2020 – or something!

God knows how long since I last wrote anything in my blog. If you visit me from time to time expecting to catch up on whatever I’ve been up to you’ll have been disappointed for an embarrassingly long time and for which I could only offer inadequate excuses, so I won’t. Onward and upward as they say….

Well the new year has been and gone and my plans for the year have got off to a limp start. Been feeling for some time that my efforts to get myself out there on social media etc have been less than an effective use of my available “art time”. They may even have had a negative impact on my art so after a lot of soul-searching and disappointments I decided to draw in my horns and do a lot less of it and concentrate on what I love doing best ie. painting which is the point of all this in the first place. So this year has become somewhat planless – which is actually a relief to me – while I try and gather my energies again to produce something worthwhile, rather than simply to keep up with some meaningless plan. Artistic inspiration is an irrational mistress and will not be constrained. Expect even less from me except for the art therefore!

The year though is not without it’s highlights which amount to one, maybe two, exhibitions in September and October – details to follow. Actually my average year from here on will amount to one solo if possible, two tops, and either Derbyshire Open Arts or Buxton Art Prize……the rest of the time will be blissfully free to think about painting and only painting. Looking forward to it already!

Actually this year one extra thing has already cropped up. My self portrait “In the window seat” (below) has been selected for exhibition in London with The Artists Pool at Gallery @ the spaghetti house, Holborn. So I will be wending my way down there 19th April clutching my painting ready for the opening night on 22nd. Apparently it has been selected as one of only four finalists – though what for I’m not at all sure, apart from being exhibited which is reward enough. Amazing! things are looking up…..you see what happens? you take your foot off the gas…..!!

Derbyshire Artists’ Guild

Been a founder member of this artists group for 2+ years now. Great to be part of something, makes me get organised more – and not such a lonesome existence!

In a nutshell this is what I’ll be doing for the rest of this year with my DAG buddies.

Green Man Gallery: 26th April-22nd May

DOA @ Baslow village hall: 25th-27th May

Gothic Warehouse, Cromford Mills: 13th/14th July

Focus Gallery, Nottingham: 4th-28th Sept

Baslow village hall: 16th/17th Nov

See you there!

Art of abstraction

Really pleased now I’ve managed to finish this latest contemplative piece, inspired by the poetry of Wendy Cope. “…the minutes, the hours, the days” is in oils on acrylic on mdf (I always have bits of mdf lying around looking for a use). I found what I thought was the perfect image for the title when I was lingering near a venetian blind in the low sun.

I often work “backwards” when it comes to this kind of work. The feel of the words that might suggest a title normally generate some excitement in me first, some feeling I want to communicate and I then spend any amount of time before I come up with a suitable image to go with it. Really happy with this one though!

On the subject of reflection though please call in at West Studios, Chesterfield, Derbys between 11th Jan -1st Feb to see my exhibition “Treescapes and water” to see more of my reflections on nature.

An artwork loved

another original work of mine sold yesterday on the last day of the Derbyshire Artists Guild exhibition in Baslow (one of four regular dates throughout the year when I can be found exhibiting with my Guild colleagues).

“Destination Swing” was a special painting to me with personal memories, executed quickly in my “other” style – rapidly with broad brushstrokes and stylised to the point of abstraction. One of the few paintings I’ve been content with when I’ve finished it.

The inspiration for it came from watching the jazz band of the same name playing at my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding reception. So….sorry to see it go, but glad someone loved it enough to want it bought for Christmas! I watched as a young lad, late teens, having taken it in his hands and studied it carefully, persuaded his father to fork out for it for his Christmas present. He really, really wanted it so I know it’s gone to a good home. Proof perhaps that jazz is making a comeback with the youth of today!

At least one satisfied customer!

Well here’s one satisfied customer – actually I think her parents were too! Although not completely dry I gave Elizabeth’s parents a first viewing of my portrait of their daughter recently. And naturally enough we had photos.

 

After the long hot summer

It’s been a long time since my last blogpost I realise, but for once it isn’t difficult to fathom where the time has gone. The best summer in the UK arguably ever, but certainly since ’76 (yes I remember that one too), meant many other calls on my time. And so hot most of the time in the studio it has been difficult to spend much time painting in there though I’ve been busy with organising a couple of group exhibitions, alongside my friends & colleagues in the newly formed Derbyshire Artists Guild. I’ll post details of the next 12 months exhibitions soon.

September onwards has largely been spent recuperating from a bit of planned elective surgery – having been healthy and hospital free just about all my life it came as something of a shock to discover that when they said 6 weeks to recover they really meant it….sadly I’m not superman after all. It has been a challenge to find that spark of inspiration and urge to create while I’ve been laid up.

But it’s not been all feet up, I have managed to produce a few pieces over the last couple of months. My foray into still life continues – see my latest piece below “Green bowl with bust”, and also I have found from somewhere the focus and “feel” to produce my best portrait for ages, “Elizabeth in Lace”, also below.

Best of all I have a number of other paintings underway at various stages so the signs are the creative juices are starting to flow again…….I’ve missed them.

 

My style a work in progress

Not for the first time today I was asked to describe myself as an artist. Almost without thinking the words oil painter and still life came out which I take as a sign that despite my dabbling with other media I feel in my core that I am most at home with oil and that, as time passes still life is also what I do best. I don’t necessarily want it that way but as someone else said in my company today you can’t deny your true self forever, at least not without some cost – perhaps never achieving your best.

So as 2018 continues I think that still life as well as landscape will become more central to what I do. Portraiture and my more experimental side will become more of a personal exercise or by commission. Can’t remember if I’ve ever committed this thought to writing before, certainly not on this blog, but if I’m frank and to paraphrase slightly “it’s the process stupid!” not the product of painting that matters, at least to me. Whether it’s portraits or landscape or abstract expressionism it’s still about recording what and how you see – light and form and colour. Couldn’t care less if it’s a face, a pretty hillside or a bunch of flowers. Categories might matter to some people collectors, critics & gallery owners amongst them but I’ve realised they don’t to me!

Think I’m rambling ……. but here’s a picture of my latest still life (as if to illustrate the point). It’s still drying so not officially finished or photographed properly. Still time to fiddle with it?

 

“To-do list”

Behind the smile

Yesterday I delivered some of my artwork (The substanceless blue, all we know of heaven and Me & my shadow) to Banks Mill Studio in Derby for a rather special exhibition. For months now a group of artists lead by Kirstie Adamson have been planning a month long group exhibition to raise awareness of invisible illnesses amongst us such as depression, endometriosis etc. that go largely unnoticed in our day to day lives. Many of the artists involved have personal experience of this kind of hidden affliction and so much of the work speaks directly from the heart.

For that reason alone you should if you can make the effort to visit the studio before the exhibition closes on 23rd March – or at least spread the word and share as widely as you can. Yes the work, or at least most of it, is for sale but that’s not the point. The main reason behind the event is to raise awareness of a bunch of illnesses that most of us luckily have never heard of. But proceeds are at least going to good causes that support work in this area, in my case the Fire Services National Benevolent Fund to contribute towards the cost of their work with firefighters suffering the debilitating effects of ptsd.

And there is some fantastic art! let’s not forget that. It’s a joy to see the creativity that has come out of this.

Becalmed

---

---

Well for the second time in as many months I find myself ill and feeling much too ropey to attempt any creative stuff in the studio so I’ve had to content myself with a bit of cleaning & tidying up in there and doing a bit of stocktaking. Hadn’t realised I was running so low on canvases, especially the bigger stuff.

Soon as I’m better a shopping trip methinks!

 

Oh lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz!

Well that was a strange evening at the charity event Mercedes Benz Derby yesterday!

Not a huge crowd and the people who did make it were clearly there just for the cars. When it came to the art auction interest was almost non existent and most works went for a song mine included , some didn’t sell at all.

Ah well I did think it was strange mix.