Memory Lane

 Memory Lane

(Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8 in)

A painting from almost ten years ago. I needed the frame for something else, so took the opportunity to make some revisions. The painting is now darker and potentially more mysterious, and for me that seems right. I'm beginning to realise that changing times and my attitudes to the work, can be reflected in reworked paintings. Something for more thought.

Village in the Valley

 

Village in the Valley

(Acrylic on linen panel, 30x30 cm)

Another in my series of Majorca landscapes, a little gentler in colour terms.

Farm in Langdale

Farm in Langdale (Oil on board, 16 x 16 in) SOLD

I spent last weekend in Lincoln with a group of friends. Much fun was had and a great deal of walking done. I also came back with at least one idea for a new painting. Now all I have to do is ...well, paint it.

Later in the week came this unexpected sale. This painting, done a few years ago, marked the beginning of a determined attempt to get into painting the landscape rather than the city. I still don't feel I can call myself a landscape painter, but I'm on the way.

Silver Hills

Silver Hills (Fountain pen, coloured pencils, A5 sketchbook)

At a bit of a loose end following the intense period of making the Edinburgh paintings, I found myself looking out of the study window today. For the first time in the twenty years I've lived in this house, I decided to draw the view across the Team Valley to the Silver Hills.

In the South Tyne Valley

In the South Tyne Valley (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

The second of this pair of paintings from the South Tyne Valley.

South Tyne Valley Landscape

South Tyne Valley Landscape (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Looking round the studio yesterday, I noticed how much the study of landscape has occupied my time recently. I never thought I'd say that, but I suppose it's due to a shift in perspective and a realisation that over time I've amassed quite a store of reference material not related to towns.

Landscape Nr Sawrey

Landscape Nr Sawrey (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cms)

Friends tell me my posts have been sounding very gloomy and in retrospect, I guess they're right. I apologise, even though there are really quite good reasons for their being so. What will make them change without an effort of will on my part, will be an increase in sunshine and an acceleration in the rate of completed work.

Sunshine is outwith my control, of course, but the last couple of days have been quite mild and sunny, so there's hope there. But what I really can have some effect on is the work. Back at the Club, I pressed on with this landscape and finished it. I had some trouble with the forest in the background and opted for a slightly stylised approach which interests me as a possible future avenue of enquiry.

Creeping to a Conclusion

Sawrey Landscape (work in progress)

I made some progress today at the Club, but I'm undecided about it. Some of this I like, some I'm not sure about, but I think I can finish it next week, given that I'll have a week to mull it over.

Two More Landscapes

Shark Rock (work in progress)

I realised I had no confidence in the painting I'd begun at the Club a while ago, so when I got back there today, I began to paint another new one over it. I think I'm going to be a lot happier with this and can make use of some of the orange of the previous painting.


Sawrey Landscape (work in progress)

I also made a start on this new one. It's a continuation of the new series of landscape as strata that's begun to interest me. I'm not sure where I'm going with it and am tempted to describe it as an experiment. However, my old tutor, Bill V, used to say that a true experiment would require a control subject to be really valid, so instead, I'll call it what he thought such adventures should be called - flying by the seat of my pants.

Two Tyne Valleys

Tyne Valley (work in progress)


Tyne Valley 2 (work in progress)

This is always a difficult time of year, I find, when work is slow and much thought is expended on what direction it should take. So if it seems to you that not much is happening here on Boogie Street, you may in a sense be right. But high in my tower I'm thinking, thinking , thinking. And every now and then, I begin a new painting in what, for me has been largely an unexplored area - landscape.

These two are the latest and show a part of the South Tyne Valley near to Bardon Mill. They've been cursorily blocked in and will need a good deal more work to bring them to completion. But I'm relatively pleased with them and I can see how they could lead to ..... something new.

But I'll have to give that some more thought.

Vindolanda

Vindolanda (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins)

Although I managed to clear the stairs to the studio of snow a couple of days ago, I've not felt really keen on going down to paint. A combination of the bitter cold that's kept the snow on the ground despite there having been no further falls and a general malaise which always accompanies the end of a session of concentrated effort, in this case that for the Xmas paintings, has left me not a little dispirited.

As a consequence, I've spent my time over the past week or so simply drawing cartoons for The Cartoonist's Hat and surfing the web. To be honest, I think I'm on a cusp. My work may need to be shaken up a little. In a practical sense, I'm not sure I can go on filling up the house with the biggish paintings I've been making when the opportunities for displaying them are drying up.

Working on the cartoons has brought back to me that sense of enjoyment I always get working close up to a sheet of paper and I think perhaps a renewed effort to broaden my working methods might pay dividends.

Meanwhile, as I pondered these and other thoughts, I decided I should at least make a concerted attempt to get something done in the studio today. Hence this small painting which allowed me to tackle head on my bête noire, the landscape's ubiquitous green (perhaps that should be bête verte). I decided to simply not paint it green at all and for now at least, I think it works.

By the end of the afternoon my feet were frozen solid. I can heat up the air of the studio, but I can't do anything about the concrete floor.

Lindisfarne

Holy Island (Rotring ArtPen, sketchbook)

I was last on Holy Island (Lindisfarne) in November 1996. It was a cold wet and windy day and the visit was only fleeting, but I managed to get this sketch done,despite the ArtPen beginning it's journey into clogging scratchiness, a journey from which it never recovered. Frustrating, disappointing and so far, despite advice from all quarters of the Interweb, non-reversible.

I'm off to Holy Island again tomorrow, this time stopping overnight and I had hoped that the weather - such a delight over the last week - would serve me better and perhaps let me get some more sketching done. Of course, as luck would have it, the weather has changed again for the worse, so I may find myself desperately searching for shelter on what is, as I recall, a rather barren island.

Cambridge Painting

King's College (work in progress - 1st day)

It was good to get back to the Club today and catch up on the gossip, but even better to start a new small painting there. I still have the St James's painting to finish, but I wanted to get something else going before I make a move on that.

I thought this subject had a nice simple quality to it, far less busy than most of what I've been working on over the last few months. It's a view of King's College, Cambridge, from the Backs.

The sky is currently a little too purple, but that was intentional - I want to work over it while leaving a hint showing through.

Farm in Langdale

Farm in Langdale (Oil on board, 16 x 16 ins.) S0LD

The Art Club's annual exhibition opens on Thursday, with the Preview tomorrow night. I wasn't sure what to put in, but this one which I worked on some time ago, fitted a frame. So this is my entry, after a little tweaking. The photograph is misleading, however, in that the blue shadow areas of the farm were made with Payne's grey and underpainting white, so are nowhere near as blue as they appear here.

If you're in the area, drop into the show at The Guildhall on Newcastle's Quayside. It runs until 28th December.

Truth

In the Comments on New & Old, there's a point been raised that I think is worthy of further discussion here.

Anna said... "I liked the old sky rather a lot, in fact I liked the literal record of that scene. You're interpreting it with your current eye. Is this a pity? Both are good work but the first is true."

But how true is it? I originally painted the picture in my studio at home, using photographs I'd taken on a weekend's visit to Catterline. In 2005, I'd been invited to put on a solo show in the Creel Inn at Catterline and it seemed only fair to include a painting of the Inn. But as the sky in the photograph I had was fairly nondescript, I used another photograph taken on the same day, but just over the hill from the Inn.

Maybe it was the knowledge that the two didn't actually marry up that preyed on my feeling for the picture, but I never accepted that it worked properly. Last year, possibly in a fit of frustration, I simply painted out the sky and put it to one side.

There's a wildness to the landscape round Catterline that I think is conveyed better in the new version, so it's interesting that ian gordon should say:

"I think anna's comment raises an interesting point; the artist's dilemma: When is something truly finished?But I find the latest version "truer", in as much as I get the sensation of being there. I think the sense of depth is much stronger now than before."

For me, despite my being removed from the scene by many miles and quite some time, I believe I've captured a "truer" picture of how I felt and what impression the area had on me. But truth in this sense is, of course, completely subjective. The photograph from which I worked is no nearer the truth than either of the paintings, but I think I've come closer to a personal truth than previously. And in the end, personal truth is all I can reasonably strive for.

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.)

Wansbeck Houses with Boat

Wansbeck Houses with Boat (Oil on board, 20 x 40 cms)
Private Collection.

I think I'm done with this (The photograph, by the way, is making the boat cabin look pink when it's actually more grey). Not a great picture, but a reasonable one considering it was cobbled together from a couple of sketches, on a piece of cut-off board.

I got to the Club late today, so I had no time to do anything with the painting of the Swing Bridge I've been trying to rescue for some time now. However, after a make-over job on the sky last week, it's beginning to look like it might work after all.

Swing Bridge (work in progress)

Wansbeck Boat picture contd.

Wansbeck Boat & Houses (work in progress)

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the way this painting is working out at the Club. I gave myself a challenge with it, by deciding to make the main colour bias green, and by and large, that seems to have worked out, but how would I know? My reservation is pretty much to do with the picture itself. It just doesn't excite me at the moment. I'll finish it off next week and see how I feel about it then.

Fallen Tree

Fallen Tree (Oil on board, 12 x 12 ins)

Shortly before going on the most recent Compo & Clegg Painting Week in the Lakes, I thought I'd get some practice in on the subject matter I usually find there, so I started this painting at the Art Club. As reference material I had a black and white photocopy of an old photograph and I began the painting on an old painting of a Cyprus landscape.

I didn't quite finish it before we left for the Lakes so I brought it home, but since then I haven't had the time or inclination to complete it.

This morning, I made the time and finished off the foreground, retaining some of the orange from the Cyprus landscape. I'm pleased with this, especially as I had no colour notes to remind me of how it looked. I guess enough looking at trees and rocks pays off eventually?

Low Fogrigg again

Oil pastel on print-out map, 9 x 5 ins.

Apparently, it's pronounced, "Fogridge."