Nervously waiting .....

An exhibition looms with Vectis Artisans on Wednesday pm (set-up), from June 13th to 18th, at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, in which I'm supposed to be taking part.  

Well, I WILL take part, one way or the other, but am awaiting framing pieces which, as yet, haven't arrived...  They would have done, of course, if I'd ordered them earlier; or I could have got the pictures framed professionally - am just reluctant to provide any more than temporary frames, because I like buyers to choose their own frames: a minority view, probably, but then most of my views are minority views.

I'm not, for various reasons, quite ready or prepared for this exhibition - thanks solely to my failure to pay attention, I was planning towards another exhibition we're to hold in August, in Ryde town itself, and allowed this one to creep up on me.

Anyway, this photograph taken by my landlord, one Chris Hayes-Davis, shows me waiting anxiously at the gates.....

Surplus to My Requirements - But How About Yours?

I have in the region of 100 artists' magazines - mostly The Artist, Artists & Illustrators, and International Artist, presently taking up space which I don't really have to spare.  They were useful in their time, but I've read them now and absorbed all I'm ever going to.

If you're an art student, tutor, interested artist, or a dentist with a waiting room, come to that, you're more than welcome to them.  I don't want anything for them, but the downside is that unless you only want a few and live near enough to me for me to be able to get them to you, you'll have to collect them.  They're in generally good condition, and date from between 2000 and 2011,

First come (if anybody does) first served.

God, it's COLD

May 23rd, and it's so cold still I've had the heating on ......  

Anyway: have found a new NHS dentist, just a few miles away from me (Mr Brian D Hamilton, BDS); had my teeth scaled and polished, and a new filling; and some 20 years of dental phobia have been put to flight, because there was no heavy drilling; there was just the one injection, which scarcely hurt at all because it was skilfully administered; and while I have to have further treatment, it has been scheduled at 3 monthly intervals throughout the year.   So I don't have to lie there for half an hour at a time while major reconstruction work is conducted.  

All to the good - and I've been lucky: because the only other dentist offered to me on the NHS was around 13 miles away, and difficult to get to from here (as most places are).  

And in the meantime, the pocket watch I was given on my 21st birthday, some 41 years ago, has been repaired by the splendid Mr Burrage of Ryte Time Watch Repairs, and should arrive back here at the Batcave tomorrow.  While pocket watches are not the splendid things they were before the wrist-watch was introduced, they still have a certain something which the wrist-watch (could I but bear to wear one) lacks: t'is true that I should like a Waltham, or an Elgin, or a Hamilton - encased in rolled gold.  But these are beyond my means: as it is, I have some Russian watches, a German one, and a Swiss Jean Pierre - the youngest of which is around 10 years, the oldest nearer 50 - now, if you were all to go out (don't delay, do it now) and buy a pocket watch, imagine the surge in popularity they would enjoy.  Off you go, then.

Oh, and if anyone would like to give me a Waltham, or Elgin, or Hamilton (or Pathek Phillipe; or Tissot) don't hesitate!  I must have a birthday coming up sooner or later.   So much better with a nice chain, by the way - rolled gold, perhaps; or rose gold ..... Don't stint.  Just not a wristwatch - I hate things that lurk about my wrists as much as I despise ankle-socks; socks must be LONG: knee length; gents underwear must eschew anything hinting of the boxer, or short (one has to think of support, you see, and unsightly bulges - so that you DON'T see), and trousers should ideally fit way above the hip bone (which is just hideously uncomfortable, especially if the hips are beginning to give trouble) in the region of what was once the natural waist: somewhere just below the nipples, for preference.  

Young men may ignore all this: but believe me, lissom youth - your time will come: comfort will one day be your watch-word.   And, if you do not repulse the loathsomely trendy tailor and reject the "slim-fit" suit or shirt, if you do not demand a cut which ensures that there is not a ridiculous flash of shirt between the bottom of your waistcoat the the band of your trousers NOW, you will find that, when you come to the age of seniority and experience and require these things, there will be no one capable of making them.   Oh, and put a TIE on, for God's sake.  

One just loathes a sloven.    Aged watch shown below.  

  

Eye Off Ball.....

I took a look through my old entries today, in order to find something, and discovered a number of comments I wasn't aware had been made - so will have to check back more often. Apologies that I didn't reply, where replies might have been advisable - there must be a way of receiving notification from Blogger that comments have been made, but I don't at the moment know what it is.  

Similarly, I have no idea what happened to the formatting of the last post, where a gap appears in the last paragraph for no obvious reason.  Can't edit it out, no matter how I try.  

One of the comments referred to a piece on  Bob Ross - and argued that Ross used painting as therapy, and that many of his students then and now do the same; and that it's not reasonable to judge his or their paintings as, eg, landscape painting.  I've summarized the argument a bit without I hope misrepresenting it.  

This is true so far as it goes - and you might also argue that when seeking tuition, you tend to find that which suits the level you wish to reach: so that the student who wants to go on, and delve into the minutiae of technique, colour-mixing and all the rest of it, is not likely to be lingering over, say, Bob Ross, Bill Alexander, or Darryl Crow for long; he/she will leave them behind as not being enough - will go elsewhere because the Bob Ross approach is for hobbyists rather than serious painters (words a problem here: I have nothing against "hobbyists", and don't always go all slack-jawed in amazement at the "serious painter", either).  

I don't think the argument is too sustainable though if you look at what is now the Bob Ross Corporation (TM), its protection of the brand image - eg, by taking anything down from YouTube which shows more that a few minutes worth of Ross's work - or if you look at the mass of equipment available in the BR (and Bill Alexander) method.  It's a big business, and the various "certified Bob Ross instructors" ARE selling what they call painting tuition.  I don't see how the person starting out in oil painting is necessarily going to know that the methods are not at all easily transferable to more straightforward, or traditional, or ultimately far more enjoyable and productive methods.   What I object to is primarily the extreme expense the BR approach entails - I don't think it's fair to those starting out; and I would still warn them that there are better ways: indeed, I think almost any other way is better. 

However, I had an email correspondence a while ago with a Bob Ross instructor named Jason Bowen, who has some work on YouTube: he seems to be a genuine young man, and also made the point that he's not trying to be the next Rembrandt or Van Gogh; he knows his painting is a hobby, and he's trying to give people a sense of achievement - something they've made with their own hands and can take pride in.  I accept that - while reserving the view that even for those who don't have ambitions to stride a bit farther, there are still far more satisfying ways of doing what they want to do.  

But there we are.  Thanks for the posts, and I don't at all object if they disagree with mine - so keep 'em coming. 

Signs of Spring

I think I've nearly finished this painting - one or two small details to add, but I don't think I need to do (or can do) anything very major with it.  It was surprisingly difficult - you'd think what's the problem?  A big lump of distant rock, a nearer lump of rock, a few tree-tops, a bit of sky - but I got too tight and literal, and to break free of myself I included a promontory that isn't really there and allowed the rock textures to look a bit warmer than they really do - because it kept turning into Gormenghast otherwise!  A grim fortress-like appearance.  

One day, I might do the grim version; probably not in acrylic though, which this is.  30cm by 40cm, on canvas covered board.  It's an impression of Gore Cliff and Blackgang Chine:  there's a holiday-cum-pleasure park at the foot of the cliffs, but you hardly know that at all                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          from the cliff walk, unless you get much nearer to the edge than I ever want to do.  

First stage - new Acrylic painting: Cliffs, South East Wight

Yielding to advice, I've decided not to muck about with the Hoy Monument oil any further - you can go on refining a painting for months, even years: but on the whole, I said what I wanted to say, and any more would be waffle.

So, I've started a new one - only this time, it's an acrylic: this is the first stage of it, and it looks pretty ghastly at the moment; but I'm confident it WILL look much better in due course.  Strange how the photograph shows bits of the underpainting showing through in the sky area which actually aren't visible to the naked eye: the flash has exposed them - so probably they would be visible under certain lighting conditions if I left the sky as it is.  But there are several glazes of colour to go on top yet - so far, it's had Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Raw Sienna, and Ultramarine (not a blue I normally use) for the sky.  A layer or two to go on yet - but the idea is not to finish one area of the painting independently of the others, but to work on the whole picture and - as it were - bring it up together.  

I need to get a few new paintings finished because Vectis Artisans, a new group of Isle of Wight artists which I've joined,  has an exhibition in a month or so - I want to show some work that's not been seen before, and the quickest way of doing it is going to be to use acrylics: they dry much quicker, and can be varnished a week or so after completion.   To varnish an oil painting earlier than 6 months after completion is to risk it cracking.  

This one is also based on a photograph by Bob Blake - so one way or another, I have enough photographs and sketches to keep me going until I'm around 90 .... in theory.  In practice, I'm always on the look-out for more.   Hope he reads this hint....

Hoy Monument

This is a much more direct painting than the last one - I didn't build it up on a monochrome base, but got my colours in early, then glazed different blues and violets over the sky and background, and a little over the middle-ground.  Used Titanium and Zinc White, and not much of the latter - they worked: Daler Rowney Georgian Titanium White is actually rather pleasant to work with; but I think my favourite Flake White would have been a little easier.  Still - was life meant to be easy?

Obviously not, going by my experience of it.

This is 30cm by 40cm, and although I know the area well, it's from a photograph (freely adapted) by Bob Blake.

I may yet do some more glazing, in the foreground at least .... just to calm down some discordant bits which have become (I think) over-prominent.

All Stages Together

Well there we are; some major changes along the way, although the basic composition has remained constant - for better or worse.  This one is 30 by 40cm  - we move on.... Our myopic eyes fixed on the far horizon.......  The title by the way is Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote .... not sure this was what Chaucer had in mind at the time.  

Next stages

True to my word, and in the face of massive indifference, I post the next couple of stages of my oil painting of cliffs on the Isle of Wight - an immediately obvious problem arose when I glazed blues over the skies, and one I should have anticipated: I hadn't left the area light enough, and far from glazing I would have to add opaque colour to lighten it.  An elementary mistake, which I really ought not be making after all these years, but then - the purpose of this heroic enterprise is to offer suggestions to others as to what they might - and might NOT - do themselves.  

It became increasingly clear therefore that while I could transparently glaze over the foreground areas to my heart's content, I was going to need  more opaque white in the sky and sea than I'd planned on.   Because my planning had been inadequate, and I haven't used the glazing technique on a larger scale at least for quite a while.  But never mind: the combination of approaches will work out, in its way, in the end.  It'll all come out in the wash - I expect..... 

Foot in Mouth Disease

I've done it again.  Made a comment on a poor, defenceless artist's work on Painters Online, said more than I should have done, caused offence.  Mind you, it's the easiest thing in the world to offend some artists - I tend to make the mistake of forgetting just how thin-skinned most of us actually are, having not so much confidence in our abilities as we like to pretend.

This time, there was a double-edge to it; it was a portrait of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Somewhere or other I can never remember (because, of course, I don't care - and there lies part of the trouble).

I didn't actually say why on earth are you painting a portrait - from a photograph - of Ms Middleton, when a professional portraitist who had her actually sit for him made, by most accounts, something of a ghastly mess of it.  But looking back on what I did say, I think I probably hinted at it pretty heavily - with my usual tact.  I.e., none to speak of.

Poor Defenceless Artist noticed this innuendo, anyway, and told me how caring and compassionate Ms M is, just like Princess Di .... well.  If you say so.  She also says that Ms M is "beautiful".  And again - it's in the eye of the beholder - although: let's be honest .... she isn't.  She's just young; reasonably attractive; has no personality that has as yet come across to anyone outside her immediate circle - and why should one expect it to have done so at this stage? - and presents any portraitist with a big problem: her personality is not yet written in her face; and she seems to have a beezer of quite impressive proportions, anchored in something of an expanse of pale flesh.

Or so you would believe from the official portrait - I've heard of those in which the eyes follow you round the room; rarely seen one in which the nose does the same ....

I've not seen the official portrait in the flesh, and the news photographs of it, both physically in the actual newspapers and online, have varied so much in tone and clarity that I hesitate to agree or disagree with the consensus that has unfortunately formed around it.  And anyway, I'm no authority on portraits.  But I do know that anyone who tries to paint a portrait from a photograph alone is on to a sure-fire loser: it CAN be done - if you have a really superb, and preferably monochrome, photograph (such as might be taken by my friend Barry Fitzgerald, professional photographer based in Tralee) but the result, in anyone other than a very good professional's hands - better than most of us by a league or two - is very likely to be stonkingly poor.   That's because you can't see things, features, move - you can't see how they work together; this is particularly so around the mouth, especially when you're trying to capture a smile; you can see the set of the head in the photograph - but not in reality.

So Poor Defenceless Artist was right, really: I was taking out on her, a bit, the facts that a) I haven't a lot of time for the syrupy sentiment poured over the royal family, and lack respect for the majority of them; b) I don't want to see any more portraits of Ms Middleton or any other fairytale princess de nos jours; c) I think amateur portraits from photographs look so ghastly on the whole that they're an embarrassment on a website, despite the skill the individual artist may possess - and I suppose, digging deeper into my motivation than even Sigmund Freud would have done, I'm basically saying I don't like this, don't want it here, don't do it.

Which of course I have absolutely no right to do.  Although I still hate it when people dabble in celebrity portraits and try to impose their own hero-worship on their subjects: because it always means the art is compromised at best, and just downright bad at worst.

It just might be better, though, if I learned to bite my tongue and get on with my own work rather than either condemning someone else's or damning it with faint praise.  Wonder if I ever will......

Work in Progress

Here's one way to start a painting.

You could do this in oil or acrylic.  In this particular case, it's an oil.  And I'm using a quick-drying white - you could use Alkyd White; or Underpainting White; but this time, I'm using the remains of my lead-based Flake White, which is becoming harder and harder to lay hands on - partly thanks to European Health and Safety Regulations, but mostly because the last major manufacturers of lead chromate have shut down.  So if it's going to be available in the future, it's going to be expensive - the remaining manufacturers will of course put their prices up.

Anyhow - I've got some, so I'm using it!

First, I've stained the canvas board with Burnt Sienna, diluted with Low Odour Thinners (could just as easily have been Turpentine).  Then, I've drawn a basic design with a mix of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue; and then I've worked into that with the Flake White, the idea being to allow these lights to shine through paint applied on top of them - in other words, this is a means of achieving the "glazing" method in oil paint.

Over the next few days or weeks - emergency dental appointments permitting: don't ask - I shall glaze transparent colours over the top of this underpainting, which has now dried; I'll probably need several layers, increasing the amount of oil very gradually in each so I can avoid any risk of the paint cracking later.  And - hugely bravely, you might think: I certainly do - I'll show the stages here and elsewhere, in the fond hope it'll all work out on the night.  I may need some luck with this....

Biting the Tongue

I've made two comments this evening on the Painters Online blogs, and have then scrubbed both of them, on the grounds that there's no point being wilfully offensive.  Actually, there's probably a LOT of point being wilfully offensive, but I know POL: posting provocative views just upsets people for no great gain.  So I've censored myself.

But here, I can let rip .... one blogger tells us how inspired she is by the Zen practice (or practitioner?) of Wabi Sabi; she's flogging something, or trying to; another goes to town with a screed of psychobabble about meditation, unleashing the hidden power of creativity (this on a site for artists, who, you may feel, have already got into touch with their creative impulses): and she's flogging something too, specifically her holidays in Spain where, for a modest raid on your wallet, she will teach you - armed, as she is, with a polytechnic degree and a teaching certificate - how to relax; although the whole exercise seems calculated to cause her bank manager to slip into blissful contentment rather than anyone  else: apart from herself.

You can base your painting practice on any damn' thing you like: it rarely makes the least difference; we have religious painters, painters who are simply inspired by religion, metaphysical painters, painters inspired by, for all I know, a Plumbing Manual.  What gives you the first push varies from person to person, and has very little relevance or importance.  If you want to wallow in this New Age pile of old socks, you do it.

But it's just a little odd how often those who talk the most vacuous old toss are nearly always insinuating a clutching paw into your pocket at the same time, isn't it?

Painters Online is a site for artists and would-be artists; not a forum for spurious life-coaches flogging continental holidays with a bit of woo thrown in.  But if I said that on POL, I should be a horrid, grumpy old man.  Well, I AM a horrid, grumpy old man: and this sort of festering cobblers makes me even grumpier.  Why do people fall for it ......?

I post below a couple of the very small oil paintings I did in February - 7" by 5", on stretched box canvas,  offers in excess of £50 each cheerfully considered.   You see, I'm after your money too.  But at least I don't dress it up in mother's crumpled old corsets pretending they're a silk gown......

The Utter Silence

Nothing from me since the end of January - appalling.  Why, I ask myself, have I been so uncharacteristically reticent?  Well obviously, sheer idleness explains much of it.  Why blog, or indeed do anything else, if you can stay in bed?  It defies all reason....

But there have been other issues too.  The light has been awful - useless for painting.  I've been cold - well, all right, so have you, but unclenching those little fingers and handling chilly art materials - paint, water, oil - in this freezing little hovel I call home just hasn't appealed.

After a while, though, said fingers begin to itch.  Stray towards brush or pen or pencil .... and even laziness is put to flight.

Just to add to my litany of excuses, though, I've had one or two health problems - principally around the teeth; infected sinuses; lots of antibiotic; and I've got to have a full blood test - phials of the stuff - just over a year after I had my haemorrhage: to see all the blood they put into me has mixed happily with the sludge that was already there, I suppose.

Well go and do it, you say.  Get it all seen to.  Ha!  Easy for you, I reply - but I've got to get to the hospital, and fast - ie, not eat for 12 hours (how ghastly!), and then the dentist is miles away as well, and I don't drive......  I mean, I do prevaricate: I admit it.  I even put off putting things off.  But it's not easy, you know; when one's rich in years but nothing else; has no transport; services miles away....

Granted, this is 95% self-pity.  Say 97%.....  but it does strike me that when people speak so blithely about the efficiencies of centralization of health services, "centres of excellence", and so on, they do overlook the desire of your average patient to be treated near to home.  If you have cancer, you're going to be very likely to be treated at centralized locations, and given that's where the best treatment is that's probably where you're going to want to go.  But we hear on the Patients Council at St Mary's Hospital of people who are given ridiculously early appointments in the morning which, given our inadequate transport links, they've no hope of getting to.

I have many reasons to be grateful to the NHS, but now and then you get the impression that some of those who manage it have cottage-cheese for brains - and fail to take into account the sheer physical difficulty of moving object A, the patient, to location B, the clinic.  Strange how none of the reforms introduced by Lansley and the little Hunt who's taken over from him seem to make the slightest difference to the convenience of the patient, though.

Book on Kindle Store, Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B5JYU7O

People have had some trouble finding this,but it should be there now, fingers crossed.

The Last of the Titchy-Pics....

Months ago, I bought a job lot of 10 7" x 5" block canvases.  I only really needed one of them, but as it happened they were on offer....

So having painted the one which I'd been commissioned (as it were; brother's birthday present, in fact) to do, I then had another 9 canvases to paint; and whether my eyesight's got worse, or whether it just wasn't a great idea to start with, I don't know: but it's been a bit of a struggle just to see the blessed things.

Anyway!  I've painted the very last one - you can see all three of the last tranche on my Facebook page, but for those of you who wouldn't go on Facebook if paid in gold bars, here's one of them.

It's a rather summery painting for this time of year, but it's so grey and dreary outside that I wanted something with a bit more colour.

And - Stop Press - my e-book, now titled Oil Paint Basics, has now been made available for the Kindle, and is available from Amazon UK.  I also have some work on show in a new café in Upper High Street, Ryde IW: unfortunately - I don't know the name of the café...  Ryde isn't the easiest place to get to from here.  But there can't be that many up there, so should you be in the vicinity, take your cheque book for a nice walk, cup of tea, slice of cake, and a painting to take home.   You know you want to.  You do.  No, really - you do.