My Dad's Diary : Wed 25th June 1947

"Grand day for Plate.

[Bubrain?] won.

Strike continues.

Gateshead trams on strike."

The Northumberland Plate was run on a Wednesday then. I can't make out the name of the winner.

Tram with Prickly Pear (Soller)

Tram with Prickly Pear (Soller) (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins.)

And there it is. When I stopped working last night I thought I would have to do just a little more today, but I find I'm satisfied with it the way it is.

Prickly Too

Tram and Cactus (work in progress)

More work done on the cactus, a really enjoyable task. There's such a great opportunity to find colour within the overall greenness of the plant.

Next: development of the tram passengers and adjustment of the windows which seem to have become differently sized.

Prickly

Tram and Cactus (work in progress)

Although I'm making some tentative, slow progress towards a new, or at least different direction, nothing seems good enough to post right now.

What is occupying me at the moment is this new painting. Although I intend to show older work - the Vaporetto and Tram series - in the upcoming XIV show, I thought I should make the effort to submit at least one new painting. This is an image I made from a photograph of one of the trams of Soller together with one of the local prickly pear cactus.

I started it on Friday night and painted more on Saturday afternoon. Too wet to work on it today, but I think it's going to be finished in time for handing in next Friday. And I think it has the potential to be a good one, but then I'm biased.

Entering Threadneedle

Both Vivien and April, in their comments on the previous post, suggested that I deliver my submissions to the Threadneedle Prize in person, making a day of it in London. Having checked the prices of the courier, I've come to the same conclusion: it would be almost as cheap and more fun to do it myself.

The return ticket from London to Newcastle is booked. Now all I need is to find out when I can get the Tram pictures back from Preston Hall and I'll be able to book the ticket to London, making at least a couple of days there.

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.

Prague Tram No.2

Prague Tram No.2 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

I must try to get a better photograph of this painting, but when I took this one, the paint was still wet and terribly reflective. Coupled with the tendency of this monitor at least to do strange things with reds, this may not be too representative of the work.

The show opened at Preston Hall on Saturday. It was a fine sunny day and there was a garden show open in the grounds, so the awful possibility that no one would come to look wasn't fulfilled. There was a respectable trickle of people walking through the exhibition space. Admittedly, some were simply walking through to see where the door at the other side of the room led (nowhere), and others were looking for things to keep their kids amused; or the opposite - "Come away, Tracey, it's only some paintings!" And as usual, there was the sniggering as fingers were pointed at the prices on the labels - "£400!"

But overall, the response was good and I was pleased to be told how much some people liked my trams and how two of them - Nos.1 & 2 - reminded one person of Edward Hopper. I told her I was a big Hopper fan and she said, "Me too, but now I'm a Harry Bell fan as well".

Prague Tram No.3

Prague Tram No.3 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

This has proven to be the most difficult in the series to complete, mainly, I think, because of the lighting conditions within the painting. At the time of day represented, colours lose much of their strength and I found this quite challenging to work through.

Nevertheless, I think it works well enough, and I'm particularly pleased with the way the windows give a suggestion of little abstract paintings in their own frames, running across the bottom half of the painting like the predella to an altarpiece.

To the Trams, via the Station

Night Station (work in progress)

Although I went into the studio with every intention of working exclusively on the Tram Series, I discovered a desperate need to revisit the Night Station first. Of course, given my basic level of disorganisation, I couldn't lay my hands on the reference material for this picture, so I could only go this far with it today (I found the references later and am not prepared to embarrass myself by saying where).

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Prague Tram No.1 (work in progress)

Prague Tram No.3 (work in progress)

I'm having reservations about No.3. I may rethink the livery.

Prague Tram No.4

Prague Tram No.4 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins,)

The muse returns! Or at least, the necessity to complete one of the Tram Series so that I might photograph it for the Preston Hall show publicity asserted itself.

I finished this one today, after working on it, on and off, over the last three days. There's the usual problem with reflections on wet paint which throw the colours in the sky out a little, but otherwise this is a decent photograph. I chose this one to finish on the basis that it's more colourful and therefore lends itself to publicity in brochures and the like, but there's no guarantee that it'll be chosen from the four images submitted. Just have to wait and see.

Getting this one finished makes me want to move the others along, so the prospect for work next week is good. Hurrah!

Tramcar to Sanity

Tram 2 (work in progress)

Does this mean my cold has gone? No, it certainly doesn't; indeed, I've been coughing and sneezing for over a week now. However, I can't get a doctor's appointment until next week and I'm acutely aware of our impending Figure8 show at Preston Hall, for which I have no finished work. So let's see what a couple of hours of breathing in white spirit fumes does for me.

It looks like there's going to be a Tram Series, to follow on from the Vaporetto Series. This is how my second Prague tram looks after an hour and a half today. There's still quite a bit to do in adjusting the sky and making more of the church (it's actually the Church of St. Ludmilla, in Namesti Miru Square). I think the curve of the windows has been exaggerated by the camera lens, but I'll check on that later. I also want to make sense of some of the marks inside the tram - some of those should look like people!

Gosh, but it feels good to be painting again!

Tram Beginnings

Prague Tram (work in progress - 1st day)

I know, I know, I've started another one, but I couldn't resist it. I needed to paint and couldn't get into one of the existing pictures. I wanted to make further progress on the Night Station picture, but the inertia was too great.

As is usually the case, I enjoyed working on the early stages of this painting. One of the things I'm trying to do as part of my vague plan for the year, is to shake up my working practices a bit, so most of this was painted with a painting knife and quite a bit of gloopy Spectragel [Note to self: buy new tin of Spectragel]. When I used a brush, it was a round, rather than the flats and filberts I normally employ. I like the freshness this approach has brought to the work and I'll have to see how I can retain some of it as the painting progresses.