Sailing Down The Clyde

Following my Grand Day Out I managed to have a couple of Grand Days In! The results of which are these two yachting images (among other stuff):

Acrylics on primed hardboard, 42.5x61cm: "Spinnacker 1"; During our ferry crossing from Wemyss Bay over to Rothesay on Saturday we passed this lone sailor far out in the Firth scudding along to a merry hornpipe. How much I wished I was him with the wind in my sails and only dolphins for company...or so I would have it but then along comes another one chasing my rudder and trying to beat me into port. The race is on:

Acrylics on primed hardboard, 61x41cm: "Spinnacker 2"; This yacht has bright bands of colour on his spinnacker sail and a mean look as though nothing will get in his way and he intends to win this race come hell or high water!

Painted over two days both of these images were developed from distant photographic views, the smell of salt water in my nostrils, and the wind blowing through my ears because it can't blow through my hair any more as I don't have any!

You know it's funny, when I write the word 'yacht' it still takes me right back to my primary school days when I was learning to spell. We had just spelled this word pronounced as 'yawt' and were asked for any other boats or ships. I had my hand up in a flash offering another sailing vessel called a 'yach-t'! Ho ho ho what a tit! I've never changed. Still hopless at spelling. Thank goodness to Google. Where would I be without it!

A Grand Day Out

There are some compensations to turning 60 - it's not all greying hair and teeth falling out, failing eyesight and getting measured for a zimmer frame (don't be cheeky - in my case it's only the grey hair!) here in Scotland we "Senoir Citizens" also get free bus travel and cheap-rate rail fares. With that in mind we were up with the larks yesterday and setting off for a trip "Doon The Watter", which is a term we use in Glasgow for going on a ferry trip across the Firth of Clyde to either Dunoon or Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. These two destinations were extremely popular around the turn of the 20th century up until about the 1960's when the advent of cheap air travel to Spain and the Balearic Islands turned these resorts into sad decline. Rothesay is, however, still a favourite place for us to visit. We went there on our honeymoon in 1971, and have been going back every year since. This is a view from the ferry top deck overlooking the tiny marina towards the town frontage:

After walking around the town to re-aquaint ourselves with our favourite haunts we headed out along the shore towards Bogany Point at the entrance to Rothesay Bay. It was out there that I came across this small boathouse jutting out from a cleft in the rocks and surrounded by gorse bushes and trees:
Pencil in Moleskine sketchbook, 19x14cm: Starting with some tentative marks testing my mood for drawing, I quickly realise I'm feeling bullish and get steamed in! Moleskines, however, have a life of their own - so here's my "Tip of the Day": Instead of just opening the sketchbook and starting to draw it's a good idea first to wrap the the elasticated band around the end of the book or it will conjure an escape from your hands and concertina out till it lands at your feet! Right, that bad boy goes back in the bag and out comes a spiral-bound ingress sketchbook and my box of pastels. Time for colour:

Pastels on Ingres paper, 30x25cm: "Boathouse"; Apart from the eminently suitability of the subject for pastelling I was attracted by the colouring with it's slated grey tiled roof, those painted blue slatted gates, and the corner of a bright orange plastic upturned boat.

We continued on our walk over Canada Hill and back down into the town where we slaked our thirst with cold pints of beer and dinner in a small family-run restaurant which offered us an excellent fish pie made entirely from local catches. Then it was back on the last ferry and heading home tired but happy. This shot was taken as we gently sailed back across the Firth with the sun going down over Toward Point and the hills of Bute Island:

It was unusual for the water to be as calm as this and the scene reminded me of a song my father used to sing by Robert Wilson, which goes like this:

"At hush of eventide/ O'er the hills beyond the Clyde/ I go roaming to my haven/ Down in the glen".

The words and music were by Harry Gordon & Tommy Connor, and was typical tartan Scottish pap, but I loved it. Still do. You should hear me sing it after a few - I can bring the house down. Literally!

Then it was onto the train and heading back to Glasgow as darkness deepened. This lady with extraordinary straight white hair sat in the seat in front and to the right of me occassionally turning to speak to her companion, so this sketch was made over about a half-hour period from momentary glimpses as she turned to her left to speak:

With her severely cut bob haircut and dark set eyes she looked striking but a bit fearsome too!

Gladioli

This blog's in severe danger of becoming a weather report! Yet another dreich day in the West of Scotland with heavy downpours all afternoon. The rain batters off the flat roof of my studio so hard and loud you'd think it was going to come right in and wash everything out into the street and down the nearest stank! (Scots for rainwater sewer). So I think I'll use watercolours to stay with the day's wet and watery theme.

The other week when my double-glazing fitters arrived I chopped down some gladioli which were planted right under the front window before they were trampled into the ground as I knew they would be. I kept them in a vase for over a week and each time I looked at them said: "I really must draw/paint these before they fade". But never quite got to them. My wife was asking me for days if she could throw them out yet since they were totally wilted and sad. I gave in at the weekend recognising the opportunity was gone. However, the idea was firmly planted in my head and yesterday when I was up at the supermarket I picked up these two bunches reduced in price to £1.50 ($3) each. It was only when I got home that I saw from the recipt that the checkout boy had only charged me for one bunch. I thought he looked a bit dozy that morning!

Watercolour on paper, 56x76cm: "Red Gladioli"; Started with watersoluable colour pencils on a full imperial sheet of not paper. This is the first time I have painted in this way on a full-sized sheet feeling that I needed a bit of elbow movement to capture these long spikes.

Watercolour on paper, 56x76cm: "Yellow Gladioli"; Same process as the last since I felt in the mood!

Right now I'm off to Flickr to post these as "Gladioli for Dame Edna"!

Peruvian Trumpets

Tomorrow I will be getting my whole house re-fitted with new double glazing as part of a wider strategy to combat outrageously high (and rising) energy prices. Next month I will also have my decrepit, totally inefficient, boiler replaced with a new Grade A fuel efficient combi-boiler, again to allay some of these costs (and make the house cosier). And so today I have a million-zillion things to do in preparation for the contractor's early start tomorrow morning. But I can't put myself anywhere and I certainly can't think about creating artwork. This is typical of me - The Eternal Procrastinator: I would rather do other more interesting things than what I am supposed to. So this afternoon I have been visiting some other friendly bloggers to see what they have been up to and as promised to Melinda I have posted this sketch of a Peruvian plant called 'Datura sanguinea' to compliment the sketch she has recently posted: TobaccoSphinxandDatura:
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 2xA4: "Blazing Trumpets"; Made direct from life while sitting sketching in our local country park conservatory with maw, paw, and a' the weans looking over my shoulder watching me! You will note that this plant is not a native of Scotland and therefore could'nae last ten minutes outside, even at the height of summer on a good day. 40degrees indeed!

Crocosmia

The Shasta Daisies are long gone now - cut to the ground and consigned to the compost bin. The one thing I'll do differently next year is to give them some support as they grow so tall strong winds just blow them over. Not so these Crocosmia. They are much stiffer and spikey and can put up with the gale force winds we have had recently. As well as the torrential rain. These bright beauties can handle just about anything Mother Nature throws at them and they still stand there beaming. And the bees just love them too. A lovely warm and sunny afternoon brings me out into the garden again for another painting session starting with a sketch drawing to help me feel my way into the subject:

Neocolour II on paper, A4: "Crocosmia"; Without preliminaries I dive straight in with these water-soluable pastels dancing my way across the paper trying to capture the flowers orange and scarlet exhuberance with the long green spearlike leaves pointing towards them as though they might have been missed! With some touches of water to blend the colours a bit smoother I am finished with the sketch and looking to move on to a larger painting. I feel a surge of confidence and decide I will paint with acrylics to keep it clean and fresh:

Mixed Media on board, 46x61cm: "Crocosmia Clump"; After making initial marks to place the flower racemes with yellow, orange and scarlet Neocolour pastels on the primed hardboard I work in and around them with cerulean mixed with white very fluidly to try to make the image lively. Where the wet acrylics touches the Neocolours they blend and run into each other blurring the edges and running in a way that satisfies a sense of playfulness. So much so I start another one to see if I can do it again:

Mixed Media on plywood, 39x61cm: "Crocosmia Again"; Now I'm having fun! I recently bought some thin sheets of plywood (6mm) cut them to various sizes and primed them with gesso. They have been lying around the studio waiting for a moment like this. And I love the open texture of the plywood surface as the acrylic paint soaks right into it. Repeating the process as the first one I am enjoying the action as I stand in the warm sunshine painting 'en plein air'. In fact here's the garden set up:

You will notice how large the clump of Crocosmia is, and there are a few others like this in different parts of the garden. Next you will notice the great lump of concrete holding my easle in place. Strong gusts of wind were just about lifting it (and me) off the ground with the painting acting like a sail! The strong sunlight is bouncing off my two tin plate palettes which is a pity because they are works of art in their own right with all that brightly coloured acrylic paint. Finally you might just notice the glazed door to my studio top right. I put that door in especially so I could look out on cold winter days and dream of painting outside in the summer. And here I am doing it!

Crashing and Burning!

Oils on board: "Green Man Falling"; Strange - you get an image in your head and nothing will shift it until you exorcise it in paint.

Sfumato Peonies

I was reading this book about painting 'sfumato' and thought: "Hey, I must try that!"

Oils on plywood board, 61x40cm: "Sfumato Peonies"; Anything Italian interests me (wine, food, fashion and car design, politics, history [especially Rome], love, lifestyle, coffee, women) and this method of painting by brushing over the painted image with a dry brush to create this kind of "smokey" atmosphere seemed like a good idea at the time. Personally I feel that the original bold image I had painted was lost. Still it was an interesting exercise to do. I will probably re-work this painting to re-establish the stronger dynamics I prefer.