The Abandoned Croft

The Abandoned Croft 9"x10" Acrylic on Board

 Another painting of Sandaig/Camusfearna in the North West of Scotland. I worked on this in the studio, painting from a series of drawings and photographs. When away from the subject I find it better to work from several versions of source material rather than just one. More than halfway through the painting I realized that the design I had planned did not work and I had to make some alterations. No matter how carefully I plan a picture it almost always changes as I work on it.

Fishing

Fishing 10"x14" Watercolour

This painting is based on Padstow Harbour in Cornwall and connects with a childhood memory of fishing with my grandfather.

Steven Wright the Comedian said, “There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”

I've never caught a fish. My grandfather was a keen fisherman and sometimes took my brother and I with him. He said that it was easy and that anyone could catch a fish, successfully demonstrating this using only a length of cotton, a bent pin and a piece of bread. He was wrong.

Despite the lack of early success I persevered, occasionally sitting on a riverbank with rod and line - plenty of time to think but no fish. In fact I sometimes omitted the bait in order to guarantee thinking time. I needn't have bothered, the fish had other things to fry. Latterly my daughter discovered an interest and a gift for fishing and I would dutifully sit beside her quietly amazed at the vast shoals that would by-pass my hook in their haste to swim directly on to hers.

However I don't regret any of those hours spent beside rivers and seas - fishing without success has given me lots of useful thinking time and as Steven Wright also said, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"

Secret Pond

Secret Pond 10"x14" Watercolour

I discovered this place on an outing to look at and draw something else I had in mind for a painting. It is on farmland in a bowl scooped out of a field on the side of a hill surrounded by trees. From a distance it looked like a copse and even close up it only revealed itself as a pool at the very last moment, hence the title 'Secret Pond'.

Camusfearna

Camusfearna 9"x11" Acrylic on Board

Camusfearna is Gavin Maxwell's name for Sandaig on the mainland just across the water from Skye. It is where he wrote 'Ring of Bright Water' and it is an atmospheric place. It was a perfect Highland Autumn day - warm, dry and calm - even the midges were taking a break. I did a quick watercolour sketch and took some photos but it was too nice to work so I ate my lunch and lay on the rocks and looked at the side of Kate's face as the sunlight came streaming across the water and thought would'nt it be great if it could be like this all of the time.

Dusk

Dusk  36cm x 55cm  Watercolour

 I went to Amsterdam on a whim. Kate and I were staying in Belgium, where I was one of the invited artists at the 2012 International Watercolour Biennial, and had a few days to spare before the return crossing to Dover. I wanted to see the Jan Vermeer painting 'Het Melkmeisje' in the Rijksmuseum, which I did. Afterwards we wandered around the canals looking for a restaurant and found this. I had to go back in daylight to look at it properly. I probably left out more than I put in.

Night

Night - 14 x 20 - Watercolour

I think of this as my Atkinson Grimshaw Rheinhart Payne painting. I was very young when I discovered John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893). He was famous for his townscapes and night scenes and these stayed with me as I grew up. I have been planning to do a night painting for a long time but to get really dark darks with watercolour is difficult so I kept putting it off. Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967) was an abstract painter who was known for some 'black paintings' he did near the end of his life. I first saw these while at school preparing for 'A' Level art. I was very impressed especially by his slightly immodest claim that they were the end of painting. At first sight they just look like plain black canvasses but after a while the viewer can see that they are made up of geometric shapes in slightly different hues and shades of black. For this painting, which is probably an anti-Reinhardt painting, I didn't use black but variations on Paynes Grey, a mixture of indigo, sienna and crimson lake developed by William Payne (1760-1830). I also used another innovation credited to Payne which was to create highlights by taking out areas of paint by wetting the surface and rubbing it with bread or rag (or, in my case, with a brush).  

Apple

Apple 16" x 12" Watercolour

This is the small painting I did as a demonstration in the Mall Galleries during the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 201st exhibition which is on until 18 April 2013. I say 'demonstration' but my kind of painting is not entertaining in the way that most demonstrations are. I just sit there and paint and as I am a slow painter most of the audiences' time is spent watching the paint dry while I try to decide what to do next. Even so there were some brave souls who stayed to the end. Eventually, when everyone had gone home, I ate the apple.