Sawrey Farm

Sawrey Farm (Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 ins)

After some thought, I've decided to do no further work on this painting. I like it the way it is.

This means that there is one more painting outstanding in this series - the Split Rock painting still being worked at the Club. However, I've enjoyed making these images so much that I think it very likely I'll continue with them. I already have my eye on a remarkably deformed tree I found on one of the Compo & Clegg Painting Weeks at Duntrune in Scotland.

Unrecorded Work

Hot damn! No camera! I went to the Club again today and worked on the Split Rock painting, adding trees to the brow of the hill behind the rock. I also did more to the rock, but I had no camera to record what I'd done.

As a consequence - short post.

Critical Mass

Clothes Shop (work in progress)

Like Bob Dylan in Maggie's Farm, I got a head full of ideas/ That are drivin' me insane, which is why I keep beginning new paintings: I need to keep getting them out of my head and onto canvas. So, rather than finishing one of the pictures at the Club today, I took in the new Clothes Shop (which I began just before going off to Corflu) and worked on that. I think it's coming along quite well.

This means, however, that I now have four paintings on the go and that's approaching critical mass, by which I mean that unless I want one of them to start slipping into the background and not be thought about again for maybe some months, I have to start finishing off.

Home Again

Corflu Attendees (minus a couple who couldn't get out of bed) (Photo:Mike Scott)

What a wonderful weekend! I met people I haven't seen in thirty years and it was just like yesterday. In all sorts of ways I can't begin to describe, I came back from Winchester thoroughly invigorated. One cartoon for a fanzine cover already under my belt (a rare enough event in itself) and ideas for new paintings in a notebook.

Old Drawings #55

Snake Root (Charcoal, compressed charcoal on A1 cartridge paper)

This seemed an opportune moment to post the third and last of the Picton Root drawings, because I won't be able to post anything new for a short while. I'm off to Winchester for a few days, to have fun at Corflu, "the convention for SF fanzine fans". If you don't know what a science fiction fanzine fan is, don't worry about it.

As a parting shot, here's something I started last night. Can you tell what it is yet?

Right Turn

Right Turn (Oil on board, 18 x 17 ins) £420

It seems I'm faced with a dearth of exhibiting opportunities this year. Many of the galleries I've shown in during the last couple of years are now booked up for the next couple of years. So, whenever an opportunity arises to get paintings out of the studio and onto a wall, I take it.

The Federation of Northern Art Societies is about to hold its annual exhibition at Preston Hall Museum in Stockton-on-Tees and as a member of the North of England Art Club, I was entitled to submit two paintings for consideration. Which I did. When I got home today after a weekend in Tynemouth, there was a phone message to say that, not only have my paintings been accepted, this one, Right Turn, showing a street in Crete, has been Highly Commended. There's a cheque attached to the Commendation, too.

No major exhibitions maybe, but this year seems to be turning into one of Success by Drip Feed.

Another Rock

Split Rock (work in progress)

There was a private view in town this evening, so I decided I'd go to the Club this afternoon and go on to the preview from there. This turned out to be a not terribly good idea, given that by the time I got to the preview, I'd been on my feet continuously for five hours, so shuffling round the gallery became a test of endurance.

However, on the positive side, at the Club I got yet another rock painting going. There are trees to put in on the brow of the hill. I know I eventually took the background trees out of the Sawrey Farm painting, but - at least for the moment - I think the skyline trees are necessary to make this picture balance. But you never know, I've been wrong before (just don't tell Pat that).

Seeing the Wood for the Trees

Sawrey Farm (work in progress)

Back to the Club today where I was hailed as some kind of hero for my page in Artists & Illustrators. This was, of course, deeply embarrassing and I busied myself with painting out the background trees from the Sawrey Farm picture.

I think this is a big improvement and leaves the painting almost complete. A bit more work on the upper parts of the trees and I may make the sky a little more complex in colour (without destroying the overall flattish quality, I hope).

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.

T-Shirt Diversion

Sometimes a bit of my earlier life catches up with me and I'm asked to produce a cartoon. In this case friends wanted a cartoon knight to be incorporated into a design for a T-shirt logo. After several days of toing and froing, colour corrections and adjustments, this is the character I provided.

Everyone involved seems happy with him, and he certainly looks pleased with himself.

Easels and Trees

Sawrey Farm (work in progress)

I took the Sawrey Farm painting to the Club today. It was fairly quiet by the time I got there, but I couldn't help noticing a dismaying number of easels left for someone else to put away. Lot of new members, not enough explanation of studio etiquette perhaps, but who do they think is going to tidy the place up?

I've moved the painting along well, I think, but the trees in the background, which I included for what I thought were perfectly well-justified reasons are troubling me. I'll try losing them next week and see how I feel about it then.

Old Drawings #54

Machine Root (Charcoal, compressed charcoal on A1 cartridge paper)

Yesterday was one of those disastrous occasions in the studio. I attempted something which turned out to be ill-considered and seeing it in the bright light of day today, I recognise that it'll all have to be scraped off.

No time to start afresh today, unfortunately. I have other jobs to do, so here's the second of the Picton Root drawings. This one turned itself into something oddly mechanical.

Abroad Posting

Sawrey Farm (work in progress)

I've recently sold two paintings to a friend and client in San Francisco and had to make arrangements to get them there. My mate and fellow painter Mike Bell (no relation!) suggested I use an online Agent called Interparcel whom he'd used in the past and from their differently priced services, I opted for delivery by UPS. So on Thursday I had to wait for the UPS van to come and collect the parcel. At the time of writing it's in San Francisco now and on the point of being delivered which I think is pretty good service.

What this meant, of course was that I didn't go to the Club to continue with my painting, Above Harry Ramsden's . Nor did I go on Friday, so the painting awaits completion. What i did do on Friday was go to the preview of ØRNULF OPDAHL Mood Paintings of the North at the Northumbria Gallery. I love Opdahl's moody paintings of Norwegian fjords. In fact, although the oils are out of my price range, I have two of his lithographs which I treasure dearly.

Because of the usual chatting with folk I haven't seen for years, I didn't get to see the video interview with Opdahl. People would come up to me and say, "Have you seen the really interesting video?" then talk to me long enough to ensure I couldn't. I'll go back to see the show again and the video, but if you'd like to see the video now, you can do so on the King's Place website. Make sure you enlarge the view to full screen.

Aware that the Harry Ramsden painting presents little in the way of concentrated work to get it finished, I decided I need to get one or two more started, so today I got this Sawrey Farm painting under way. It's another in the Rock & Tree series which is holding my attention at the moment.

Old Drawings #53

Crustacean Root (Charcoal, compressed charcoal on A1 cartridge paper)

In 1999 I was doing research for my BA Dissertation on the Pembrokeshire landscapes of Graham Sutherland and in an effort to get first hand knowledge of the area that so inspired him, I took the opportunity of a stay in Swansea to go for the day to Picton Castle.

Everything I'd read told me that Sutherland had donated his considerable archive to Picton Castle in the form of the Graham and Kathleen Sutherland Foundation, so it came as a big disappointment when we got there to find that everything had been shipped off to Cardiff and the gallery space at the Castle was devoted to contemporary Welsh artists. Apparently funding for the Foundation had proved insufficient and all of Sutherland's papers, drawings, paintings had been lodged with the National Museum Wales.

But the trip wasn't wasted by any means. Before going back we had time to wander along the shores of the Eastern Cleddau where the shaly soil of the banks has fallen into the curious shapes that fascinated Sutherland and where the twisted roots of old oaks poke out into the air.

This drawing is one of three inspired by the roots of the Eastern Cleddau shore. Not done in a terribly Sutherland manner, but they are important to me. As each of them developed, accidental effects made them take on individual characteristics that the original roots didn't obviously possess. This one, for instance began to take on the look (at least to me) of some kind of lobster or other crustacean. These drawings represent an approach not yet explored but waiting for the time to be right.

Just to round this story off, I did get to see the Sutherland Archive in Cardiff. It was unbelievably thrilling to be able to sift through his sketchbooks, squared-up photographs, watercolours, prints and paintings. Definitely a trip to remember.

Buildings with Tyne Bridge

Buildings with Tyne Bridge (Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 ins) £190

I think I'm heading for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records: for the longest-running cold. The cold I developed around Xmas becomes, by turns, a cough, a runny nose, a sneezing fit then a cough .... None of which saw me in much of a mood to get things done at the Club this week. Especially as the revived central heating has brought back members keen to catch up on the gossip.

"Do you know", said Joe, "I've done nothing today but stand around and chat." Then stood around and chatted some more.

Despite all this, I did finish off Buildings with Tyne Bridge which a search of this blog suggests I last worked on in October 2008. This can't be right, because the picture I worked on today was almost complete. Maybe I did more to it at home. Anyway, there was little needed: a few windows here and there, a touch up of railings on the Bridge and there we are, another addition to my increasing collection of Small Works.

The Harry Ramsden's has moved along slowly, with work on the lettering proving a fiddly detail, but next week could see it almost - if not actually - complete.



Above Harry Ramsden's (work in progress)

King's College from The Backs

King's College from The Backs (Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 ins) £190

I should have realised that some of the paint on the King's College painting would still be tacky, which meant that I couldn't make the final adjustments straight away, so I began work on a new painting related to the Seaside Cafe pictures. By the end of the afternoon, the paint was firm enough for me to finish King's College from The Backs. At only 9 x 12 ins., it's a little too fiddly for me to consider anything else like this soon, but I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out.


Above Harry Ramsden's (work in progress)

I'd already started this painting a month or so ago, but I wasn't happy with the composition, especially as part of the Harry Ramsden signage was off the bottom of the picture. I knew my good friend Kevin had taken a photograph in Brighton at the same time as I took mine, so I asked him for it. His is almost identical but the image was more securely anchored in the rectangle and I much preferred it.

Today's work meant painting over the original start and moving the image slightly to the left and up. I was worried this would take some doing, but it all went well. The only problem now will be in developing the signage so it looks as close to the real one as is desirable.

Picking up the pieces

King's College (work in progress)

Another week of getting nothing substantial done at home, so back to the Club today, only to find that - hurrah! - the boiler has been fixed and people are trickling back to the studio. Old Tom was there, working on the big woodland painting he's been tinkering with for the best part of a year.

"When will it be finished, Tom?" I asked.

"2030" he said, after some consideration.

"How old will you be then?"

"108"

I like his style.

For myself, I'm going through one of those catching up periods when I finish off all the paintings that tend to get put to one side when I have to concentrate on making work for an exhibition. The two Seaside Cafe pictures belong to that category, and so does this painting of King's College, Cambridge.

It's almost complete; just a bit of work to do on the lawn and perhaps a taking down of the windows of the white building. I'm tempted to go back to the Club tomorrow to finish it off. If I do, I must make sure the photograph I take of it isn't influenced by light reflecting on the sky.

Seaside Cafe Nos 1 & 2

Seaside Cafe No.1 (Fortunes of War) - (Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 ins.)
Private Collection


Seaside Cafe No.2 (Due South) - (Oil on canvas, 9 x 12 ins.) £190

The cold weather, coupled with the failure of the Art Club's boiler meant that when I got there yesterday, the oldsters had decided that they couldn't take any more frozen bones and gone home.


Bolbec Hall Studio

In splendid isolation, I set to and finished off the two paintings of Brighton cafes

Old Drawings #52

Rooftops (Charcoal and compressed charcoal on cartridge paper)

This drawing is clouded in uncertainty. I don't really remember when I did it, but this seems an appropriate point in the Old Drawings scheme of things to post it. I can't locate the dimensions of it either, although I suspect it was done on a sheet of A1 cartridge paper.

It's a drawing of the rooftops to be seen if you look over the Western side of the Tyne Bridge. Eventually, I made a painting from it, but people so rarely look over the side of the Tyne Bridge that no one knew where it was and kept asking if it might be somewhere in the Mediterranean! The painting is in a private collection, so I don't have access to a good photograph of it, I'm afraid.

Rocks Nr Sawrey

Rocks Nr Sawrey (Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cms)

Thank heavens for the Art Club. On Thursday I found myself with a burning desire to finish off the rock study. I knew there was little to do, so I made a short visit to the Club and put in the branches, did a little glazing with some sap green, signed off on it and came home satisfied.

For most of the time I was on my own, as the boiler in the building has broken down completely and the old gadgies at the Club are feeling the chill. But there are electric heaters and it certainly felt warmer than the studios when I was at University. I'd taken along one of the Brighton cafe pictures, but realised that I need some very small brushes to finish that off. Something for next time.

2 Funerals

Life, or perhaps death, just seems to be getting in the way at the moment, so progress on the painting front is at a standstill. I went to a funeral on Tuesday where I learned I have a second one to go to next week. Although not desperately depressing, I do find this flattens out the mood and makes getting on with things difficult.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Old Drawings #51

After Rain [Charcoal, compressed charcoal on A2 (?) cartridge paper]
Private Collection

Done in 1998 or 1999, this drawing is a view of the Tyne Bridge from a curious little concrete balcony that juts out over The Side. In 1999, it led to this painting, which I sold through a gallery in Leeds. I could have sold it several times over (the Geordie diaspora?), but later I was a little dismayed to come across it online, for sale "still unwrapped". Whereabouts are now uncertain.


After Rain (Oil on canvas) Private Collection

Back at the Club

Rock Study (work in progress)

There was a powerful load of inertia built up over that Xmas and New Year break. Yesterday, although I felt I'd recovered sufficiently from my Week of Constant Coughing to detect a resurgence of interest in painting, I simply couldn't settle on anything specific.

Today I figured that the only way forward was to go to the Art Club, catch up on some gossip and simply launch into the only painting there left to work on. And this is it, now almost finished; just some branches to indicate, which I think are necessary to draw the composition together.

Old Drawings #50

Collingwood Monument (Charcoal, compressed charcoal on A4 cartridge paper)

I seem very susceptible to the kind of cold that imparts an endless hacking cough. I collected one from Tesco just over a week ago and it's been wearing me down ever since. 24 hour coughing is very debilitating, and I've had no energy to pick up any of the threads I was working on previously, or to make a start on some new projects I have in mind.

Bear with me? There are, after all, Old Drawings to keep things going. This is another from that lonely walk in 1998 from Seaton Sluice to Tynemouth that resulted in the Seaside Shelter drawing.

Revised Opinion

OK, now we've got snow! After showers of snow every day this week, the depth of snow is certainly equal to many I remember as a child. Amazingly, I've begun to hear again the rumble-rumble----thud! as snow, warmed by the afternoon sun, loosens its grip on the tiles and rolls off the roof.

And there are icicles! I'd almost forgotten how much I loved those glorious, glittering watery confections, now to be seen dangling from the eves of the house,some of them reaching almost three feet in length.

If nothing else, my inner child has been re-awakened by this winter.

Warm Thoughts from Indoors

Down in the garden, there's a blackbird valiantly pecking at the seed in an effort to get as much of it as he can before the snow covers it all up. Outside my upstairs study window, the snow is swirling and billowing, and inside the study there's me, thinking.

I sometimes wonder whether I think because I'm not painting, or I don't paint because I'm thinking. Either way, I'm thinking. What I really need to do, however, is write down what I'm thinking. There are connections being made, plans formulating and possibilities being explored, but all of this is internalised. It needs to be put on paper so that I can see where it might lead, so that's what I'll be doing for the next hour or two.

As is usual with these thinkfests of mine, there's a book driving me on. This time it's Eric Maisel's Creativity for Life, a book that pulls together some of Maisel's previously expressed views and turns them into an encouraging overview of the problems faced peculiarly by artists. There are exercises at the end of each chapter which, on a quick skim last night, suggest ways I might be able to get my act more securely together than it feels at present.

Whether or not I'd be better off painting than thinking is somewhat irrelevant. It was quite nightmarish trying to get down the backstairs to give the birds their cold weather rations; I'm not sure I fancy shuffling down again to get to the studio. Blimey. I might never get back up again until the thaw!

Speaking as someone born in the historic winter of 1947, I remember much, much worse snow than what we've got now. We really have forgotten how to deal with snow in this country, haven't we?

Medallion Man

I was delighted to read on Casey Klahn's blog, The Colorist, that he'd awarded me a medal for one of my posts. Casey has been a firm supporter of my attempts to find a way through what for me was a colour minefield and has applauded my efforts just at the time when I needed encouragement most.

His own work is outstanding and his blog a delight to read. I urge you to follow up his other recommendations and take some time to look over his blog.

Happy New Year

As Pat and I walked home last night from our New Year's Eve party, the freshly falling snow crunched underfoot. For the first time in years we're having a proper Winter and, although I'm sure I'll be moaning when the snow turns to slush and ice, I really appreciated the break from those awful grey, wet miserable Winters we've been having.

There was more snow today and for a while it was difficult to see across the Valley to the Silver Hills, but later the sky brightened and I was able to take this photograph from my study window.

I'd like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2010.

Holy Island Boat Shed

Holy Island Boat Shed (oil on canvas panel, 5 x 7 ins. Private collection)

I hope you all had a good Christmas. I certainly did and must thank Andy and Helen for giving us such a great time in Cambridge. And the Boxing Day revels with Helen's folks were much appreciated. Thanks guys!

The secret commission I spoke of a while ago can now be revealed. It was this small painting of one of the famous boat sheds on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, with the Castle in the background. I did it as a Christmas present for Andy and Helen.

It was interesting working on such a small scale again. When I first started painting, I did quite a lot of paintings on this sort of scale, especially while Northumbria Gallery were running their Small Works shows, but it's been a few years since I tackled one. Doing this one, and reflecting on the increased problem of storing large pictures in the house, has moved me further in the direction of a renewed interest in small works, I think. Hidden away, but lying dormant, is my Other Blog, Art from Tyneside, set up a year ago during a period of interest in the Daily Painters Movement. Maybe it's about time to get that project off the ground. Watch this space.

Merry Christmas!

Compliments of the Season to One and All.