I'm in the A&I

A while ago I submitted this image to the Artists & Illustrators Magazine for consideration for their Portfolio section. I heard nothing more from them and forgot all about it. Imagine my surprise, then when I was told I was in the April edition!

Special thanks are due to April Jarocka who first drew my attention to the possibility of submitting work to the magazine and then for telling me I was in it! Without her timely heads-up, I might have missed it altogether.

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.

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.

Someone Blows My Trumpet

It's not something we've been used to, my Figure 8 pals and I, but it's always good to get a decent write-up in the press. When we gave a talk in the Gallery in Darlington last week about our Colour Room exhibition , in addition to a good sized interested audience, there was a reporter from the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette.

It's not easy to get hold of the Evening Gazette in Gateshead, but luckily there's an online version. And, although it's a little disappointing to find there are no photographs to illustrate the piece, the write-up is extensive and very positive.

"I am very interested in townscapes and I did a lot of paintings with no people in," explains Harry, "but recently I have found people creeping in."

They certainly do in his elegant and eye-catching views of Venice where the diverse crowds packing the ever present water buses dramatically take centre stage over the city's gorgeous buildings.

There's more here.

Artist's Statement

I've written here before about the difficulties involved in writing the Artist's Statement, but this time - for the show at Darlington - I was determined to make it specifically relevant to the work in the show. This is what I wrote about The Vaporetto Series:

On my second visit to Venice, I was acutely aware of the long history of artists who have painted the city, especially the great Turner, Monet and Sickert. The list of painters is so long that many are of the opinion that any original approach is by now impossible. My view, however, is that whether or not the subject has been painted a thousand times is irrelevant. It has never been painted through my eyes and one of the joys of art is that it enables us to see through another person’s eyes.

So I determined to relinquish any preconceptions and open myself up to the city. I let it present itself to me as I absorbed its atmosphere and waited to see how my own interests might be revealed, rather than those who have painted before me.

My main painting concerns over the years have been to do with the built environment and Venice amply provided subjects of architectural appeal, but what stirred my imagination was first of all the wonderful absence of cars and then the people, especially those travelling on vaporetti, the efficient and reliable water-buses of Venice.

I have previously painted pictures of staff in ticket offices at fun-fairs and there is something about the containment of people in boxes which interests me. It was something of that nature – metal boxes of people - that at first attracted me to the idea of passengers on the vaporetti. But as I examined the possibilities of the subject in my studio, I found a great deal more to explore.

First of all it allowed me to play with some interesting compositions. The picture plane could be flattened out and broken up into a series of horizontal bands of
buildings, water, roof, people, boat and more water. I also found it interesting to contrast the organic forms of the passengers with the more rectilinear forms of architecture and engineering. The people themselves began to fascinate me, as they accommodated themselves aboard the water-bus, sitting on rails, holding onto the ceiling to keep from falling over, kissing in the dark. And if it isn’t too fanciful, the way they were spread across the picture brought echoes of Italian frescoes to mind.

The Vaporetto Series

These are my paintings now showing in the Figure 8 exhibition at the Myles Meehan Gallery in Darlington.


Night Travel (Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 ins.)


Photographers (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins.)


Sitting on the Rail (oil on canvas, 24 x 30 ins.)


Santa Maria della Salute (OIl on canvas, 24 x 24 ins.)


Caught in the Spotlight (Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 ins.)


Dorsoduro (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 ins.)


On the Giudecca Canal (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins.)


Passing a Palazzo (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins.)

Since Prague

Please excuse the silence. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Prague. I thought it a most magical city with wonderful architecture and delightful people. But I also picked up a streaming cold on my last day there and since then have been hard at work a) fighting it off, and b) desperately trying to finish my Vaporetto series.

Due to some kind of mental aberration, I discovered I had only a week and a half to get nine paintings finished for the upcoming Figure 8 show in Darlington. Luckily I work well under pressure, but it has meant painting through the day and well into the night. At the moment there's only one of them finished, but the others are getting there. I am quietly confident (and secretly panicking) that they will all be finished by the coming weekend.

Here's one of the new ones, still showing part of the crimson underpainting (an experiment):

Vaporetto 5:Photographers (work in progress)

Back on the Grand Canal

Vaporetto 3 (work in progress)

I returned to this other vaporetto picture yesterday determined to move it along. I've knocked in rather roughly a new background which I think will work well. At the moment it needs pushing further back and the columns, balconies and windows need development, but it looks OK today and I'm not disappointed with yesterday's work.

I'd have preferred to work on it again today, but there's still a tackiness to the paint, so I'll have to be patient and turn my attentions elsewhere.

Old Town Hall

Old Town Hall (oil on canvas, 12 x 14 ins) SOLD

This is how it looked when I handed it in yesterday. I'd come to the conclusion that there were too many colours fighting one another, so I dispensed with the purple sky and opted instead for one made from ultramarine with a little cadmium orange in it (both colours used in the rest of the painting).

I also managed to get a little work done on one of the Vaporetto pictures. These will represent my main occupation in the next few weeks, if I'm to have sufficient work ready for the show opening in April.



Caught in the Spotlight (work in progress)

A Vaporetto Painted

Vaporetto (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 ins.)

Time to stop tinkering with this one and sign off on it. I think it works pretty well. No, because it's Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day, I should be more positive and say - I'm pleased with it. There.

Pushing on

Vaporetto 2 (third day)

I decided I need to push on with one of these vaporetto pictures and get it to a conclusion. I have no real idea of what any of them will look like when complete, so having one finished could be very useful.

I started today's work by glazing over the water with a greenish-blue mixture of phthalo turquoise and raw sienna, then scraping it lightly off again with a palette knife. It's a little dark now, but I think it's working better as compositional band between the vaporetto roof and the canal-side buildings. When it's dry, I'll think about dragging over some blue again to re-establish the waves.

The figures are coming to life a little more, although I have no intention of making them very realistic. What I'm after is an understanding of the space they occupy, and gradually working over them, changing their position slightly, altering the colour build-up, gives me that.

The First Vaporetto Again

I went to the Art Club today - the first visit since before Xmas - and renewed acquaintance with the first of the Vaporetto series. I'd forgotten how much I'd moved it on since I posted an image of it here.

For various reasons, I didn't have the time I needed to get back into it, so just sat with some of the guys and caught up with the crack. But every now and again, I'd sneak a look at the picture and surprise myself with how it seems to have taken a slightly different route from the others, probably because it's been done in a different studio environment. It's much more restrained in terms of colour, having a somewhat misty look to it. It may well change as I get back into it, but I like it the way it is at the moment and there are things about it I'll try to keep.


Vaporetto No.1 (2nd stage)

All aboard

Spotlight (2nd day)


Vaporetto 2 (2nd day)



Vaporetto 3 (2nd day)

[The photographs are not good: they were taken in the studio at the end of the day, without any flash, so the colours are a bit dark in places, too light in others.]

It may look like nothing much has actually changed in these three pictures, but today I've been gradually adjusting and readjusting the figures. Some were too large, some too small, and they all benefit from being worked over, being made more substantial.

I have to say that this is the tiring stage. Even to me it looks like a lot of work to no great effect, except that I know there's been a change, and for the better. The most noticeable change is in Vaporetto 3, I guess, because the figures are becoming more alive. But I must find a suitable background for it soon, so that it can be integrated into the paint as the picture progresses.

On the Canals of Venice

Vaporetto 2 (in progress)

Vaporetto 3 (1st stage)

Vaporetto 4 (in progress)

I've taken the first vaporetto picture to the Club to continue with it there; these are the others in the series so far.

In the third (second down), I've yet to decide on the background. I didn't like the buildings the vaporetto was passing, so I intend to find a more interesting palazzo to include. No.4 has been painted over an unsuccessful view of The Sage, Gateshead, so there are interesting colour influences creeping into the area of water in the lower half.

2nd Venice Picture

Spotlight (1st pass)

I was looking for something new to start painting at the Art Club today, so I began to draw this subject out on an old canvas at home. ( This is the third picture I've begun on this canvas and it's developing a nice texture.)

"It would be nice to just get some paint on to obscure some of the more intrusive elements of the previous picture, " I thought to myself. And before I knew it, I was fully into it and the Club was out of the question. Sometimes you have to just go with the flow.

This handsome couple were caught in the spotlight of a vaporetto station as their own vaporetto sailed by. I wasn't sure I could make this one work, so it's not very big (20 x 20 ins), but things seem to be working out. There were several other people on the deck to the right of the couple, but I'm playing them down considerably, leaving them out of the spotlight.

I'm particularly happy that I'm having to think less about the colours I'm using - they're becoming much more intuitive and as a consequence, a lot freer, I think.

I'm more excited about this series than anything else I've done for quite some time.

New Venice Series

Vaporetto (1st pass)

Although I have a number of pictures in need of resolving and finishing, I realised recently that there's a big Figure 8 exhibition next year for which no work has been started.

What I'm hoping to do is make a series about Venice's fabulous water buses, the vaporetti. I've yet to capitalise on the hundreds of photographs I took there last year and this was one of the subjects I was particularly keen on developing.

It's something of a departure for me, in that it places figures squarely in the picture as the most important element. Even if bits of architecture put in an appearance, the figures are what it's about. This being largely untried territory, therefore, it's important that I make a start.
With that in mind, I began this new canvas yesterday. In a further departure from my usual practice, instead of a coloured acrylic ground, I laid down an imprimatura of terra rosa oil paint and before it was entirely dry, began to paint into it. This has produced some nice brushy paintwork which I'd like to retain as the picture develops.

Venice

Venetian Wall (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)

I went to Venice for a week in 1997. This painting was one of the results of that trip and I've wanted to go back ever since. Earlier this year, I sold a picture for a decent price, so Patsy123 and I decided it was time to go back, this time for two weeks.

These are just some thoughts I wrote down shortly after our return

Venice was everything I remembered and more. I think I could happily live there. Even the heavy rain we got in the last couple of days didn't put me off. Indeed, while Buddy K and his wife were with us for a few days, we were hatching a plot to go back for a visit in the Winter (of some unspecified year).

The little bridges over the canals showed up a minor disadvantage of roller-cases. "These damn bridges," said an exasperated American tourist. "Why didn't they just build everything on the same level?" By which I guess she meant they should have raised the ground level by at least twenty feet - this, in a city where the ground level is already supported on piles driven into mud.

We wandered for hours every day, side-tracked by little alleys that might lead to a dead-end or a canal, but could just as easily open out into a delightful little campo, with kids playing in the pools of rainwater.

The Jesuits were not popular in Venice during the Republic, but when they were eventually given more permanent status, they really pushed the boat out in building their first church there - Gesuiti. It's the most vulgar palace of kitsch imaginable. They coated the entire inside with green and white marble, inlaid so as to look like the finest curryhouse flock wallpaper. And the balconies have huge swags of drapery all carved from green and white marble. The weight of all this grandiosity means that the church has suffered from subsidence ever since

Looking at paintings took up a greater part of the trip this time.

The Peggy Guggenheim is always worth a visit - Max Ernst's "Robing of the Bride," Picasso's "On the Beach" and Robert Motherwell's "Personage," to name but three I was glad to see again.

And the great collection in The Accademia. Amongst the many treasures there, of course, is Paolo Veronese's "Feast in the House of Levi" which eventually inspired a Monty Python (or was it Secret Policeman's Ball) sketch

But this time, ah this time I got to see the Tintorettos. After a spell-binding time with Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" in the Frary, we went round the corner to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Blimey. After agreeing to the contract for the first painting there, Tintoretto (who,incidentally, is alleged to have been able to tell the difference between forty different reds) accepted a commission to spend his life filling the place with yet more. There are somewhere around sixty pictures by him .And all of them breathtakingly daring in their use of composition, perspective and light.

I like the description in The Rough Guide of the first picture to greet you as you enter (although it was painted in later life):

The tempestuous 'Annunciation', with the Archangel crashing into the room through Joseph's shambolic workshop, trailing a tornado of cherubim...

... scaring the life out of Mary who was getting on with her sewing. You can see the picture here.

The trip was not without its mishaps. I'd completely forgotten about the Mosquito Menace, and was bitten rather badly before we could get to a pharmacy to buy preventative measures and oils and unguents. Even with those, however, they got to me, and I do tend to respond rather unfavourably. As a result of a bite on my finger, I woke up in the middle of the night with a hugely swollen finger and a signet ring inclined to cut off the blood supply. I managed to keep it from turning blue, but had to find a jeweller the next day who could cut off the ring for me

A couple of days later, I woke up with my face badly swollen on the left side. Took two or three days for the swelling to go down with the aid of yet more stuff from the pharmacy and I was forced to go round with what, in my childhood days, would have earned me the ultimate insult - a fat fyess.

Later in the holiday, I evidently let one of the little buggers get up my right trouser leg when out to dinner. The next day I had 8 bites on the leg which gradually developed into coffee-saucer sized scarlet areas of painful itch

Despite all of this, I never wished I was anywhere else. One day we went to the Lido to look at some rather neglected Art Nouveau houses. Within minutes of getting there, we were pissed off with the automobile traffic and yearning to getting back to Venice itself where you can wander about and never think of getting run over.

Oh, and just about everything else. One night, the four of us went to a concert in Chiesa San Vidal in Campo San Stefano. Given by a group called Interpreti Veneziani who performed Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a Mozart piece and Folies d'Espagne by Marin Marais. It was splendid -- especially the Four Seasons, each of which were led in turn by one of the four violinists; and the Marais, when the cellist took centre stage and played the cello with every inch of his body, flinging his sweat-soaked long hair at the audeince

And then there were the bottles of Prosecco, glasses of spritz with Campari, plates of fegato, bowls of fish soup overflowing with mussels, clams, prawns, squid, and langoustine, excellent grilled sea bream, buns and pies, the fun of travelling everywhere by vaporetto, and above all, helpful pleasant people who never seemed to feel it was more than their job's worth to help where they could

I can't wait to go back