Old Drawings #3

Poron with Books and Fruit (2B pencil, cartridge paper, 16.5 x 12 ins.)

Another traditionally arranged still life set-up, again from about 1973. The idea in all of these was to set them up like a little city, with some books under the cloth making a kind of mountain on which to arrange some of the important elements of the still life, in this case, more books and an earthenware poron.

I used to find this kind of drawing deeply satisfying, but I'm not sure I would be able to get into it now.

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.

Club Man

 

Club Man (Oil on board, 4 x 3 ins) I sometimes get a bit irritated at the continued success of local painters who, inspired by Norman Cornish's example, make a name for themselves by painting old men in flat caps, whippets and decrepit terraces with snot-nosed kids playing in the street. Cornish still paints scenes of Spennymoor as if the pits were still operating, but he's now almost 90 and entitled to go on making pictures of how life was when he was young. However, the north east of England really isn't like that any more and what Cornish's pasticheurs are pandering to is a feeling of nostalgia. And as we all know, nostalgia's not what it used to be. When I was tugging on the portfolios of drawings, this little panel fell out. In 2002, I must have felt that if I couldn't beat them I should join them, so I painted this panel to show it could be done. This old gadgie was an echo of how things were when I first started drinking.

Old Drawings #2

Bottles and Pear (2B pencil, cartridge paper, 16.5 x 12 ins.)

This is probably from round about 1973. I remember being told off, and rightly so, for making that irregular shadow pattern in the background.

Old Drawings

Mug with Apples (2B pencil, cartridge paper, )

Maybe it's something to do with the Summer Solstice, but I'm going through a period of retrenchment, reflecting on what's been achieved in the first half of the year, what's not been achieved, and taking stock of where I might be going as the days begin to shorten.

Some of this is due to a feeling of deflation after the work involved in putting together sufficient work for four exhibitions this year and the knowledge that there are still some outstanding issues with the last of these. Time to calm down and do some gentle thinking.

As I'm not bashing on with my painting, I decided that I'd make an effort to get my drawings photographed. It's been an interesting couple of days. Pulling out portfolios which I'd not looked at for years, meant that I found drawings dating back to my 'A' Level Art evening classes in 1971/2. Photographing them has also proven interesting, because the older drawings have come out looking like they're old.

Now that the drawings are safely stored on the Boogie Street computer, I thought it might be amusing (to me at least - you must tell me if the idea doesn't appeal) to start posting them here. Some are good, some not so good, but that doesn't matter. But how often should I post them? One a day seems too many, one a week not enough. Maybe it'll just be as and when the mood takes me, but what do you think?

I wish I'd always dated my drawings, but I'm pretty certain the drawing above is the oldest drawing I have (apart from some schoolboy work in the margins of notebooks). It must have been done in 1972, as part of those evening classes. Even then, I was obviously fascinated by extremes of light and shade.

The meaning of "Boogie Street"

And still they come ... every day here sees a small but constant stream of people wanting to know "What does Boogie Street mean?" As a public service I thought it might help if I quote this explanation from the Wikipedia:

Leonard Cohen has written a song called "Boogie Street", published on his album Ten New Songs (2001). In an interview with Brian D. Johnson in Maclean's Magazine on 15 October 2001, Cohen said of Boogie Street:

"… during the day Boogie Street is a scene of intense commercial activity … And at night, it was a scene of intense and alarming sexual exchange."

Later he goes on to talk of its metaphorical meaning: "Boogie Street to me was that street of work and desire, the ordinary life and also the place we live in most of the time that is relieved by the embrace of your children, or the kiss of your beloved, or the peak experience in which you yourself are dissolved, and there is no one to experience it so you feel the refreshment when you come back from those moments … So we all hope for those heavenly moments, which we get in those embraces and those sudden perceptions of beauty and sensations of pleasure, but we're immediately returned to Boogie Street."

Now your curiosity has, I hope, been satisfied, why not stay and look around? Leave a comment even?

Drawing for Today

Concrete & Wire (Pastel, A1 cartridge)

Something I found by the sea.

More Wansbeck

Wansbeck Houses (Pilot disposable fountain pen, sketchbook)

I was a bit lost for something to do at the Art Club yesterday, so I took along this drawing to see where I might get with it on a small board. Instead of including the boat in the foreground, I've lifted in (and reversed) the little boat with the cabin on the right of this drawing:




Wansbeck Shacks (Pilot disposable fountain pen, sketchbook)

I'm not sure that it's going too well. The lack of any colour notes is making me fly by the seat of my pants, and I find that disconcerting. But I thought it would be good practice. I didn't have my camera with me, so I'll let you see how it goes next week.

Painting in Series

Shelter (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

In a recent post on his blog devoted to Pastels, Casey Klahn talked about painting in series. Not all artists paint in series, but I'm one of those who do. You'll have seen, if you've been keeping up, that I most recently made a series of paintings concerned with people on the water-buses of Venice. In the past, I've also done a series of pictures looking across the River Tyne from Gateshead to Newcastle, and as this is one I never tire of, I still add to the series.. It's where I live and what I know best.

I like painting in series so much, that once in a while I make efforts to paint pictures which will fill in the gaps, or draw together two disparate series, rather like Edgar Rice Burroughs bringing together Tarzan with John Carter of Mars in the same novel (he never did that, but he would have done if he could have thought of a way).

It's this "adding to the series" that I'm thinking about at the moment. I'm preparing for the next Figure 8 show which will be in the McGuinness Gallery in Bishop Auckland Town Hall in August. I have one or two pictures in progress and have a couple of others which I think will make a harmonious fit, but I haven't quite decided for myself what the theme of my work will be.

When I sent the gallery my somewhat abbreviated statement, it read:

My paintings tend to be formal constructions based on the effects of sunlight and shadow. I favour the play of strong light on buildings and while the majority of my work is derived from the urban environment, even my occasional forays into landscape painting include references to the effect of man on the landscape. Figures may appear in the composition to emphasise the mood which may be mysterious and unsettling, but often their absence speaks just as loudly.

This is vague enough to cover a multitude of sins, I think, and certainly leaves room for me to include almost anything I want to. But at the moment I'm a little stuck.

As part of our exhibiting policy for this show, and because the gallery lends itself to it, we're each painting a picture 100 x 80 cms, to be hung together at the entrance to the show. And it's this that has me foxed, because nothing leaps into my imagination to fit that shape. Or at least, nothing that immediately seems to go with the other pictures I'm likely to be showing.

In addition to Shelter (above), I intend to finish and show these:

Blawearie Steps (work in progress)

Pillbox (work in progress)

And I hope to move this along sufficiently to include it in the show:

Collingwood (work in progress)

You can probably see that the "theme" in this case is more one of composition than anything else, although there is a definite sense of loneliness and it may be that I need to concentrate on that aspect to pull out the threads I need to make the final selection and to produce the problematic painting.

Thinking on those lines, suggests the possibility of including another earlier painting, from the same period as Shelter:

A Yellow Raincoat (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins)

However, there's another piece to this exhibition jigsaw. We may be given the use of a gallery van, which would also allow me to show a painting (yet another not quite finished) which dovetails with Blawearie Steps:

Blawearie (work in progress)

This is quite a big painting (5 feet tall, hence the need for a van) which I've always liked but I've never found an opportunity to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

On a point of interest, the tall composition is an impossible view. Standing on top of the rocks at Blawearie, you can't actually see the derelict farmhouse. But then, that's one of the wonders of art - the bringing together of the impossible. I began this at a time when I was particularly fascinated by Northern Renaissance painters like Heironymous Bosch.

Looking again at this picture, I think perhaps a similar approach might produce a subject for the missing picture. What do you think? Have I got a cohesive theme already, or is there something missing?

Punchline

Punchline (Fibretip with Photoshop colour)

Mr Punch has been a character of great interest to me for some time now. One day, I think he may take on even greater significance in my work, but for now, this will have to do. It's for Illustration Friday.

On the Wansbeck

On the Wansbeck (Oil on board)

Later, at the Club, I finished this, which I'd resumed last week.

In 2002, I spent a day with some Art Club friends, drawing at a boat club on the River Wansbeck. There's a formal rowing club on the Wansbeck, but the area we were in was a run-down strip of foreshore, not far from the mouth of the river at Sandy Bay, with little tarred shacks and rotting hulls. Very picturesque. My painting, Wooden Sunset, was based on one of the upturned boats there.

Amongst other things, I drew this group of boats and a couple of the shacks, and when I got home I made a start on a painting based on the drawing. As is often the case, other priorities intervened and the picture got put to one side, only to be unearthed last week when I was looking for a small board to start another painting on. The muse took me, and the boats were up and running again (if that isn't a mixed metaphor).



Wansbeck Boats (Charcoal, colored Conte, sketchbook)

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?

Forgotten

Robin Malcolm's Chair (2B Pentel pencil, A4 sketchbook)

The Laird allowed us into the castle at Duntrune to draw and paint whatever we wanted. I'm not sure he was impressed with my choice of subject.

Low Fogrigg again

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

Apparently, it's pronounced, "Fogridge."

Adventures in the Countryside

My city boy batteries needed recharging with some country air, so this weekend Patsy123 and I decided to test out the possibilities of free bus travel with our Old Codgers Travel Pass.

I'd received an invitation to Christina Mingard's exhibition in this year's Art Tour, so I wondered how easy it would be to get there by bus. I've known Christina for quite a few years now and it's always a pleasure to meet up with her again and to see her latest work. We decided that on Sunday we'd make a day of it (or at least a long afternoon) and do a short walk from Christina's house in Bardon Mill up to Vindolanda, close by Hadrian's Wall.

I should have known that public transport would be unable to come through with the goods properly. We ran into problems at Hexham, where the Stagecoach bus had broken down. Incredibly, they have no depot at the Hexham end of the Carlisle to Hexham run and so had to send for a replacement from Carlisle. The driver had no advice about when he'd asked for another bus or how long the replacement would take - "How long's a piece of string?" was his helpful remark, so we had no idea whether it might be advisable to go for the train to Bardon Mill.

As it turned out, we had to hang about the bus station, pacing up and down, trying to avoid standing on the pieces of gum (unsuccessfully), for an hour before the replacement arrived. To give him his due, the driver made the 15 minute trip from Hexham to Bardon Mill in a much shorter time.

We had a good chat with Christina and admired her new series of flower pictures. I'd had my reservations about how they might look, because the invitation card bore an image of red flowers with green foliage - my favourite colour combination - but they were lovely.

After a cup of tea and accepting a kind bottle of Ambre Solaire to protect us from the amazingly hot sun, we set off on our walk. The delay in Hexham meant we had to do the circuit (Bardon Mill to Vindolanda, via Chinely Burn) much quicker than I'd have liked. I've never been up by the Chinely Burn before and it turned out to be a really nice bit of the countryside. There are great pavements of fractured rock in the stream which I'd like to draw sometime, and sudden picturesque views with huge old oaks.



Low Fogrigg (Oil pastel, 8 x 9.5 ins)

No time to take in Vindolanda, either (I've not visited for at least twenty years), but round by Kingcairn Hill on the lonnen that runs down from the Military Road to Henshaw. Deep set, the lonnen has a great profusion of wild flowers in its banks - honeysuckle, briar rose and foxglove, as well as a lot my memory of 'A' level Botany no longer identifies.

Fearful of missing the return bus, we actually got back to Bardon Mill with enough time to have a cool drink with Christina in the painting shelter her husband Paul has built for her in the back garden. She pointed out to me the various views she's often painted and privately I commended her on finding colours within what I could only see as monotonous green.

Christina suggested to me that it would be a Good Thing if I were to up sticks and move out to the Tyne Valley where I could take advantage of the Art Tour, and for a while Patsy123 and I fantasised about the possibility. Then we got the (one an hour, except on Sundays when it's one every three hours) bus back to Hexham. Only to be held up by road works at Haydon Bridge and so miss the connection to Newcastle. The pint of Last Lion of Britain in the County Hotel while we waited for the next Newcastle bus, didn't make me change my mind that I'm better off in town with my once every 15 minutes bus service.

But I think we might go back to Bardon Mill this summer, if only to return the bottle of Ambre Solaire.

Abstract Thought

I rather like abstract paintings. However, when I get myself in front of a canvas, what comes out is never abstract. It starts with a strong abstract composition, but as the work progresses, the end product is never abstract.

I don't know why this should be, but perhaps I'm too much like Leonardo (he said, modestly):

Don’t underestimate this idea of mine, which calls to mind that it would not be too much of an effort to pause sometimes to look into these stains on walls, the ashes from the fire, the clouds, the mud, or other similar places. If these are well contemplated, you will find fantastic inventions that awaken the genius of the painter to new inventions, such as compositions of battles, animals, and men, as well as diverse composition of landscapes, and monstrous things, as devils and the like. ["Treatise on Painting"]

Give me an abstract and I will find something figurative within it. So it is, whenever I start to paint an abstract, I find the figurative elements surging forward. This isn't a great problem really, except that when I'm in a reflective mood and wondering if my work is going the right way, I look around and all I see in galleries is abstract. I recognise this is a kind of tunnel vision produced by a transitory period of low self-esteem, but it does seem at times that all the general public is interested in buying is abstracts.

My friend Mo, in a recent email said:

"... thinking about it, it could all do with what's fashionable at the moment. In all the magazines I've seen recently about interior design and so forth, they've always shown rooms festooned with abstract art - maybe one large piece of work on a wall to make a statement - and you know how everyone follows like sheep - never mind what the quality is like."

The work of hers that has proven most successful in terms of sales has also been "a bit on the abstract side of figurative as well. "

This thought thread was brought on by the comments my post Corner Gallery, Biscuit Factory. Of the pictures that I posted there, the favourite among Commenters seems to be Wooden Sunset, and to my mind, this is the most abstract looking picture in the set (although it's actually a straight representation of the side of a boat).

So what do you think? Is abstraction the most enduring element of Modernism? Are the general public buying more abstracts than figurative and if so, is it all down to what goes with the curtains?

____________________________

A brief aside, with thanks to Casey Klahn for bringing it to my attention:

I never became an abstract painter because I love to draw, I love to represent. I tried to do abstract paintings, and it always seemed to me that I was throwing out a baby with the bath water. [Wolf Kahn]

WorkArt

I was recently contacted by WorkArt, who were interested in taking some of my paintings for leasing to some of their clients. I think this is a splendid arrangement. I get to free up some space in the studio, the work gets seen, the clients get to live with some nice pictures, and at the end of the month, there's some money in my bank account.

Today, I sent off four pictures, one of which is this little thing which had languished in the To Be Looked at Again section of the studio for some time. Adrian, of WorkArt, was particularly keen on taking this, so although I hadn't even signed it, I let it go. (The photograph, too, was rather hurried, and suffers from reflections)




Montezuma (Oil on canvas, 15 x 18 ins)

The painting is based on a sketchbook drawing I did on a day out at Royal Quays Marina in 2002. The boat had belonged to a fisherman who had died recently. His sons, who had no interest in fishing, made plans to take their father's body out to sea in the Montezuma, and scuttle it, but the Coastguard intervened.

As a result, when we visited the Marina, the two sons were hard at work doing the boat up so that they might at least earn a bob or two by taking others out to sea (though not for burial)..




Montezuma (2B Pentel pencil, 8 x 10 ins., sketchbook)

Hello & Welcome

It’s been a long time coming, but it was inevitable really. Once the blog changed from being an on-line writing exercise to the artist’s blog it is now, I knew it would be only a matter of time before I’d cast off the Mr Zip persona and add this to the surprisingly large number of references the Interweb holds about me.

Other bloggers have begun referring to me as “Harry” anyway, and the sidebar links and references to “Harry Bell artwork” were definitely a bit of a giveaway.

It took some time to trawl through the back catalogue of postings to make sure I hadn’t said anything rude about anyone who might now find me more easily and then be offended. But apart from a couple of totally irrelevant posts which I deleted, and a bit of bad language that I left alone on the basis that it was how I felt at the time, I haven’t changed a thing.

So here we are, a new look to the blog and a more open approach to the world. And now, more than ever, your comments are encouraged and welcome.

Corner Gallery, Biscuit Factory

Got the paintings safely to the gallery today and after a surprisingly short session of mill-about, how-about-this-one-here-and-that-one-there, we settled on a decent hang. In this respect, we relied on some good advice from Mel, the curator for the show - always best practice I find when there are possible arguments developing about the use of space. All of our pictures have been mixed together, contrasting size against size, but picking up colour notes which carry through from one painting to another. Over all, I think it works well. This is the selection of my own that I decided to hang. It was an opportunity to put together paintings from the last three years (I've put the year of origin in to give you an idea) in a venue where many people won't have seen them before.

Before the Run 2006 (Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 ins) - sorry, this is the best photograph I've been able to take so far.



Yellow Hats and Red Balloons 2006 (Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 ins).




Venetian Regata 2008 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins)

Aegean Hideaway 2007 (Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 ins.)



EROTOKRITOS 2007 (Oil on board, 12 x 12 ins.)



Alleyway in Crete 2008 (Oil on board, 9 x 9 ins.)





Wooden Sunset 2005 (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins.)





Engine Summer 2005 (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms.)




Venetian Wall 2005 (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms.)

A pretty disparate bunch, I guess, and I'm hoping that scattered as they are throughout the show, they won't appear too mismatched. I dunno. What do you think?

Venetian Regata

Venetian Regata (Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 ins.)

I've had to really bash on to get this one finished. I need it for tomorrow, when it will form part of the new Figure 8 show at the Biscuit Factory. The show doesn't get its preview until 6th June, but the work needs to be in a week early.

I had planned to put some of the Vaporetto series into this show, but they don't come out of the Myles Meehan Gallery until Monday, so I've opted for a mixed bag of work from the last two years. This new painting and one other (another of my old, unfinished pieces which finally found its way to completion this week) will be the only fresh work in my part of the show, but the audience for much of it is unlikely to be duplicated, I think.

I am a little concerned that, because of the experiments in approach I've undertaken in the last couple of years, my work may look a little eclectic in style. My hope is that the colour palette will hold it together and, if nothing else, it'll give me a chance to see how well (or otherwise) it all hangs together.

I think I may post everything here tomorrow (if you're interested?), when I've had a chance to photograph the other new one, and when I'm sure of what has gone up on the walls.

Worry

I'm still thinking over Tina Mammoser's suggestion that I create another blog on which to post sketches, and possibly these exercises in Photoshoppery. Meanwhile, because the trip to London interfered with time available to do an original, here's another of my cartoons newly coloured in Photoshop in response to Illustration Friday's brief, Worry.

Back from London

Back from several days in London. It seems by going there, Patsy123 and I left behind most of the good weather. Although we were able to sit in our friends' garden for breakfast on Friday, for the rest of our stay there the whole south of England sat under a belt of rain, while the north basked in sunshine. Bugger.

In an effort to kick-start some drawing and sketching, I'd taken along a little sketchbook and tried to get down the woman opposite without attracting her attention. I don't think I managed it, because she shifted position soon after I'd started and rested her chin on her hand . As a result, I wasn't able to get the articulation of her glasses and bridge of her nose right.



Passenger (A6 sketchbook, rollerball)


The weather was such that, although we went to Cambridge for the day on Monday, we weren't really able to go to see Kettle's Yard, something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Oh well, I'll keep it on my list.

We did, however, go to the National Gallery on Friday to see Alison Watt's exhibition, Phantom. Beautiful, cool, sensual. Big. If you go, it's well worth taking the time to watch the short film about her making of the pictures. You may find yourself wondering, as I did, why she thought it a good idea to load her brush with a little paint, climb a stepladder to apply it, then climb down again and repeat the process without stepping back to view what effect the first few brushstrokes had had.. A little hand-held palette would have been so much easier.

From Alison Watt's huge paintings, we went round the corner to the utterly delightful exhibition of mostly small works by Melita Denaro.at John Martin of London. Painted mostly plein air, her landscapes of Ireland capture the damp and blustery atmosphere perfectly.

We had the opportunity to chat with Denaro herself, and found her just as fresh and charming as her pictures. She seemed genuinely surprised and delighted to learn that I'd gone there deliberately to see her work and not just wandered in off the street.

Wide

I aim to spread my wings a little. I think part of my failure to get more drawing done is an over-concentration on oil painting. There are other skills I want to develop, including digital ones. So, this is a first attempt at colouring one of my cartoons with Photoshop. I'm going to post it on Illustration Friday, although without a thumbnail. Thumbnails and I don't see eye to eye, it seems. Those who understand and get along with them, might offer assistance, which would be gratefully received.

More Drawing Angst.

Mont Louis (A5 sketchbook, Rotring Art Pen)

I was reminded of this sketchbook drawing by some reading I've been doing across the blogs.

James Hobbs says in his blog, "Cafes remain a favourite place for me to work. They are often fantastically located, in the heart of a town, offering outdoor seating, tables to spread out on and plenty of refreshments."

I understand this absolutely. I still recall making that drawing in Mont Louis, on a walking holiday in the Pyrenees in 1991. Half way through the day we sat at a cafe table and ate our lunch, while I took as long as I felt necessary to make the drawing of the building opposite, refreshments arriving as required.. The fine lines are an indication of how my eyesight is not now what it was, and it was done with the instrument I loved so much then, the Rotring Art Pen. The damn thing seized up long ago and nothing I've been able to do to it has unclogged the nib. I'd buy another, were it not for the fact that I did buy another and the same thing happened to that. If anyone knows how to unclog them, I'd love to know.

It's become increasingly obvious that there's a huge movement around the blogosphere to encourage drawing and looking at this sketchbook makes me think again about how little I do myself.

There was a time when I did nothing but draw. By which I mean, I hadn't started to paint. I made images only with pencil or ink. Colour was actually something I avoided like the plague. I couldn't come to terms with it. At school, I would drag out the drawing part of the exercise so that I wouldn't have to "colour it in" and ruin it.

I began to paint seriously in 1989 and it's been a long hard slog to get to grips with colour, and colour and I are still wrestling with one another. In the process, I've allowed my drawing practice to fall away.

I'm not sure why this should be. Perhaps once I stopped having to make artworks in my spare time (when the actual lack of time meant that a black and white image was a more economical use of the time), it didn't feel necessary. I don't know.

Maybe the need to create paintings to sell and prop up the sybaritic lifestyle to which I've become accustomed led me to feel that a drawing would not contribute to my welfare (despite having sold several drawings in the past). Perhaps.

Some of it may be to do with my working methods. In the early days of my painting, I would take a photograph, run it through the office copier and make a charcoal drawing from the photocopy. The resultant painting would come from using all three - the photograph, the photocopy and the drawing - as source material. But as time has gone on and my abilities have improved, I don't need to do that now, because I can make some of the adjustments that the process achieved, in my head.

As a result, I find that I only seem to draw when on holiday and even then, not a great deal. The drawing above is from a sketchbook started in 1990 and still less than half full. I really must rectify this, but how to do so, when all my good intentions to do so have so far failed? Maybe I should try to get involved with some of the blogging initiatives that I see happening, like the Moleskine Exchange project that Casey Klahn is about to take part in. But how do I get involved in something like that? Anyone care to throw me a lifeline?

Tyneside Cinema

Last night Patsy123 and I went to the Tyneside Cinema for a free opening night. It opens to the public on 22nd May, but last night we were given drinks, a free showing of IRON MAN, and a chance to look round the newly refurbished cinema.

IRON MAN was excellent, and it was worth waiting until the end of the (very long) credits for the extra teaser, even if we were amongst only a half dozen to do so.

The refurbishment of the cinema is a triumph, however. The original 1930s look has been retained and enhanced by uncovering glass mosaic floors and hand-painting the ornate plaster work. There are now three screens, all with good comfortable seats and lots of leg-room. The extra screen was accommodated by fitting in an extra floor, a difficult thing to do in a listed building in a conservation area.

We got to look round the digital film-making and editing suites and the for-hire Digital Lounge where they were showing a tremendous video piece by Daniel Shiffman based on the movie, RUN LOLA RUN. They could accommodate only a 20 min section of it, but it was still great. Basically, each image on the screen is one frame behind (or ahead) of its left (or right or up or down) neighbour. In theory it's possible to watch the whole film by concentrating on one frame, but in effect it becomes impossible - you become entranced by the shifting patterns. Amazing! This is what video installation should be.


Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run from shiffman on Vimeo.

Anniversary Review

Somehow the fourth anniversary of this blog (14th April 2008) slipped by without my noticing. It hasn't been an unalloyed joy, but I still find the act of publishing stuff here quite fascinating.

However, I'm coming round to the view that changes must be made. I tried a while ago to move to a new template, one where I can make amendments to the look of the thing without having always to fiddle around under the bonnet, adjusting the HTML. That didn't work nearly as well as I'd hoped, so I panicked and ran back to this more modest end of Boogie Street.

Did anyone else find it unnerving to make the switch to a new template?

For the last couple of weeks or so, I've been running a private blog created with a new style template and have discovered how to avoid many of the mistakes I made on my last attempt at the Street's modernisation. I like the way it looks and I'm sure the regulars who come here hoping (in vain, I'm afraid) to learn What Boogie Street Means, or What Happened to Jimmy Nail would appreciate the new look, too.

I've thought about changing the title to put an end to the Searchers for Meaning, but I'm rather fond of it now and, although it hasn't anything to do with the main subject matter of the blog, it still means something rather special to me (even if it might not entirely accord with what Leonard meant when he wrote it).

But what do you think? I'm genuinely interested.

New Venice Picture

Venice Regatta (1st stage)



Venice Regata (2nd stage)

This is what I'm working on at the Club at the moment. The first image is how it was when I got there this afternoon, the second how I left it a couple of hours later.

Not a great deal of difference, I'll grant you. It's moving slowly, I find, and there are definite problems in some areas, most notably right in the centre. There's a problem with the reference photograph which I'll probably have to resolve by sheer invention. And I'm wondering about the red bias - there may be too much of it. But other than that, I'm relatively happy with the way it's turning out. I have a couple of weeks to finish it in time to put it next to my colleagues' 24 x 24 inch paintings at the next Figure8 show.

Arte y Pico

It's always encouraging to get some recognition, so I'm delighted that that nice Kasey Klahn at The Colorist has bestowed the "Arte y Pico" virtual award on me. The award is given for blogs that show "creativity, design, interesting material and also that contribute to the blogging community no matter what language."

I now have to pick 5 blogs who deserve this award for those same reasons. In the hope that I don't end up creating an incestuous Arte y Pico community, these are my choices:

• Tom Wood - tomwoodhongkongartistnowintheuk
• Tina Mammoser - The Cycling Artist
• Marja-Leena Rathje - Marja-Leena Rathje
• Vivien Blackburn - paintings prints and stuff
• David Rourke - All the Strange Hours

Read the rules and follow the meme, bloggers. Or not, if that's what takes you. I'm no bully.

The Oak Citadel

Oak Citadel (Charcoal, charcoal and coloured Conte on A3 cartridge)

It's been my intention for some time to try to work on drawings outside which are bigger than sketchbook size. Oddly enough, although I've done it in the less agreeable surroundings of Newcastle, I've never really attempted it in the countryside.

This time I went prepared. I had with me a Mapac bag containing an A3 pad of Winsor & Newton Medium Surface cartridge paper and all manner of drawing stuff - charcoal, compressed charcoal, pencils, pastels and coloured Conte. And a new can of fixative. The fixative is really important to my working method. I spray as often as is necessary, rubbing down elements of the current drawing and spraying again, until there develops a crystalline tooth to the drawing.

Despite my preparedness, I still didn't achieve what I set out to do. Mainly because I hadn't prepared myself for something outside my control - the wind. The thing about little pieces of charcoal, Conte sticks and the packs they come in, is that they're very light. So a great deal of my time was taken up with rushing about retrieving materials and generally cursing the elements.

I know it's a poor workman who blames his tools, but I also found that my choice of medium surface cartridge was a mistake - I really don't like the rather mechanical tooth it's been prepared with. Maybe the other side would have been better for my purposes, but smooth would have been best of all.

Anyway, after a considerable time cursing and grunting, a black cloud came and threatened me and I was forced to give up. So the drawing as it stands lacks a certain definition in the trees. The trunks don't seem to have sufficient body and even the rocks are a little anaemic. I do like the way the shadows of the branches are cast over the rock face, however: something I would find difficult to invent because even standing in front of them, I couldn't figure out which branch was casting which shadow.

I may return to it in the studio when the time is right.

Compo & Clegg Week 2008

Tree & Rock (A4 sketchbook, pencil, Inktense pencils)

You have to play the cards Fate deals you. As I sit here typing in a hot room, the sun streaming down outside, I ponder on events which led us to book last week in the Lake District, rather than this one. Because, of course, last week was your classic Lake District week, all rain, sun and showers.

But it doesn't pay to ponder too long. We booked the week we did, and we played the cards we were dealt. So we ended up having a good week, although the work we produced was limited by the weather.

The drawing above was my first attempt at getting to grips with what seems to be becoming something of an obsession when I go out into the country - trees and rocks. I'm not all that convinced by it, but there are things about it that I like. I still don't find the Inktense pencils particularly good to work with, but no doubt I'll return to them at some time in the future.

The tree growing out of a cleft in the rock was at the side of a lane running up past a farm in Near Sawrey towards a tarn at Moss Eccles. It continued to exert a fascination for a few days and when I found the weather too bad to go out and work, I had a go at working from the first sketch and from memory on something more colourful.



Tree & Rock (12 x 8 ins, watercolour paper, mixed media)


I started out with a pencil and watercolour pencil drawing, then added gouache because it wasn't working right . After that, I guess it just developed a life of its own. I worked over it with coloured Conte and some pastel, rubbing it down now and then with an eraser and frequently spraying with fixative.

I rather like the end product, although it does seem a little strange. But then I've never been averse to the strange.






Tree in Rock Cleft (A4 sketchbook, brush pen)

I ended my engagement with the tree in the rocky cleft by moving round to the opposite side and doing this drawing in Pentel brush-pen. As I usually find with black markers of whatever kind, I ended up rounding off the forms - a remnant of my cartoon days, I think.

At the bottom of the valley from our cottage lay Esthwaite Water, and in a field by the side of the road running down to the lake I came across a massive rock outcrop on top of which were several old and gnarled oaks, their roots bursting through the seams of rock.

Oak & Rocks (Sketchbook, 8 x 9.5 ins, 4B pencil)





I liked these rocks. They had great presence and genuinely interesting fissures running in parallel lines through them. The oaks sat on top, feeding their roots down through the fissures and splitting off great slabs. And one old oak, over the years, is clearly edging his way off his pedestal towards the road. Beware.









The Oak Steps Down (Sketchbook, 8 x 9.5 ins., 2B mechanical pencil)