Wee Scotland Shop

Wee Scotland Shop (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

This fine emporium of .... Scottish memorabilia and ... um..... tartan stuff is on the Royal Mile leading up to the Castle. I think peculiar little shops like this help to make a city human.

Sunlit Wall. No Bagpipes.

Archway (work in progress)

Those bagpipes I hear must be still some way off, because this is definitely somewhere more exotic. I hasten to add that at this point I'm not prepared to enter into a discussion of the value judgement inherent in my suggestion that Scotland is not exotic.

I enjoyed working this over an old painting I'd decided would never make it to completion. The texture and colours of the old painting were really good to paint on. I worked quite fast and used what paint was still on the palettefrom the last session. As a consequence there's some greying of the colour (especially the greens) which will need to be dealt with when I cone back to it, but overall I like the effect of a sunlit wall seen through an archway.

Shop Work

Clothes Shop (work in progress)

Getting ready to go to Glasgow tomorrow, but I still found time to work on the new shop painting today. That brings it up to the same degree of completion as the the one I began on Saturday. Coming back from Glasgow, I'll have quite a choice of paintings to finish, always something I like.

Auchterarder: 6th Day

Rock Form (Pentel Brushpen, watercolour, A4 sketchbook)

First of all, a Happy St George's Day to Englishmen and women everywhere, whatever your colour or creed. This is your day, even if, like me, you're somewhere where the more exuberant display of celebration might not be diplomatic.

I did this drawing at the quarry on the way up to Craig Rossie, too. The more I stared at the rock face, the more evident it became that there was a triangular, or pyramidal shape in the fractured rock. So I drew it with the Pentel Brushpen, losing myself regularly in the splits and shadows until I'm sure this isn't in any way an accurate record of the rocks.

The watercolour wash was an afterthought, but one I'm pleased with.

Auchterarder: 5th Day

Craig Rossie Quarry (Coloured Conte, sketchbook)

Mainly a solitary day today, up in the quarry. Tony was discernible some way off, only by his silver-white hair showing above the heather as he sat and painted the view from the slopes of Craig Rossie.

I opted for these rocks at the mouth of the quarry. I was taken by the light glittering through the fresh leaves on the shrub growing out of the leaves, but I should have known that I'd not really be able to capture the effect with coloured Conte. Nevertheless, I'm not entirely displeased with it - there's a chunky feel to the rocks that appeals to me more than the shrub did. I should have replaced the shrub with one of the spindly trees that grew nearby.

Auchterarder: 4th Day

St Serf's, Dunning (Pencil, watercolour, A4 sketchbook)

We split into the same two groups again today (something of an unwelcome practice, I think), and we three went into Auchterarder for groceries, then investigated two pubs in the area in the only sensible way - a pint in each.

Across from the Kirkstyle Inn (good pint of Thrappledouser) is St Serf's Church and a man there will come out of his little hut to tell you more than you thought you might possibly want to know about this lovely old building. He's a treasure, absolutely wasted there, but perhaps quite content.

Anyway, he encourages artists to paint and draw in and around the church, so we sat down in the churchyard, in the glorious sunshine, and I produced this small effort. I've said before, I'm no watercolourist, but it does come in handy for "colouring in".

Auchterarder: 1st Day

Branches, White Moss Loch (4B pencil, watercolour, sketchbook)

We arrived at Shinafoot Studios around 4.30 on Friday night and after settling in, went out again looking for a good restaurant. Unfortunately, Auchterarder is something of a restaurant desert. we settled on an allegedly Italian place whose menu included only pizza and two other Italian dishes. My spaghetti all marinara was really well cooked, but I had to wait an age to find that out and overall the restaurant was uninspiring.

We came home up the windswept main street and paused for a moment to watch the local kids playing Toss the Dustbin Across the Road.

Today we split into two groups, one to check out the bridge at Kinkell, the other to walk up into the hills and find the quarry at Craig Rossie. I decided to follow on a little later (I'm really not an early morning person), taking the quarry route, but somewhere I took a wrong turning. Ending up on a long boring rock-strewn track, winding through freshly tilled and thus empty fields I emerged at a farm where all the domestic and farming detritus in the whole of Scotland had come to rest.

Or so I thought, but later I found that the rest of the area was a fly-tipper's paradise. There was a golf course and there were colossal prosperous-looking farms, and there were also car parts, Coke bottles, mattresses, sheets of corrugated iron, tractor tyres, car tyres, plastic bags, garden chairs, dead Xmas trees, in every ditch and hedgerow. The good folks of Perthshire should be desperately ashamed of themselves.

I came to White Moss Loch which boasted many water birds, although I could see few of them from the track that skirted part of the lake, but allowed access only by climbing over a pile of plastic tubing (various sizes) and ended at a breeze-block and corrugated asbestos building which had been bulldozed then allowed to crumble into the landscape.

I did this drawing while randy mallards chased one another round the lake and a swan came by looking for sandwiches, but I had none for him.

New & Old

The Gate (work in progress)

I feel like I'm struggling with this one, but I recognise there's been some progress today. Much of the colour has undergone subtle transformation, and the foreground is starting to emerge as cars and people. I'll keep at it until I make it how I think I want it to be (or until it tells me it's reached the stage of being how it wants to be!)

I painted this picture a few years ago but was always a little unhappy with how it turned out. I felt it had become too literal and a bit ... dull. I took it out of its frame, did some extra work on the landscape and painted out the sky. And there it stayed, incomplete, until today.

I painted the sky using a painting knife and the paint left over from working on The Gate, and touched up the landscape a little more. It strikes me at the moment as being overly busy, but that impression might fade in the next few days. Whether it does or not, I like the new version better. (As usual, my monitor is emphasising the reds in the picture; if yours does the same, please make allowances for that).




The Creel Inn, Catterline (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins.)