Sunshine and Open Studio

Photos on here have been sparse recently but too many grey days have not thwarted my creative endeavours, just changed the activities to suit the light. When painting, I use an ordinary high wattage, low energy (if that makes sense) light bulb plus a similar thing in a 'Daylight' bulb. The two together seem to make the right light.

I've created a focal point for the winter months and have started advertising a Special Open Studio event on Sunday 21st February, 10am - 6pm when people can drop in any time and see my work and hopefully buy something.

I've been preparing Giclee prints of some of my larger pictures so that they are smaller and can be framed in the conventional way to match customers' existing collections of pictures on their walls. I've got many pastel drawings/paintings (never know which to call them) and have even started doing some small canvas wall-plaques which are very lightweight and hang like a tapestry from a piece of bamboo.

Today we have brilliant sunshine, blue skies and blinding white snow underfoot, again! I might try taking some photos of my pictures but there could be too much light with glare and reflection. The challenges for an artist are never-ending.

Sketching ideas and resisting realism

I do love walking in the countryside and along the coast, and I take many photos along the way and sketch the feel of some of the places from memory and imagination afterwards - sometimes straight after, sometimes months afterwards. It's the feel of the place that is important in my paintings and I don't really want to create a pristine replica of what I saw and what everybody else can see (if only they'd walk too).

We were given a Digital Photo Frame for Christmas and it sits quietly in the lounge flicking through photos that are far more interesting than what's on telly. So here's an idea - and it can be adapted for use with an ordinary 'slide show' on a computer. Set the slides to change every ten seconds or maybe 15, whatever suits you, and sit with your smallest sketchpad and a soft pencil, making rapid drawings of the compositions that appeal to you or which most stand out.

If you have the slides on a continual repeat then you can return to any drawings that need a bit of a reminder about colour or composition. For the above painting (at the underpainting stage shown above) I had written notes on the drawing to remind myself of the sharp contrast between sky and trees, and the importance of the angles of the fence posts in the foreground.

You'll soon see the finished painting on Affordable British Art : I think it will be called 'Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles', after a poem by W.H Auden.

The rapid-fire drawings mean that you produce lots and it really loosens you up so that realism is outweighed by the feeling in the scene.

Skye Bridge, Expressionist Style

This picture gave me a lot of trouble and I have changed it now; but there are some elements that I have lost and which I need to restore! The trouble with having lots of ideas and working on them all at different times within a few days is that you begin to lose vision on the main aim in a piece of work. The focus in this one got lost (it looks better here than it does since I've worked on it) so now I know where I'm going with it and will hopefully put it right.
 

Life is Moving On

I've done several paintings and drawings since my last post but haven't had time to put them on the blog...

However, I've taken some photos and if - big IF - my computer machinery obliges then you'll soon see what I've been up to whilst the world outside froze.

Meanwhile, it would be most helpful if anyone reading this would click on the following link and sign a petition for an arts centre and green gardens in central Aberdeen, where rich businessmen with more money than artistic merit and sensitivity are bidding to build concrete money-making monstrosities that seem to take away all signs of greenery and mature trees. Please help! Online petition - Save the new Contemporary Art Centre in Union Terrace Gardens