Merry Christmas!

Christmas Lights

(Acrylic on mountboard, 9 x 9 in, greeting added digitally)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my Reader!
 

Sketch Crawl : Back to the Ouseburn

The Old Chimney, Ouseburn

(Black marker in A5 sketchbook)

OK, I know I'm late in posting and everything seems to be becoming confused. Must do better.

The winter weather wasn't terribly conducive to outdoor sketching and I missed at least one sketch crawl (to Durham in January), but this drawing was made in December. We met in the Cafe at the Ouseburn Farm where hot chocolate and coffee made forays to draw outdoors possible. Some sketchers didn't even brave the outdoors, choosing to sit in the warm cafe and draw the view through the windows, but I decided to draw the Lime Street Chimney. The chimney was built in the late 1840s originally as part of a steam operated flax mill designed by John Dobson, the building now known as Cluny Warehouse.

Winter at Staithes

Winter at Staithes

(acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in.)

After the excitement of the workshop in York I found myself unsettled during the week, unable to really get into any work of consequence. Finally, at the Friday meeting of Gateshead Art Society (where the suggested theme was "Urban Painting"), I was able to finish this winter picture. Brrr.

Meanwhile ...

The Fishmonger WIP

(acrylic on board, 25 x 25 cm.)

Fresh Fruit WIP

(acrylic on board, 25 x 25 cm)

Staithes in Winter WIP

(acrylic on board, 12 x 12 in.)

The Gardener WIP

(acrylic on board, 25 x 25 cm.)

Meanwhile, in the secret realm of the studio, work progresses on several paintings. The first two are very near completion, but as I've said here before, I hate finishing pictures when I know what they'll look like. I enjoy starting paintings and I enjoy struggling with the elements that aren't working, but once I recognise how they'll end up, I lose interest. Only when I need them for a show do I feel the need to really press on to the end. 

In the case of The Fishmonger, I'd like to give him a face; the man selling Fresh Fruit could do with a better nose.

It may seem odd to be working on a painting of Staithes in Winter, but I'm assured that greetings card manufacturers buy images for Xmas in June and it helps to maintain at least a facade of business-mindedness.

The Gardener is so named because he started out as a man in front of a topiary garden. I decided the picture wasn't working well and intended to simply paint over it and start afresh. But the man protested that he had a right to justify himself, so I've given his garden a coating of pasted down tissue paper and we'll see what emerges from the milky mist. Might be another garden; might not.

I Looked *Everywhere*.

Winter's Jar WIP

(acrylic on board, 24 x 24 cm)

Still Life with Fish and Chair WIP

(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

Collage Jar WIP

(acrylic on board, 18 x 20 cm)

On Friday I decided to try to get these three paintings finished in time for a meeting of the Newcastle Painters Group on Saturday, only to realise I couldn't find my box of paints. During the week we'd moved the rest of my stuff from the old house and in making room for all the boxes, I'd put my container of most-used colours Somewhere Safe.

After a search Everywhere, I pressed on with some of my other colours but progress was slow and I didn't complete any of them. Still, they were well-received on Saturday and I've since looked in that other place that wasn't Everywhere and found the mislaid paints.

More Windows ...

Turnbull Winter (work in progress)

This is a terrible photograph, I'm afraid. The studio light is reflecting far too much on the most recent layer of paint in the sky and skewing the balance of colours. Still, it serves to demonstrate that I'm back on this painting.

[Slightly better photograph uploaded 11 October 2010]

The painting is, in fact, giving me all sorts of problems. When I left it last time (can it really be June since I worked on it?) I knew it had become far too tight and fiddly and I was particularly unhappy with the trees. All of which put me off doing more to it: I didn't want to continue in that very descriptive manner, I knew there were many more windows to be put in (Windows! Why did I choose to be a painter of buildings?) and I didn't want to have to measure them and apply bits of masking tape.

I realised today that I needed to deliberately spoil the tidiness that was keeping me back, so I put in the new windows in a much more careless (carefree?) way. Irregularities can be made good as the picture goes along and while they're too dark at the moment, they can be knocked back easily enough later.. I've also painted over the trees, using a mixture of tools - rags, crumpled paper, a painting knife and a fan brush. The intention is for that to provide a better underpainting for the next session.

Finally, I used some of the paint mixtures on the palette to make thin layers mixed with white to film over parts of the sky. I've been doing that each time I've worked on the picture and it's starting to produce an effective glow.

Paintings & Prints

Paintings & Prints (oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)

Pushing the painting style dilemma to the back of my mind, I had a good day today, pressing on with this painting in the Shops & Stalls series and finishing it. I feel this series is going well and my initial enthusiasm for it has had a resurgence.

Not to be defeated with the Winter painting, however, I've done a little more to the Night Station 2 picture. I know it looks as if I've depicted the mouth of hell but have patience. It'll come right in the end.


Night Station 2 (work in progress)

Distracted Again

Night Station 2 (work in progress)

I've been forced to take my eye off the ball, despite an earnest wish to get on with the outstanding paintings of Shops & Stalls, Kastela restaurants and like so. A few days ago I learned I have the chance of showing some work in a gallery I hold in very high esteem; I've shown there before and have been anxious to show there again for some time.

But there's a problem. The show will be at the end of the year and, although it won't be themed, it was made clear to me that "Winter" paintings are what will be required. The problem? I don't do Winter paintings, or at least haven't done for some considerable time. You'll know that I regularly work from photographs, but I don't even take many photographs in the Winter. I hate the Winter. It's cold and miserable and for some years now I've concentrated on making paintings celebrating colour and light; they make me happy.

So what do I do? It's a not inconsiderable dilemma, but one I'm determined to work through. In an effort to get into a "Winter" frame of mind, I've just begun this painting, a companion piece to the Night Station I painted last year. We'll see how it works out. There are definitely things about it that I like and I may yet be able to fuse this kind of subject matter to my other current work.

Happy New Year

As Pat and I walked home last night from our New Year's Eve party, the freshly falling snow crunched underfoot. For the first time in years we're having a proper Winter and, although I'm sure I'll be moaning when the snow turns to slush and ice, I really appreciated the break from those awful grey, wet miserable Winters we've been having.

There was more snow today and for a while it was difficult to see across the Valley to the Silver Hills, but later the sky brightened and I was able to take this photograph from my study window.

I'd like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2010.