting with folk I haven't seen for years, I didn't get to see the video interview with Opdahl. People would come up to me and say, "Have you seen the really interesting video?" then talk to me long enough to ensure I couldn't. I'll go back to see the show again and the video, but if you'd like to see the video now, you can do so on the King's Place website. Make sure you enlarge the view to full screen.

Aware that the Harry Ramsden painting presents little in the way of concentrated work to get it finished, I decided I need to get one or two more started, so today I got this Sawrey Farm painting under way. It's another in the Rock & Tree series which is holding my attention at the moment.

Oaks Nr Sawrey

Oaks Nr Sawrey (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

Back at the Club again on Friday and good to get back into painting. It's a companion piece to Oak Citadel, which I've posted here previously. I'm really happy with the way these have turned out and am beginning to think about some further additions to this non-urban subject matter.

Oak Citadel

Oak Citadel (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

I tried to post this yesterday, but I found I couldn't connect to Blogger all day. A little searching on Twitter showed that I wasn't alone in this, but that it wasn't universal. Odd.

I made an effort to get to the Art Club on Friday ... and found myself alone. Maybe it's due to the half-term holidays and all the regulars have been roped into grandfatherly duties. I suppose I could have gone home again, and the thought did cross my mind once or twice, but I felt that I needed the discipline of getting back into to some work. If I'd gone home, I might not have started on anything at all.

Rock Study

Rock Study (Coloured pencil in A5 sketchbook)

In an effort to stave off that expected flat spot, I thought I'd explore a possible addition to the Rock & Tree paintings I'm working on at the Club. This is based on a photograph taken of the same rocky outcrop in the Lakes as the paintings are based on. I think it has great potential, but I need to decide on the size of canvas before I make any start on it.

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.