Firth of Clyde

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside,
Oh, I do like to be beside the sea....

Today found me with an hour to spend while I waited on my darling wife coming home on the ferry from her week's sojourn on Arran. The island was hardly discernable across the firth with dark clouds and mist and the sea between a brilliant shade of blue/purple and green:

Ink in small sketchbook, A6x2.

The tide was rapidly coming in and a strong breeze blowing: I found it exhilarating.

I also find rock-pools fascinating:

Ink and spit in small sketchbook, A6.

I can sea whole different worlds and great abstract shapes. Didn't find any crabs or whelks, or shrimps this time but I know they are lurking there waiting for high tide to liberate them.

Lay-zee Boy

I took a few sketchpads and sketchbooks on holiday with me to Puerto Pollensa at the beginning of October along with watercolours, pastels and various other drawing implements, and apart from one day on the beach the only other time I pulled my little A6 sketchbook out was whiling the afternoon away at Club Pollenca cafe where I could order a constant stream of coffees and watch all the people - holiday-makers and locals - pass by.

Here's the first five:

Pencil in sketchbook, A6. #1

Pencil in sketchbook, A6. #2

Pencil in sketchbook, A6. #3

Pencil in sketchbook, A6. #4

Pencil in sketchbook, A6. #5

Each one is often jotted down after having only the merest glimpse, for example the little girl on her daddy's shoulders was "snapped" in my mind's eye when he stopped very briefly to read the menu outside the restaurant.

Don't these people realise they are being captured for posterity?

No wonder I have trouble sleeping at night!

Grace Hartigan

I'm not sure where the original idea sprung from but I found myself searching out the work of Grace Hartigan, one of the American Abstract Expressionists...but with a difference. Mostly her work is based on figures and some more abstract than others.

Grace apparently spent a lot of time searching for figurative and abstract meaning in her "inner" and "outer" world. This has great resonance for me:

"Mott Street", Oils on canvas, 198x182cm.

Another painting, "The Massacre" painted in 1952 also resonates strongly with me:



It reminds me of a much smaller acrylic painting I made in 2002 which I called "Spot The Ball":

Acrylics on board, 30x40cm.

But, while I am currently researching the work of Hartigan the real joy behind this blog was when I Googled her name and came up with a whole bunch of Graces' paintings I was also surprised and thrilled to find a link to Melinda's "Shamans" included (albeit on page 15!). But why should I be so surprised for what Melinda has created is as good as anything Grace has done.

Amen.

Still Clinging On

I'm like a mountain-climber taking on the North Face of the Eiger, alone and without crampons or a safety rope, clawing my way up the ice-bound faces by my fingernails (sends a shivver down yer spine!!!) knowing there is a point when I CAN claim the top is mine but cannot see it through the shrouding mist and wind-blown snow, exhausted but still clinging on, talking to myself (and getting quite coherent answers back), telling myself "I can do this", but always fearful I will lose my footing and plumet to the depths (been there alreadys), lacking oxygen and only a cheeky little shiraz to keep me going, urged on by many ethereal voices (some telling me they have the exact spanner size I'm looking for), when a shaft of light breaks forth and with frost encrusted nasal hairs I find the strength to....More Next Week.

In the meantime I am back my holidays, had a week recovering from 10hour delayed flights (never going abroad again) and a bout of the flu (which I still haven't recovered from yet and tomorrow I'm flying solo for the first time with wee Harry since his Nanna has deserted me yet again for another holiday with her sister on Arran [so watch out pottery]...I'm sure Harry will survive, but will I?)

Back to the North Face: It's within my grasp, but still it eludes me...I'm almost there (I can feel it) but it requires a supreme effort.

I know I am getting closer:

Mixed Media on board, 42x61cm.

Half close your eyes and hopefully you will see what I mean.

Subconscious Musing

I've been doing this kind of thing for many years now but only recently have I made it a regular, daily, happening, and also dramatically changed the scale at which I am musing on. Previously it was always small "thumbnails" but, inspired by the daily emaki studies of Mayako Nakamura, a young, gifted student from Tokyo, in Japan, I have taken to make my own musings A1 size. This allows much more scope for the experience and memory inherent in the blood and bones and muscles of my arm to come into play.

The idea is, instead of launching into trying to paint the usual visual reality straightaway when entering the studio, I try to give expression to the other, unseen, reality first. Loosens up the arm and gets me thinking about abstract elements before I give them figurative descriptions:

Acrylics and black Neocolour pastel on paper, A1.

When I take my musing as far as I can at the time I then stand back and can often see the potential for solidifying these feelings into something more tangible and what arises is a painting like this:

Mixed Media on primed board, 42x61cm.

It may be a "road less travelled" but I know there is a road ahead somewhere along this grassy path, and where it leads is the adventure of my life.

Back to the Future

Well here I am living in my bedouin tent somewhere in the wilderness of Western Sahara smokin' my hookah and trying to find the Meaning of Life and where my rounded edges fit with the square holes I have dug for myself, raising goats and milking camels, and fending off dark eyed beauties, and when I have time a little drawing and painting to while away the weary hours between sun-up and sunset. Not a bad life and something I could become accustomed to and yet there is the call to arms and what the hell is that camel-driver doing with my brushes?
In this state of in-between I turn first to Subconscious Musings to let my inner mind have it's say and because my fragile mind can't take too much excitement:

Mixed media on paper, 60x87cm.

Automatic painting with no design thoughts just whatever arises from within (anyone got a spanner?)

Then I return to things I know best: drawing with charcoal and straightforward painting with no intentions to bend reality:

Jacqueline's New Dress 1
Charcoal on paper, 61x42cm.

Jacqueline's New Dress 2
Charcoal on paper, 61x42cm.

Jacqueline's New Dress and Coat
Charcoal on paper, 61x42cm.

This is her outfit for Harry's christening this coming Sunday.

Jacqueline's New Dress
Mixed media: Acrylics and collage on primed paper, 61x42cm.

Was that a mosquito buzzing in my ear?

She really suits this type of dress. Reminds me of her style as a young woman.

Three Artists...

…who happen to be women.

Last week (before our failed camping trip - broken tent-pole [say no more]) we set off for the Edinburgh Festival by train to see two current exhibitions of paintings. The first is of Impressionist paintings gathered from around the world and is getting big licks in newspaper reviews. Unfortunately it is also attracting huge crowds with airport-style queuing systems to get in. Not for me. Gave it a miss for the time being and hopefully in a month or so, after the Festival has packed up and gone, we will try again.
Their present loss however was undoubtedly our gain for in order to escape the crush and madness that is Princes Street and Waverley Gardens we headed out to peace and quiet of The Royal Botanic Gardens to see the other exhibition that is also getting big licks: Joan Mitchell at Inverleith House.
Now, with all this thrill and excitement coursing through my veins I enjoy what I call “delayed gratification”. It’s good for the soul, I believe (and a bit nutty). It means not rushing headlong to the object of your desire but holding off with other diversions first.
So, first stop along the way was into the Open Eye Gallery where they are showing my kinda stuff:

Barbara Rae

Colourful, loud, highly expressive abstracts based on landscape or as I would have it - semi-abstract landscape painting. A lot what I would have liked my semi-abstract figures to have been.
Next stop, the Scottish Gallery, in Dundas Street where they are showing new work by another Scottish artist, Victoria Crowe. Quite different to Rae’s work, quieter, more refined even, and very beautiful. In my less exuberant moments I sometimes paint like this. But not often. I am inspired again by both of these artists, but not as much as I am about to be by the third, non-Scottish artist on my itinerary, although I don’t see any reason not to make her an honorary Scot: Lady Joan of Inverleith perhaps?

What a fabulous park The Royal Botanic Gardens is. I need to get back there again soon, on my own, just to sketch and paint the wonderful parkland views. But it is to Inverleith House which stands on a promontory in the park and the exhibition I have come to see.
Greeted at the door by this fantastic poster I immediately buy one just in case there is a sudden rush and I am left disappointed:

“Untitled, 1969”

Inverleith House is an old 18th century mansion converted into an art gallery with spacious rooms, white walls and natural wood floors, large windows with a lovely quality of light flooding in, and views of the park looking out. What a wonderful place to show these monumental canvases:

“Cypress”

Well, it's big, but not that big, it's just that Jacqui is so small!

And smaller rooms showing some of her pastel studies:

“Untitled, 1992”
I wish that eejit would get outa the way and let me photograph the picture!

In the basement study room a 58 minute video was showing which was fascinating to listen to Joan, as an elderly lady, talking about her life and work. The quality of filming wasn’t always good and the soundtrack often hard to follow, but still so much to get from it:

“I paint from landscapes of the memory I carry with me - and feelings from the memory of them which naturally become transformed…I prefer to leave nature to itself. I do not intend to improve it…I could never mirror it. I love most of all what it leaves inside me”.

And this quote by her gallery owner, Robert Williams: “If only you were French, and male, and dead!”. I’m sure that may resonate with many of you ladies out there.

I liked this one - Joan says: “While out walking one morning (in New York) I met Hans (Hofmann) who says: ‘Why aren’t you working?!”.

And this one is for Melinda: “I often painted at night (in Paris). When it got light I went to sleep”.

So, three more women painters, each one inspiring me to get back painting again.

Now where did I put my brushes after cleaning out the budgie-cage?