Old Drawings #17

Tuxedo Princess (Charcoal and compressed charcoal on A2 cartridge paper)

The Tuxedo Princess began life as The Caledonian Princess and as such saw service on runs to Douglas, Isle of Man, and later as a Sealink ferry across the Channel. In 1982, however, she was sold for static use as a nightclub berthed on the River Tyne at Gateshead, where she was renamed Tuxedo Princess, but always known locally as "The Boat."

Sitting directly under the Tyne Bridge, she always looked out of proportion to me, or rather she made the Bridge look smaller than it actually is. There was a long-running battle with Gateshead Council, who tried to make the owners pay rates rather than a berthing fee, but a court case established that the ship was still sea-worthy and therefore eligible to pay berthing fees only.

For a few years she was taken away for a refit, and replaced by an even bigger ship, the Tuxedo Royale, now berthed, I believe, at Middlesbrough.

The club owners operated a policy of cheap drink offers and eventually, following the death of a night time reveller who fell overboard, and complaints from the police who felt they were being called out to deal with a disproportionate amount of drunken behaviour there, the Council came to an agreement with the owners that meant the end of the Princess.

On 27th July 2008, she left the Tyne.

I did this drawing in about 1993 as part of a series of work looking down from the Tyne Bridge. All the others were of buildings, and ultimately made more successful paintings. The painting derived from this drawing never really convinced and it got chopped down and reused (not unlike the Boat)

Procrastination

Something I found on Laketrees and thought I needed to post it, before I get my stuff done.

Porto Pollensa

Porto Pollensa (4B pencil, A5 sketchbook)

Back from Mallorca. At the beginning of the week, the sun was hot and bright, and we sat on the end of the marina's pier. Pat read her book and I drew this view across the bay towards the end of the town, with the hills looming behind. I thought to myself, this is a promising start, I'm sure to get more sketching done this week.

Later that week, however, the weather was more like this:



On the road to Cap Formentor (Photograph copyright Harry Bell)

Old Drawings #16

Electric Iron (Charcoal on A2 cartridge paper)

I have no idea when this was done, or indeed why, other than for the sheer pleasure of doing it. But it seemed appropriate to post it today, given that I've spent the last hour ironing clothes to take on holiday.

Pat and I are off to Mallorca tomorrow for a week in what I hope will be sunshine. It's been such a rotten summer that I felt I needed to top up my sunshine batteries before facing the long greyness of the winter.

Be good to one another and don't start any more wars while I'm gone.

Old Drawings #15

Scary Self-Portrait (Compressed charcoal on A3 cartridge paper)

I think I had plans to make a series of self-portraits, but this one frightened me so much I stopped. There was a painting done following on from this and my glare was even more scary in that. It's the one I keep in the attic ...

Early Thoughts

Spillers and the Cement Factory (Oil on board, 12 x 1 2 ins.)




A Bend in the Tyne (Oil on board, 12 x 12 ins.)

I could have sold these two pictures several times over, and since the nature of art fairs is that the buyer can take them away, I had to search through the studio for something to replace them. One that I found was this, which didn't sell but still attracted a lot of interest.



River Tyne Factory (Oil on board, 12 x 12ins.) (£250)

These were all paintings I did after a visit to an Andrew Gifford exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh in 2000. I've long been an admirer of his, in fact since I first saw his work in the studios at Newcastle University when he was doing his BA (Hons) degree (1990-94). It was his work that showed me how I might deal with the subject matter closest to my heart - townscapes. Although I'd moved on in my own way, going to see his exhibition revived an interest and, as with many good exhibitions, I came out of the show seeing "Andrew Gifford " subject matter everywhere. The following week I did these three paintings. There was one other, but it didn't survive to maturity.

Andrew has a new exhibition opening next month at John Martin of London, showing some huge new paintings of Istanbul, a city I love. The work looks great on the gallery website, but I'd really like to get to see the paintings themselves.

Anyway, I think I may be entering another neo-Gifford phase, but who can say. At the moment I'm in a state of calm with no need to get any painting done and plenty of time to clear up the mass of paperwork that always collects when I'm fully in right brain mode.

After the Fair

By the end of the Art Fair, I'd sold nine paintings. The task for me now, in the weeks ahead, is to consider what I might learn from how the Fair went and what conclusions might be drawn from what was sold. There was also a lot of very valuable feedback from people I spoke to who, although they didn't buy anything, talked about the work and indicated what it was they liked.

Some interesting facts: with one exception, all the paintings were sold in twos. Several of the buyers said that they thought they were reasonably priced, one that they were underpriced, and this might mean that I could have sold them one painting at twice the price. But I don't think this is necessarily the case: there's an obvious attraction about a pair of small paintings.

Again, with only two exceptions, all of the work that sold was nicely framed. Although I know there's a market for gallery wrap canvases (and that's what the two unframed ones were), I think many people who buy want something that will look good on the wall straight away. I overheard a couple of people buying from a fellow Figure 8 artist, asking him whether they should get it framed. I think unframed gallery wrap may unsettle some people.

Would I do it again? I had terrible misgivings about the whole thing before it started, but as I got into the swing of it, I really began to enjoy myself. It involves a lot of tiring standing about, excitement followed by disappointment as punters arrive, pause to look, then wander off. But that's more than made up for by the chance to engage visitors in conversation about the work, and it surprised me how much they evidently like doing that.

So overall, if the cost of hiring the stand was affordable, I guess the answer is yes, I'd do it again.

Art Fair So Far

This is a photograph taken on a friend's mobile phone at the Art Fair VIP Preview on Thursday night. That's me clutching a glass and engaging a couple in a bid to sell them something. It worked, in fact, and despite my early misgivings, the Fair has proven a great success for me. I've sold seven paintings so far, with a day to go.

So no time for more writing, that day is ahead of me. Back again soon.

Old Drawings #14

Part of Western Bypass (Charcoal on cartridge paper, 7 x 23 ins.)

An odd drawing. In 1993/4 I was beginning to paint a series of pictures based on Gateshead's Western Bypass, which I could see from the window of my Mum's flat at Allerdene. This is, I think, the only surviving drawing from that work.

Setting Up

We set up the Figure 8 Stand today, ready for the NewcastleGateshead VIP Preview Evening tomorrow. Considering we knew nothing of what would be expected of us, and having received no advice from anyone at home or in the blogosphere, I think we acquitted ourselves pretty well.

To give credit where due, I have to say that we'd have taken hours longer than we did, were it not for Mo's Mr Grumpy. He's a wizard with the spirit level, pencil and electric drill. By the time we left, shortly before the 6 o'clock close, there were people who'd been there all day and had barely got past the fixing on mirror plates stage.

Here are two photographs of how our stand looks. My pictures (in the first photograph) are the set after the right angle.





I have to be there early again tomorrow. The Art Fair Police will be coming round to inspect the stand and make sure our modest table doesn't intrude beyond our allocated space, then once we have their blessing, the place will be thrown open to the Press, about whom I intend to remain mute, in the hope that I might get some more publicity (I got one of my paintings shown in the Art Fair supplement in today's Journal).

If you're around, do try to look in on us at Stand N2, in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall at The Sage, Gateshead. I'll be there most times on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Opening times are:

Friday 12th September 11am-6pm
Saturday 13th September 11am-5pm
Sunday 14th September 11am-5pm

Come in Forty Seven ...

Come in No.47 (wax crayon on computer printout, 15 x 21 cms)

During the week, Ian Craig announced an open fun project, the idea being to take a template of drawn black lines and make a composition using those lines. I missed last night's deadline, but have sent it to him anyway and I understand he'll be showing them all in due course.

The number of entries was limited to 47, hence the title, and his stipulation was that the picture should be completed in about 47 minutes, without too much forethought.

I dug out my box of Reeves 8 Assorted Colours Extra Large Non-Smudge Crayons and my box of 24 Guitar Special Artist's Crayons, "especially made for tropical use" (with the price , 24p, still on, which shows how long ago I bought them), and set to. This is the result.

Later: Ian has now posted all 47 images as a video here.

Almost Done

High Level Bridge (work in progress) (Private Collection)

Another few hours at the Art Club today with this little picture. There's not a lot more to do to it, just a few chimney pots and a bit touch-up here and there in the background. I was hoping to get this one done in time for the Art Fair and it looks like I'll be successful in that.

If everything I plan to do for the Art Fair goes as well as this, I'll be a happy man, but I already have to make an urgent visit to the dentist tomorrow to replace a filling, so I think it wise not to count my chickens just yet.

Memories (slight return)

Toy Aeroplane (watercolour on paper)

By the time I'd finished my drawing at Le Merlet, it was still raining heavily.

Never keen to do anything with my watercolour box, I nevertheless got it out and made this little watercolour painting of a child's toy. Too much water, not enough pigment, as usual.

Memories

Le Merlet (Pentel mechanical pencil, A5 sketchbook)

This is for Illustration Friday's brief, Memories.

In June 1992 I went on a walking holiday in the Cevennes. The previous year I'd been walking in the Tarn and the Pyrenees and had enjoyed it so much, I was looking forward to doing it again.

When we got there, it had been raining for 18 days straight and it never stopped longer than an hour or two the whole time we were there. One of the stops was at the farmhouse at Le Merlet, where we should have been able to rest up and take a gentle stroll round the area, before setting off again the next day. The rain made it impossible, or at least too uncomfortable to leave the farm, and since it was supposed to be Summer, there was no heating and it was terribly cold.

To console myself I took out my sketchbook and spent an hour or so escaping into wherever it is I go when I'm drawing. The lack of anything much outside the window is due entirely to the rain.

Still Life with Botticelli

Still Life with Botticelli (Oil on canvas, 15 x 12 ins.)

I'm still hoping to hear from some of you with tips on how to approach the upcoming NewcastleGateshead Art Fair. Meanwhile, I'm working on the principle that the best use of my two linear metres of space will be to show small works, so I'm sorting through my stock to see what might fit the bill.

Last night I decided to do something with this picture. It's been with me for a year or two, but was much bigger and had a landscape in the background. I know what I wanted it to do, but it never quite came off. In the studio I found another, smaller picture which definitely hadn't worked out, so I stripped off the canvas, cut down the Aphrodite picture to the elements I liked, and re stretched it onto the smaller stretcher.

I think I like the result. What about you?

Old Drawings #14

Still Life with Lemon (Charcoal on cartridge paper, 15 x 17 ins.)

I don't have a date for this one, but it must have been round about 1991, I think. I was trying out some still life set-ups in a cardboard box and this was a study I did before making the painting. The painting was shown in one of the first exhibitions I entered and to my great surprise and delight it sold. I remember at the time being very much under the influence of David Leffel .

Back on the Bridge

High Level Bridge (work in progress)

Back at the Club today, I decided not to take up the painting of The Gate again. Having tried to get an angle on the building twice now, and finding the result not to my taste, I think I'll write it off for now. Maybe I'm just not a painter of modern buildings

Instead, I spent a happy couple of hours getting this little picture under way. It's a view from the Newcastle end of the Tyne Bridge, looking towards the High Level Bridge with Gateshead beyond, and one of the buildings that cluster underneath the Bridge in the foreground.

I've done a lot of paintings from the Tyne Bridge in my time, but it must be a good ten years since I last did one. Recently I went onto the Bridge to take some reference photographs for a commission for Mrs Sums and while waiting for her to walk over from the Gateshead end, I took one or two other photographs. This painting is based on one of them. It's interesting, to me at least, to see how much my palette has changed over the years. This one, for instance, is one of the earlier series from 1993, A View from the Bridge:

View from the Bridge - The Black Chimney (Oil on board, private collection)

Newcastle-Gateshead Art Fair

The next, and probably final, Figure 8 project of the year will be the NewcastleGateshead Art Fair next month. And despite the fact that it only takes up three days, it's been excercising our minds considerably.

The problem is that we don't know what to expect. We have good experience of gallery exhibitions, but an Art Fair is something new to us. I think it's a fact that none of us has ever even been to one. We're treating it as something of an experiment, just to see how it works, with no great expectation of sales. However, should we find ourselves in the happy position of people falling over themselves to buy our work, we have definite problems. We have no credit card facilities and the organisers aren't providing any, so we'll be reliant on punters with wads of cash or carrying cheque books, and who carries a cheque book these days?

I know that at least some of you out there in the blogosphere have experience of art fairs. If you'd care to share the benefit of that experience with tips, caveats and general advice, I'd be very grateful. If you'd rather email me than try to get it into the Comments, you can do so at harrybellartist at gmail dot com. You'll be doing me a big favour. Thanks.

Words of Praise

We took down the Colourworks exhibition yesterday, or at least the Caretaker and his mate did that, and wrapped all of the pictures. We just loaded them in the cars and took them home. The Curator was pleased with the response she'd had from visitors and suggested we show there again, albeit in about four or five years. This seems to be the expected timetable for repeat performances at municipal galleries.

She also gave us each copies of the comments from the gallery's Comments Book and I've enjoyed reading through them today. Unusually, there were none of the irrelevancies, like the one at another gallery: "There should be a toilet on the first floor." Indeed, apart from one comment about the alleged high prices (we've had that one before), and another that suggested it "could've been better," they were all very positive. You'll pardon me if I massage our collective ego by picking out some of the best:

Most exciting exhibition I've seen in a while. Brilliant.

Strong stuff! Wonderful. Thank you.

Keep working together; it''s produced cracking art.

Texture, colour and feeling, exactly what I like in my paintings!!

Very enjoyable. Something for all tastes. Cheered up a rainy day.

Well worth the trip from Lancashire! Diverse & exciting!

Ya knaa Missus! There's a lorra talent roond them Dales, like. Ding-Dong Harry Bell, gannin' doon the underpass wi' yella mack. Venetian ice-cream wi' Maureen Stephenson. Whee's gannin' plodgin' in Cauldron Snout. And starry nights to fall in love wi' some bonny lass by Frank Briffa. Missus! Ah likes them ALL. Keep up the good work. It brings joy to the likes of me.

Thanks - Good to see some committed genuine work - the prices are not high - lots of graft and skill.

I really enjoyed this exhibition. Very high standard - quality paintings. It seems to have been put together very thoughtfully - abstracts work well alongside the landscapes. Reassuring that this gallery can put on such a quality show.

Gate to Bollywood

The Gate (work in progress)

It's a couple of weeks since I put in an appearance at the Art Club, what with the trip to Cambridge and other distractions. When I do go there, it's usually to find most of the regulars have either left or are packing up. In a way, this is the pattern of my life: I think I live in a different time frame from everyone else, slightly out of phase.

Anyway, I was in for a surprise yesterday. The place was heaving. Admittedly heaving with people getting ready to go home, but the point was that they were new people. The Club has been leafleting various venues round the area and it seems to be paying off. This is excellent news, because the membership is aging and we need new blood to ensure the Club continues.

After a round of introductions and a catch-up chat with the Grumbler, I made an effort to get this picture of The gate moving. I'm really not sure about it. At one point towards the end of the session, I'd almost made up my mind to scrap it, but I think I'll carry on a little longer.

On the way out, the Grumbler and I had to step aside to allow an Asian film crew to carry in a load of camera and recording equipment. Many of the offices in the building are empty at the moment and the owners are struggling to find occupants. It might be rather nice to have Bollywood as our neighbours!

The Pulse

As I mentioned recently, I took part in Seth Apter's The Pulse, "a project designed to bring together the online artistic community, introduce you to new artists, and help you get to know some familiar ones better."

Seth has just begun to show the answers that 95 artists gave to the seven questions posed by him. It's already shaping up to be a fascinating read. Why not give him a visit at The Altered Page?

Broken Benches

Broken Benches (Oil on board, 13 x 13 ins.) (Private Collection)

I've been combing my boxes of photographs recently to find and record pictures of paintings which have sold. This one was sold in a solo show I had at the Gallagher & Turner Gallery in 2000 in Newcastle. Ostensibly, the show was an exhibition of images from a holiday in Cyprus, but I threw this one in because it fitted the overall look of the show. It's actually based on a sketch I did in Nafplio in Greece in 1994:





Broken Benches, Nafplio (Watercolour and pastel, A5 sketchbook)

The painting was originally the same format as the sketch, but I cut it down to a square because I felt it focused more on the benches that way. For me, it's still an example of how unpromising material can produce an interesting painting.

Open the Box

Yesterday proved very productive. We've been in correspondence with the Red Box Gallery in Newcastle for a short while, and yesterday Mo and I went to see the curator there. We met with a very enthusiastic response and I'm delighted to say that Figure 8's first confirmed show in 2009 will be in September at Red Box!

This is quite a triumph. Red Box is a very prestigious gallery with a knowledgeable and affluent clientele. We'll be the first group to mount a show there (with one exception of a family of artists, they've always shown solo artists) and the curator is very excited at the prospect. As am I.

Now to get some work done.

Old Drawings #12 & #13

Snooker Table (Charcoal on cartridge paper, 16 x 8 ins)

I moved into my current house in 1991 because it had a large basement room, nearly 26 feet in length. By then I'd been with the Open College of the Arts (OCA) for two years and was painting seriously (no drawings seem to have survived from that period), so I was looking for good studio space.

When I moved into the house, the basement had a full sized snooker table in it, which the previous owners had inherited from the people they bought the house from and which they didn't want. I wasn't interested in snooker and billiards, but for a while I kept the table for visiting friends, and tried painting round it.

One of the projects in Year 3 of the OCA course, was to "Make a Painting in the Style of ...". I chose Georges Braque a) because I like him, and b) possibly because he had made paintings of billiard tables. After drawing some pastel copies of a few of his paintings (I remember noting how wobbly his lines were), I set up a still life on the snooker table and made the drawing above.

The next step was to make a colour sketch, so, ever the one for cutting corners, I photocopied the drawing and worked over it with pastel:



Snooker table (Pastel over photocopied drawing, 16 x 8 ins)

Finally, the painting, which still hangs on my living room wall:



Still Life with Snooker Table and Mandolin (Oil on board, 28 x 14 ins.)

Return to Cambridge

I wish I could have been here to insert my two penn'orth as the interesting debate continued in the Comments on Truth, but I'll get to it as soon as I can.

I was away in Cambridge at the time. Pat and I spent a few days there with her son Andy and his partner. The weather was much like the last time we went, at least at the beginning, but later it cleared up sufficiently for us to get around and see the town.

The highlight was undoubtedly our visit to the house at Kettle's Yard. It was an absolute delight, beginning with the little old ladies who shepherded us in and explained the rules, their quirky cloakroom arrangements involving clothes pegs and little squares of paper with numbers written in biro. I know I wasn't the first to think, "When can I move in?" because one of the ladies said so. The place has a completely lived-in feel with arrangements of stones and bowls of feathers, lino cuts by Ben Nicholson standing on the floor, Gaudier-Brzeska sculptures everywhere, Winifred Nicholson and Alfred Wallis on the walls, art just everywhere! I could have spent hours in the library alone. Another visit must be arranged, I can see.

And several more visits will be needed to get to grips with the Fitzwilliam Museum. I particularly wanted to see the temporary exhibition of Christopher Le Brun's suite of Fifty Etchings 2005 and I wasn't disappointed. Thought-provoking and hugely imaginative.

Close by was a room containing The Arts of the 20th Century. A huge Alan Davie dominates one wall and opposite is a wonderfully dramatic painting in four panels by Keith Grant, Volcano and White Bird. (1974-75). In addition there's almost a whole wall of lovely small pictures by Nicholas de Staël.

While I was taking it all in, a group of French students came in and their tutor kept them standing in front of the only French painting there, while he rattled on at length. It was a Soulages and for my money the least interesting picture there, but it was French.

But the Fitzwilliam Collection is huge and I had no more time. There's never enough time.

We did find the time to have some good meals there, not least the excellent Thai pork curry Andy made using chillies and other produce grown on the balcony of his flat. I do think he might have made the effort to raise the pork there, too, though.. Bit slapdash really. But he made up for it later by treating us to dinner at the Back Street Bistro, a cheerful little place with really great food.

On Monday, before catching the train home, we spent the day with True Rat and his wife, who lured us into The Free Press, the kind of pub that's so rare these days, at least in the North East. Untouched by modern trends, it bans music and mobile phones and serves a fantastic home made steak and ale pie (or if you're Pat, conger eel and samphire).

Afterwards, we took too long over our visit to the King's College Chapel and wandering the streets, so we were forced to make a sprint for the train home. We had to catch a train to Peterborough to make our Newcastle connection, and got there with four minutes to spare. I think we could have made it, but the jobsworth on the ticket desk had other plans. He confirmed it hadn't gone yet, then insisted on seeing our Senior Rail Cards. Then asked to see Pat's again, after she'd put it away.. I thought I detected a smirk when he said, "Oh, it's gone off the screen now. You must have missed it."

On a long shot we caught a train to Ely then another to Peterborough, but the Newcastle train had gone. This left us faced with buying fresh tickets at over a hundred pounds. Pat must have looked pitiful as she recounted our story to the man on the ticket desk at Peterborough, because after a moment's consideration, he charged us nothing and endorsed our old tickets to allow us to travel to Newcastle on the next train. What a nice man. And how annoyed I'd have been to have had to pay the full whack when no one checked the tickets on the entire trip to Newcastle.

Sail

(Crayon on cartridge paper)

This is for Illustration Friday's brief, "Sail."

It's a bit of a cheat, really, , because it's actually a picture of a beach windbreak, and belongs in the Old Drawings series. It's something I did while at University as a study for a painting which included a figure. Didn't work out.

Truth

In the Comments on New & Old, there's a point been raised that I think is worthy of further discussion here.

Anna said... "I liked the old sky rather a lot, in fact I liked the literal record of that scene. You're interpreting it with your current eye. Is this a pity? Both are good work but the first is true."

But how true is it? I originally painted the picture in my studio at home, using photographs I'd taken on a weekend's visit to Catterline. In 2005, I'd been invited to put on a solo show in the Creel Inn at Catterline and it seemed only fair to include a painting of the Inn. But as the sky in the photograph I had was fairly nondescript, I used another photograph taken on the same day, but just over the hill from the Inn.

Maybe it was the knowledge that the two didn't actually marry up that preyed on my feeling for the picture, but I never accepted that it worked properly. Last year, possibly in a fit of frustration, I simply painted out the sky and put it to one side.

There's a wildness to the landscape round Catterline that I think is conveyed better in the new version, so it's interesting that ian gordon should say:

"I think anna's comment raises an interesting point; the artist's dilemma: When is something truly finished?But I find the latest version "truer", in as much as I get the sensation of being there. I think the sense of depth is much stronger now than before."

For me, despite my being removed from the scene by many miles and quite some time, I believe I've captured a "truer" picture of how I felt and what impression the area had on me. But truth in this sense is, of course, completely subjective. The photograph from which I worked is no nearer the truth than either of the paintings, but I think I've come closer to a personal truth than previously. And in the end, personal truth is all I can reasonably strive for.

Poof!

(Fibretip, digital colour)

This week's Illustration Friday brief is "Poof!"

New & Old

The Gate (work in progress)

I feel like I'm struggling with this one, but I recognise there's been some progress today. Much of the colour has undergone subtle transformation, and the foreground is starting to emerge as cars and people. I'll keep at it until I make it how I think I want it to be (or until it tells me it's reached the stage of being how it wants to be!)

I painted this picture a few years ago but was always a little unhappy with how it turned out. I felt it had become too literal and a bit ... dull. I took it out of its frame, did some extra work on the landscape and painted out the sky. And there it stayed, incomplete, until today.

I painted the sky using a painting knife and the paint left over from working on The Gate, and touched up the landscape a little more. It strikes me at the moment as being overly busy, but that impression might fade in the next few days. Whether it does or not, I like the new version better. (As usual, my monitor is emphasising the reds in the picture; if yours does the same, please make allowances for that).




The Creel Inn, Catterline (Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 ins.)

Too Much Colour?

The Gate (work in progress)

Because of a plumbing problem at home, I had little time to spend at the Club yesterday, but what time there was allowed me to reconsider this little picture I'd started last time I was there. In the intervening days I'd decided I didn't like it and intended to paint over it. Now that I've got it home again, I'm not so sure. I think I'll give it a little more work and see how it pans out. I suspect that what's troubling me, tonal painter that I am, is the full colour palette. Maybe it's a bit too Albert Irvin for my liking. Much as I like Albert Irvin, I don't think he's really me, or more exactly, that I'll ever really be him.

I'll start by toning down the magenta sky, I think (it's a lot stronger than the photograph suggest).

But I won't be able to start on it again today. I heard by letter that my picture in the People Show sold at the Gala evening last night, and as the show opens to the public today, I'm off to have a look at it with The Architect, who also has a picture in the show.

Later, we're meeting up with his wife, Mrs Sums, who wants me to consider a commission, so she's going to show me what it is she's interested in.