Merry Christmas 2025!

 

(acrylic on canvas board, 10 x 8 in. Digital text)

Merry Xmas and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year to all my Reader!

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!
 

Merry Christmas 2022!

 

Late for the Match (Snow)

(Acrylic and digital colour)

This year’s Xmas card (also available from LoveFromTheArtist).

Merry Xmas and a Very Happy New Year to all my friends and followers! Thanks for your support.

Gateshead Art Society’s Xmas Exhibition (Part 2)

 Three more new paintings in Gateshead Art Society’s Annual Exhibition, opening on Saturday at 11 am:

At the Maritime Trust

(acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

Horchata for Two

(acrylic and collage on board, 9x9 in)

The Last Ice Cream of Summer

(acrylic and collage on board, 9x9 in)

Gateshead Art Society’s Xmas Exhibition (Part 1)

Three new paintings in Gateshead Art Society’s Annual Exhibition, opening on Saturday at 11 am:

Flowers in a Green Vase

(acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

Still Life with Presents

(acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

Lindisfarne

(acrylic and collage on board, 30x30 cm)

Still Life with Presents

 

Still Life with Presents

(Acrylic on canvas board, 12x12 in)

This has gone through so many changes. I initially followed the sketch I posted here, but as I suggested would happen, changes became inevitable once I began painting. The cup and chair vanished and the old sweet tin that originally made an appearance last Xmas, found its way into this picture. Finally, the chair returned to balance the composition (together with an escaped chocolate).

You might also notice my new stencils being used most obviously on the table, but also on the vase, in a similar way to the vase on Flowers in a Green Vase.

A Little Something for Xmas

 

A Little Something for Xmas 2021

(Acrylic on hardboard, 135x135 mm)

Painted as a surprise present for my lovely wife, Pat.

Merry Xmas 2021!

 

Beaconsfield Crescent with Snow

(acrylic on board)

Best wishes for a Happy Xmas to all my Reader and a hope that the New Year will show significant improvements over this one.

The painting is the one I chose for my Xmas card and shows the view from our bay window.

Gateshead Art Society Annual Exhibition

 

Six of my paintings (including this one) in this selling exhibition and all for sale. Great Xmas gift ideas!

Xmas Wreath 2020

 

Xmas Wreath 2020

(mixed media on mountboard, 27x19 cm)

Merry Xmas and Very Best Wishes to all my Reader!

Merry Christmas!

Snow on Bath Lane

(Acrylic on board, 8x8 in. Text added)

Christmas Exhibition

Something to put in your diary. I'll have up to eight of my paintings in this Xmas show.

My Dad's Diary : Fri 26th December 1947

"Had walk out with Doris & Harry. Wreath on father's grave."

My Dad used to take me to Saltwell Cemetery every Xmas, without fail, to lay a holly wreath on his Father's grave. After his Mother's death, we changed the day to Xmas Day itself so that we could lay the wreath on her birthday.

My parents were both cremated but I had their ashes put in the same grave and I've made sure I continue the tradition of laying a wreath on the grave, although I now do it on Xmas Eve. This is this year's:

My Dad's Diary : Wed 24th December 1947

"Everybody half tight in afternoon. Glad to finish off.

 Kept sober myself."

Xmas parties at "The Ministry" were notorious. Shortly before I went to to work there they were stopped, reportedly after a couple were discovered having it off in a telephone kiosk in one of the Blocks. 

After that, we could only have office parties in the local pubs, most notably "Block 18" - The Newton Park Hotel.

Opening Sale

Whitby Fudge Bar

(Acrylic on board, 8 x 8 in.)

SOLD

Yesterday at Gateshead Art Society I started to work on the recent oil pastel picture but was gently nudged back upstairs by a reminder that as a committee member I should be helping with the setting up of the Xmas Exhibition.

I suppose I should be grateful for that because it allowed me to make sure my four paintings were displayed well. (This has not always been the case.) And it's possible, therefore, that it was so perfectly placed that today at the Opening of the Exhibition it caught the attention of the nice young couple who bought it.

Whatever, it's always gratifying to find that someone is prepared to part with real money for one of your pictures and I hope they get many years of pleasure from the Whitby Fudge Bar.

Gateshead Art Society Xmas Exhibition

I'll be showing these four small paintings (all acrylic, 8x8 ins.):

Cynical Nostalgia

General Dealer WIP
(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

Paintings of nostalgia sell well in the North East; raggy kids playing football in the back lane, men in caps and mufflers going to the match, smoky chimneys, that sort of thing. There are several artists round here who have made a very good living out of pandering to the public desire for things they think they remember fondly. 

Me, I've always avoided painting pictures like that. I paint what I want to paint and mostly that doesn't include the Tyne Bridge or Memories of Old Gateshead or even Flat Caps and Whippets. I've often threatened to produce a series of Flat Cap & Whippet Pictures just to see how they'd do, but the will wasn't really there. Learning recently that one of the most successful painters of nostalgia is seriously depressed because he doesn't want to paint Men Going to the Match or Smoky Chimneys by the Docks ever again but can't stop because he needs to make the sales, definitely strengthened my resolve.

Until today. Gateshead Art Society has a programme (that I have a hand in deciding) to give members a prod in creative thinking should they need it. Quite often, unless it's a talk or a video, I go my own way and just get on with whatever I'm currently painting. This week, however, I noticed that the suggested activity was "PAINTING FOR POSTER COMPETITION". This is to remind members that someone's painting will eventually be chosen to appear on the poster for the club's Annual Exhibition at Xmas, so making a start on something suitable might be a good idea.

Now I've never been on the poster, so it suddenly came to me that I might as well have a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But what to paint? Recently I've been storing photographs of old bits of Gateshead, mostly now demolished. This is the sort of subject matter the great Norman Cornish specialised in, though in his case it was his home town of Spennymoor. While I hate the painters of nostalgia who aren't even old enough to remember anything of the things they paint, Cornish lived that life and I respected his right to paint what he knew. Well, I thought, I was born and brought up in the Gateshead that no longer survives and I have clear memories of it, so maybe I have the right to paint a little of what I remember too.

And so today I started this Work in Progress, using an old monochrome photograph of a shop on Tower Street. Colour added from memory, and yes, that blurred shape was the figure of a woman carrying a shopping bag. She turned out to be in slightly the wrong position, so had to be scrubbed out. She'll go back in once I've made more of the building and the snow (added to the scene because it's Xmas).

During the coffee break, someone asked me about the painting and all I could think of was to say it was "cynical nostalgia". It seems I haven't forgiven myself yet.

My Dad's Diary : Thurs 27th February 1947

"More Snow.

Received back money (pay).

Gave Doris Xmas box - overdue."

Times were hard.

Sketch Crawl : The Hancock Museum (again)

Attic Vessels c.450 BC, Hancock Museum
(Broad and fine point markers, with grey brush pen in A4 sketchbook)

And so we get to it: our most recent Sketch Crawl. As I missed the one before that (at Arch Sixteen Cafe ), I've decided to stop numbering these Sketch Crawl posts.

On 10th December, there was a good turnout of North East Sketch Crawlers, although one or two had to cry off because of Xmas-related activities. The weather was OK, although the wind, as is often the case it seems, was icy cold.

This drawing is all I got done, but I'm really pleased with it. Someone online suggested that the wavy lines in the background ruin it and I'm not about to dismiss that. There was a blankness about the top third of the page that seemed to need something, so I added these lines from the mural that formed the back of the display case. Were I to make this into a painting (and I'm thinking seriously about it), I know I wouldn't include the wavy lines. Still, you make these decisions in the moment and have to live with them.

I've been looking at a lot of still life paintings recently, especially of the 20th Century Modernist sort and I think it shows in this drawing. Another person online pointed out what a good subject it was for practising drawing ellipses. She was right, of course, but in this case it served as an opportunity for me to wilfully make the ellipses irregular. I seem to remember reading many years ago that Japanese master potters, probably including Hamada, would turn a perfect pot on the wheel and then at the last moment, slightly tip it sideways. They recognised that perfection is boring and that the eye is intrigued by its perception of something that is not quite right. For that reason I made sure that, while I really do assure you I can draw a pretty good ellipse, these ones would not be perfect. I even drew them out in pencil first (something I normally don't do with these Sketch Crawl drawings), just to make sure they were wrong, before inking them.

While we were drawing in the Museum we were entertained by a brass band, a choir, the Newcastle University Wind Band, and finally by Heaton Voices. As my wife Pat sings in this community choir, it seemed only right that I hang on for their performance though I didn't try to sketch them, unlike some of the other Sketch Crawlers.

Our plan had been to move on to the Laing Art Gallery but by the time we'd listened to the music, shown appreciative choir members sketches of themselves and shuffled though the Xmas crowds in Northumberland Street, it was a bit late to think about doing that. Instead we investigated a building that contained almost nothing but a staircase, ending up on the top floor of The Botanist which was packed. Who could have predicted a bar and restaurant would be full of people on a Saturday afternoon two weeks before Xmas?

In desperate need of coffee and cake we crossed the road to the new food quarter of Eldon Square and settled on stools round a table in TGI Friday's. In deference to Anita's sensitivities, I'll gloss over details of the lukewarm coffee, my American style muffin decorated with cold fried onions (just wrong!), Anita's half-eaten cowpat brownie, her several pots of stewed tea and her eventual face-off with the manager of TGI Friday's. It was all very ... interesting and festive.

Next time: 21st January 2017, possibly at the Lit & Phil. 

Monday Washing Again.

Washing WIP (acrylic on canvas board)

Apocryphally, it takes three weeks to establish an activity as a habit, so back at Gateshead Art Society on Friday for the second week in a row, I felt I might be getting back into a routine. Of course, although I plan to be back there this coming Friday, it'll be the Xmas Party that day and no work will be done. So unless I can get some work done on this painting this week, the impetus may be lost.

On the other hand, I took it along to a meeting of the Painters' Group on Saturday and for the first time in a very long time, our tutor, Bill Varley pronounced my picture "good." As is often the case, he'd rather I did very little more to it and I'll probably not take his advice, but it was encouraging to get some praise.