The Gloom Lifts a Little

Breakfast & T-Shirts (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)


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

Helping to lift the gloom that settled following the evident loss of our show in June, came the news that these two pictures of shops in Crete have been accepted for showing in the County Durham Spring Open Art Exhibition. The show runs from 7th to 26th March in the Hutchinson Gallery, Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

Not Wanted

Breakfast & T-Shirts (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)


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

Ah well, it was worth a punt, but the Royal Institute of Oil Painters didn't like my two paintings enough to want them on the walls of the Mall Galleries. I'm sure there are lessons to be learned from this, but at the moment the only one I can think of is that I should refrain from sending the ROI (or indeed the NEAC) any more pictures. It would certainly save me some money.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off

Archway (work in progress)

I suppose there are only two ways to deal with disappointment: you can sit around and mope; or you can get on with things. Although I admit to a degree of despondency when I first found I'd been rejected from the NEAC open competition, I chose the latter. Off to the Art Club again, this time with a painting I started in July.

I made good progress with it, which lifted my spirits, and I now have a week to think about what can be seen through the archway. I know it's a sunlit wall, but ... what else?

No Fanfare

(Black marker, colour in Photoshop)

The New English Art Club posted their chosen works on the Mall Galleries website today. My two paintings aren't on the list. Tsk.

I've been adopting the attitude that I probably wouldn't get in the show, in the hope that I'd not be disappointed. Didn't work, and the day seems somehow rather flat.


Prague Tram No.3 (oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cms)


Prague Tram No.4 (oil on canvas, 61 x 61 cms)

Back from London

Intercity 4 (Fine tip marker, A6 sketchbook)

I'd worried all week about how I was going to find space on the train for my paintings, especially the 3ft by 3ft, but Pat did a great job of finding out about a space in Standard Coach B (the quiet coach) behind one of the seats just big enough for a 3ft square painting. And coincidentally, we ended up in the seats behind which the space exists.

Handing-in wasn't until Saturday, so we had Friday to go into town and see what the RA Summer Exhibition amounted to this year. I have to say that I didn't find it terribly inspiring. Even the Small Weston Room, usually full of delightful little treasures, disappointed because the hanger, Mick Rooney, had filled one wall with small prints. Which may explain why I'd found the Large Weston Room, which shows prints, also disappointing.

Had I money to spare, however, I'd willingly have parted with some of it for one of Hilary Paynter's wood engraving of The Ouseburn. Unlike a host of others, I certainly wouldn't have fallen victim to the foolish desire to buy a print of Tracey Emin's crap little Space Monkey.

There were a few others I liked - Barbara Rae as always, William Bowyer, Ken Howard (great on light as ever), and Ben Levene (save for one dreadful green thing which I chose to regard as an aberration). Adrian Berg, whom I've always liked, has moved into an area of rather naive paintings based on ethnic fabrics which aren't entirely to my taste either. Overall, I came away somewhat deflated instead of buzzing with new ideas.

Handing in my Threadneedle works on Saturday took very little time but as my three pieces were given numbers in the upper 190s, and there were two more handing-in days, it began to feel increasingly unlikely that I might get accepted (they intend to select only about 60 works for the show). Still, nothing ventured ....

Before catching the train back to Newcastle, we had time to check out King's Place near King's Cross Station. What a fantastic space. They were showing Frans Widerberg's big paintings, some of which I've seen before, but all of which I'd missed when they were shown at Northumbria Gallery earlier this year. They really do benefit from being seen in this huge space.

Threadneedle

I'm not so convinced of my own importance that I think the organisers of the Threadneedle Prize would single me out from all the artists listed in Axis to invite me to submit to the competition. But I was rather surprised that the message forwarded from Axis inviting me to do so, showed that it was sent to one artist only - me.

Anyway, I've thought about it - as I did last year - and have decided I've nothing to lose other than the £15 per picture and the cost of having them delivered to the Mall Galleries.

Unfortunately, I find that some of the pictures I might have wanted to include - the Prague Trams - won't be taken down from Preston Hall until 14th June. While handing in at London is 22nd June, the regional pick-up from Newcastle is 13th June. Bugger.

So what to do? I think I'll send them a couple of the Vaporetto Series, but have also decided to do a new one specially for the show. It's based on some photographs I took of the little wooden train at Soller, Mallorca last year and will form a sort of coda to the whole transport thing that's been preoccupying me for the last year.

I started it today. Everything else will have to take a back seat until it's done.

Old Drawings #11

Pilgrim Street, Newcastle (Oil pastel on carpet lining paper, 13 x 15.5 ins)

Is it a drawing or a painting? Pastels, including oil pastels, fall into that indeterminate area, but for me, this is a drawing.

I guess I must have done this in 1994, because it was a preparatory sketch for a painting (you can still see some of the squaring-up) which I exhibited in the John Laing Art Competition that year. I won the Regional Prize with it, but I'm afraid I don't have a photo of the painting.

The People Show

Photographers (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins)

The postcard came today and it was good news. I submitted two pictures and they're only allowed to accept one. So I'm delighted to say they made the right choice and this picture will be in the People Show.

You can see it, if you have a mind to do so, at the University Gallery, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, from 1 August - 12 September 2008.

Competition Entry

The People Show rolled around this week. I've always had something accepted for the People Show, until last year when I submitted this painting:



Sometimes Falling, Sometimes Flying (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins)

I thought it had enough about it to be accepted, but evidently the judges didn't agree. It always feels like a bit of a smack in the kisser when you get rejected after a long run of acceptances in a particular show, but you get over it. I did think, however, when viewing the Show afterwards that it seemed to have moved away from the kind of work I produce and had taken on a more Conceptualist feel. When that happens, you can either chase the trend or stay true to yourself. I chose the latter.

So it was with some trepidation that Pat and I carried two of my Vaporetto pictures into town today and left them to the tender mercies of The People Show Judges. I should hear the result by Thursday.

Trees & Water

Trees & Water - 1st stage

As part of an attempt to revitalise the Art Club and generate greater membership involvement in the wake of The Secretary Fiasco, there's now an on-going themed competition at the Club.

Last month we were invited to put up a still-life painting and members were encouraged to vote on the "best". I think there was a bottle of wine involved, not least in several of the entries. I didn't bother putting anything on the wall, but this month the subject chosen is "Trees and Water."

I wanted to see if I could get anything out of the many photographs I took on the recent trip to The Lakes and an off-cut piece of MDF winked at me and flaunted its interesting shape (it's actually a double square). So here's today's beginning. Inevitably, I find the greens worrying, but overall I'm quite pleased with the way it's going.

More work, especially on the trees, tomorrow.