Knocking?

Knocking?

(mixed media on canvas board, 8x8 in)

I remember, back in the day, when you opened the door to the domino room in the Gateshead Arms, all you could hear was the soft susurration of doms being shuffled and the clatter of them being played.

I painted this small painting as a result of the unexpected sale of Club Man. There's a lot of interest these days in Northern Art and sometimes I like to test out my memory of those bygone days.

 

The Steamboat

The Steamboat

(Acrylic and collage on canvas board, 8x10 in)

Another building portrait, this time of a of a pub in South Shields. I've actually drawn this pub on a sketch crawl, but it seems from the sketch that at the time I couldn't count the number of windows properly:

The Steamboat, Mill Dam, South Shields
(various markers in A4 sketchbook)

Curleys

Curleys

(Mixed media on canvas panel, 10x12 in)

SOLD

Another portrait of a building on Gateshead High Street, this one sadly scheduled for demolition I understand. The original building dates from around 1800 and the current pub frontage from about 1900. The pub was previously called the Phoenix (from at least 1873) but was commonly known as Curleys after early 20th century licensee Will Curley (who was a boxer) and later officially changed its name.

Since painting this, I've sold it to the grandson of a former landlord of the pub.

 

Elsdon, and Blakehope Nick

Bird in Bush, Elsdon

(markers and coloured pencils in A5 sketchbook)

A second day of blazing hot sunshine! In England! 

Fortified by slices of melon and punnets of strawberries, sixteen sketchers (including some non-sketchers and a child) were yesterday driven over speed bumps and gravelly roads into the wilds of Northumberland by Bardon Mike in a Newcastle University minibus.

Arriving around midday in the delightful village of Elsdon, we showed Mike who was in charge by rejecting his invitation to draw the little Gothic church and opted instead for the food on offer at the Bird in Bush. I had quite possibly the best BLT baguette sandwich ever and washed it down with a pint of IPA brewed on the premises.

The sandwich was so big it took much longer to eat than expected and I never got more drawn than the front of the pub! 

Rounding up his scattered passengers, Mike suggested we go on to Blakehope Nick by driving part of the way up the Kielder Forest Drive, apparently the longest forest drive in the UK.

The Nick comes as quite a surprise when you top the rise in the road. It was designed and built by Newcastle University Architecture School students and I warmly congratulate them on it.

Not a lot of time to draw, but I did want to get something done. Going into the drawing quickly with a Uni-Pin BR marker may have lent the sketch a bit of a heavy-handed appearance and the hot sun certainly made seeing pretty difficult, even with sunglasses on, but ultimately I think I caught something of the structure.

Blakehope Nick

(markers over two pages of  A5 sketchbook)

The Portland and Burton House

The Portland

(acrylic on board, 25 x 25 cm)

I took a photograph of this Newcastle pub sometime in the 1980s but somehow never found a way into making a painting from it. The pub itself was demolished in 1992.

Recently, I completed a painting of another vanished pub, Burton House, demolished in 1992:

Burton House

(acrylic on board, 10 x 10 in)

Casting about for another similar subject, I tried to make something from the photograph of The Portland which I'd photographed at the same time as Burton House. Somehow it just didn't work and I abandoned it, painting over what I'd done.

And then I found myself looking at the work of Ed Kluz, with his lost great houses of England, standing out against very dark skies, and comparing them with my painting of Burton House. And that was when I realised I'd been trying to paint The Portland with a clear blue sky in an attempt to imbue it with some kind of cheerful memory. But it, and Burton House, really belong to the grimy past of Newcastle and fit not uncomfortably into that category sometimes known as the Northern School.

When I failed in my first attempt to paint The Portland, I decided I'd had enough of painting local urban scenes, long a staple of my output. With the success of this new painting (in my opinion, at least), I've had to concede that I'm still interested in the subject.

Sketch Crawl : Queens Arms, Shieldfield.

Queens Arms, Shieldfield
(0.5 marker and brush pens in A4 sketchbook)

Officially, the Sketch Crawl yesterday was to Northumbria University campus but while Mike was happy - and successful! - at tackling the intricate modern architecture of the new campus buildings, I felt more comfortable going round the corner to draw this nice old pub on Simpson Terrace. I surprised myself by getting almost all of it done within the first hour. Only a bit of line strengthening and lettering remained to finish off at home.

The mysterious "whirlpool" in the foreground is actually the worn remains of a mini roundabout. Why I stopped drawing at the edge of the page instead of finishing the building on the adjoining page is more of a mystery. Maybe I'll go back and remedy that.

We had a pleasant surprise in the form of two visitors from other Sketch Crawl groups - Andy from Urban Sketchers Yorkshire and Christine from Urban Sketchers London. Nice to meet you both and I hope we get to meet up again sometime.

[Next Time : 11th Nov., Sunderland Winter Gardens]