The Year That Was - 2015

Time to look back before moving forward - what have I achieved this year?

It has been strange and often frustrating. In May I had an operation on my hand which although successful has left me in a fair bit of pain and limited severely my ability to paint for the best part of six months. This lead me to working in graphite and focusing on the planning stages. It meant I had time to meet lots of new people, who came to the studio to pose. In the end I had over twenty thousand reference photographs of models, which is pretty amazing and gives me a lot of freedom to make new paintings.

Using the graphite, especially liquid pencil, has freed up my mark making and let me be more experimental, since each drawing only takes a few hours. Being more selective about which images become paintings has led to a higher rate of finished work - something that became very useful when I started painting again in October, with only a couple of months to paint enough paintings for all the christmas shows.

Some of these shows were in new places - The RSA, The lovely Smithy Gallery, Leiper Fine Art and The Fotheringham Gallery - others were in old favourites such as the Glasgow Art Club and Art Exposure Gallery. My favourite show though was probably Alice at 150 in Mansfield Park Gallery - there was so much creativity in the exhibition it was a real honour to be involved.

So overall despite the difficulties I feel that I'm in a really good place for the coming year - and more on that tomorrow!

Christmas Shows

The last few weeks have been very buy ones, getting paintings finished nd then photographed/framed and into galleries in time for their christmas shows. But all that's done so I really aught to let you all know where they have gone.

First to open is Mansfield Park Gallery's 150 Years With Alice, which had it's private viewing last sunday. The show is wonderful, with a nice range of work around the Alice theme, including Fran Hanley's charming multi media works.

This friday (the 27th) there are three openings. The first, and the one I'm attending, is the RSA Open on the mound in Edinburgh. I'm delighted to be showing with them for the first time and am really looking forward to seeing all the work tomorrow night in such grand surroundings.

Also in fairly grand surroundings is the Glasgow Art Cub on Bath Street, whose winter show I helped hang on tuesday. It all looks great and the re-opening of the main halls means more artists are putting in work than has been the case for a few years. There has also been a few really great new members elected recently that will be showing their work here for the first time. Also there is a small works show, including one of my drawings, in the reception/bar area - so nice to see so much work up in one place!

Art Exposure Gallery at 516 Great Western Road are also having their christmas opening that night, from half five generally. Again there will be a big variety of work and a very warm welcome - I wish I had a jet pack or something to travel between all three shows!

Saturday afternoon is the next opening, at RGI Kelly Gallery . This is a postcard exhibition with most works under £300 and unframed - I'll be trying to go along to catch a bargain.

And finally there will be The Smithy Gallery , opening on Sunday the 6th of December. Again this is a group show and knowing the quality of artist's that exhibit here I'm looking forward to seeing all the paintings up on the walls.

Hopefully I'll see some of you at at least one of these shows!

WIP 23rd September

Finally a painting week - 5 probably done paintings and three more started.

Some studio tidying/clearing as well, as it is Open Studios on the 3rd and 4th October. It's really nice to have some space again and to get some new finished works up on the wall.

As you can see two of the new paintings are the 12 x 16 inch size - and one is my first big paper mask painting. Can't wait to see what these look like finished, as they look pretty strong already. The other one doesn't have as clear tonal differences and I'm more nervous about it but the plan is for there to be some subtle painting things going on, to counteract the dramatic subject matter. Next week you should be able to see how I've progressed - I might completely change my mind.

WIP 16th Sept 2016

Another mainly drawing week - as you can see I've been doing more 12x16 inch drawings as I really like this format and am planning a little series - out of the 14 drawings I can see me painting about eight of them, to join the two paintings I've already done. (you can get a glimpse of those in progress back at the start of August ). I've also started planning some bigger paintings, but feel I'm still very much in the beginning stages of this - and I feel that I'm going to need some time and experimenting to get this right. So for the time being I'll mainly be sticking to smaller things, under a couple a feet.

Oh, and I've started tidying in preparation for the open studios at Hanson St on the 3rd and 4th of October - would love to see some of you there!

WIP 9th September

A bit of a drawing week this one, partly because I didn't have a lot of studio time and partly as I wanted to explore the 12x16 inch format more. One of the changes that I'm planning is working with a more limited range of sizes and this one seems to fit a single figure quite well. Not all of these drawings will become paintings as some ideas are just better than others - the top right in particular I think should be a smashing painting, although I prefer the ones on the left as drawings.

So I had a day painting, in which I may have finished the top two and have made progress on the other two - if they have dried enough they will get more done tomorrow, with the little cat probably being finished then. The other one I suspect will take some time - not least because the aluminium is new to me and I'm still not decided if I'll leave part of the surface bare or not. Any opinions?

WIP 2nd Sept 2015

Mainly painting again this week - started four new paintings and done more work on six others, from changing the background to fully finishing. Eight of these should get finished over the next week and then I'll move on to finishing the five still lifes that have been in progress since before May. It will be a relief both to finish the uncompleted works and to get a batch of new paintings up on the walls.

Although I'm itching to get started on some bigger paintings based on the drawings I've done so far that might have to wait a few weeks until after the Open Studios at Hanson Street in the first weekend in October. Up until then I'll mainly be limiting myself to smaller works - I've been having ideas about a new series of works, all 12x16 inches. The plan presently is to spend Saturday doing drawings in preparation for these, so we'll see how it goes.

WIP 25th August 2015

Finally (finally!) I've managed to spend a whole day painting - woohoo!

So what did I do? Well, I finished the two back views that you could see a couple of posts ago but they are now at the framers so aren't in this pic. I'm very pleased with them, which is good as they are the first paintings done entirely post-op and as part of the new project.

I also got started on a new little portrait and put a basic layer of colour on all the paintings I had started the week before. In the coming week I hope to finish at least a couple of these. And I did some work on paintings that have been up on the wall for months - there's a little more to be done with the still life and a lot for the girl with the hat. The dragonfly winged lady though is done which is a relief as she has been causing an awful lot of trouble and at once stage I was worried she was just on too small a scale for me. But in the end it was the colour that needed balanced more than anything.

What else? two new models and two new drawings as well as the start of a studio clean/re-organisation and a trip to Edinburgh - it's been a busy week!

WIP 19th Aug 2015

It's been almost a fortnight since my last WIP and this is what I've done. Not a whole lot, really, but through a combination of car trouble, visiting the Edinburgh Festival and photographing new models I've only had two actual painting days.

One of which was my first full day painting since the op. As well as finishing the teacakes I started four new paintings. I'm starting small, since I have a lot of small canvases lying about and I have various ideas I want to try, so the bigger ones will have to wait a little while.

WIP 6th August 2015

A busy week, so not much studio time. Did get some painting done though - think I'm finally done with the big still life, and have made progress with the teacakes and the two back views, may be able to finish all three next week. Also did the two little framed works from start to finish - they are drawn in graphite on gesso panel, then a layer of oil paint added, which gives quite an interesting effect. They were an experiment, for a show at the Glasgow Art Club on the theme of oil and water, and like all good experiments have given me more ideas to try!

WIP Thursday 23rd July 2015 - Composition

This week I was reading about perspective and thinking about composition - I think I've been making progress and am quite excited about what I'll be able to show you next week.

WIP thursday 16th July

Beginning to get more familiar with my materials and my subjects. Expect more exploration to come.

Comic Con Glasgow 2015

No work in progress this week, as I spent the weekend at Glasgow Comic Con then had to do much more boring things the rest of the week.

P Last year was the first year I went to this comic con and I enjoyed myself tremendously, talked to loads of people (friends and strangers), drank wine, and bought comics.

So this year I did it all again, only with a mission to spend some money, get some new inspiration as well as previous favourites.

From the bottom up, I got (for free) Alan Grant and Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Criminal: The Last of the Innocent - I got a drawing from Sean which is lovely, and it was fascinating to watch him do it - both similar and different from what I do. Looking at his webpage he does paintings as well as illustrations/comics - there is a blog, which looks fascinating (a few entries down is his reference/art books - what's not to love about that?). If I like this one, I suspect I'll soon be gathering all the rest of his work.

IDP 2043 is a collaborative effort overseen by Denise Mina whom I saw talking about the book with http://hannahberry.co.uk/ at last year's comic con so it was lovely to pick up a copy. It seems to be stuffed full of good writers and artists so should be a treat. Collaboration also produced Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist which is described as a visionary gothic novel and looks beautiful. Both books were from stands held by the publisher's rather than the authors/artists it's nice to see them making the effort. Accent Comics in particular had a lot of very, very tempting books so choosing one was difficult - but I just had to go with the victorian gothic vibe, since that's close to my heart at the moment.

Saga 4 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples was on my to-buy list, having already got volumes 1-3. And my, they are beautiful - so much so that my friend Fiona was oohing over the book, asking me where she could but the comic with the legless person and tv headed baby. The answer was the Forbidden Planet stall and I was really impressed by the range of titles they had - I have always rather put them down as being very TV and film based. Maybe I'll actually wander in to their store the next time I'm in town.

Tillie Walden's The End Of Summer also comes from a publisher's page and was pretty much chosen becasue it looks beautiful and had a cat on the front cover. Avery Hill Publishing told me it's a first book by a 19 year old, so maybe I'm supporting the next big talent - who knows?

Clare Forrest's Mighty Women Of Science had me sold just at the title - never mind she is a charming illustrator. She was also helping run the drawing room up in the CCA so unfortunately I didn't really get to chat with her much as she was really busy helping all the kids - but most definitely one to look out for in the future.

Dungeon Fun issues 3 and 4 are lying on the top of the pile and were also on my to-buy list - since I missed the party for issue 4 last Thursday. Issues 1 and 2 were random buys for me last year and were utterly charming, so I'm going to re-read them and then finish the tale. Neil Slorance is the illustrator and Colin Bell the writer - both are local lads and £16 for all four copies seems a real steal to me, for the amount of pleasure I'm going to get from these comics.

Tim Bird's Grey Area From The City to The Sea is another impulse purchase from Avery Hill Publishing - it just looks so elegant.

Lastly is The Curse of Barry Starkey by Neill Cameron and Adam Murphy . Adam's Corpse Talk was one of the hits of last years show - so much so, he had sold out on the first day. Because of this he was offering a drawing to everyone who ordered a book - I got mine of Alice Liddel and was very pleased when it was delivered suprisingly promptly. There will be a Cropse Talk 2, but not for another few months sadly.

So, that's my round up. What did you get, what would you recommend?

WIP 2nd July 2015 - a day late, sorry guys!

Had a busy day and night yesterday (was at the Glasgow Print Studio opening of Comic Art: Millarworld and beyond, well worth seeing) so didn't manage to post up my last two weeks efforts.

Sadly I'm still getting a lot of pain in the hand so am limited in how long I can draw. Which is why there are only 5 drawings. But I do think things are getting better, and having less art making time means I've had more thinking time and more reference gathering time - which I really expect to get the benefit from over the next few months.

This weekend I'll be at the comic-con and then I have to do some really boring grown up stuff, so might be another fortnight before there are more drawings. However, I should move on from the single portraits into more imaginative grouped figures in this time - which is really exciting! Watch this space!

Liquid Pencil - WIP Thursday 18th June 2015

Liquid Pencil (made by Derivan) is my new favourite medium - using it lets me draw on the same scale as my paintings, really giving me a good idea of whether to progress or not. I also find it much easier to control tone than with charcoal, and using different pencils, graphite sticks and powdered graphite along with the liquid version lets me get different textures fairly quickly.

The above three drawings were done today in under six hours - so although drawing first may seem a waste of time, it really isn't. All three show potential to become drawings - although the top one (at 18 x 27 inches) is just a wee bit too big and if it becomes a painting I think would look better at maybe 15 x 24 inches.

Presently I'm working on doing portraits of each of my models before moving on to more complicated, several person compositions - doing this seems to make it easier to get a likeness later on as well as just generally being quite fun.

W.I.P June 11th 2015

My first full day back drawing since the op and I'm fairly pleased with the results - I did have to stop and start more than normal though, and finished early as my hand was just getting too sore. Never mind, it is a start and it feels really nice to finally begin to put down on paper some of all the ideas that have been percolating.

W.I.P 28th May

A week ago on monday I had carpal tunnel release surgery done on my painting hand.

So normal painting/drawing hasn't really been possible - instead I asked for volunteers to come and pose for me. The response was amazing, with quite a few lovely people being very willing to come and let me do a quick drawing and painting and then take loads and loads of photographs.

These little studies are a gathering of these little first impressions - over the next few weeks I will use these and the photographs to start putting my ideas together by making drawings and then finally paintings.

Which is very exciting and I'm sure will be great fun - everyone so far has been absolutely lovely so that this has possible been the best sick leave I've ever had - even if the actual hand continues to be pretty sore.

WIP 14th May 2015

Well, doesn't look like an awful lot of progress, as I've only really had one painting day since last thursday - as you can see the only big change was darkening the big double flamingo still life - and comparing it with last weeks photo I think I've gone too dark.

Not so clear is various bits of fine tuning, which should let me finish pretty much all of these in a couple of days painting with a bit of luck.

This is what I did when not painting.

And what fun it was! The lion and unicorn masks are based on instructions in an old school book, the helmet I've had kicking around for a while but have never found the time to put together, the little rabbit head is from the internet somewhere and the rest were pretty much made up as I went along.

The plan is that over the next few weeks, while I'm recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, some models and I will get to play with these props (and others, out of shot). If you'd like to be one of these models, please contact me - it would take a couple of hours at my studio and much talking and you will eventually get repaid with a drawing. All types welcome!

WIP Thurs 7th May 2015

Some of the works in progress on the wall today - there are fifteen paintings here, two of which are possibly finished. I'll decide the next time I see them.

As you can see the majority are still lives - presently I am thinking a lot about pattern and composition and using things rather than people lets me explore this more. I'm not sure all of these paintings will work out, but the trying should give me ideas of how to do better next time. Sometimes you just have to take a risk!

Flights Of Fancy At Mansfield Park Gallery

Time For Some Fun

Last weekend was a busy one, as the Flights Of Fancy exhibition opened at Mansfield Park Gallery on the sunday and on the saturday I was at the Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair - non stop art!

The afternoon was great fun, long chats with many artists surrounded by beautiful painted birds. If you weren't lucky enough to be there the show is on till the 16th of May and I very much recommend taking the time to go see it - it really is a delightful mix of work by many of the best artists working in the area (and me).

Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair

Miss Dotty

Miss Dotty is going on show along with a selection of my other work, both figurative and still lifes (and one cat), at Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair with Art Exposure Gallery next weekend - it promises to be a really exciting event, with a huge variety of work from many galleries and I am really excited about going along to see all the work.

The Uncharted Butterfly

The same weekend but on the Sunday, Mansfield Park Gallery opens its Flights of Fancy themed exhibition - the private view invite card is fab and this is another show I'm really looking forward to seeing the other artists work - it is going to be an art filled weekend next weekend, can't wait - and hopefully see you there.

Hanging About at Art Exposure Gallery

A wee collection of my tea cup paintings will be on show at Art Exposure from friday - their first proper showing in Glasgow and I am quite looking forward to seeing them in a gallery setting. The opening is from 5 til 8 on Great Western Road, I'll be there from soon after it starts and hopefully I'll see youse all there!

Affordable Art Fair Battersea March 2015

Recently I've become a little cup obsessed, which is kinda nice as it lets me set up still lifes and play around with colour and pattern easier than you can do with portraits.

These are two of these new works, which will be on show with another two cup paintings and a selection of my figurative work at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair this weekend. Tracey Mcnee will be representing me, along with several other terrific painters and I'm sure it'll be a great show - I'm pretty sad that I'm just too busy at the moment to go down and see it myself, but if you are in the area, let me know what you think of my mini change of direction.

28 Drawings Of Cat - Day 28

Today is the last day so I've collected all the drawings together. It has been an exhausting month, starting when I had that horrid lurgy, progressing to a very enjoyable but tiring trip to London and then onto the last stretch where I tried to be much more experimental.

Along the way I have learned all sorts of things through the making, reading all the comments and looking at every one else's work. In particular, I am going to think more about the use of line and incorporate it more into my paintings. Graphite was easier to use than I remembered and I'm going to be exploring this more in future. There really is something about charcoal I really don't like and using it always feels like a battle, so I'm giving up that fight presently.

Here are all the prints I did - many failures, as you can see but I really felt I was learning while printing and later, bugging people with questions. I am keen to do more printmaking - it was so much fun, gives strong results for the time spent and will really let me experiment with tone vs line and composition.

Every year of the challenge it has been knackering but moves me on tremendously in my art-making, widening my ideas and techniques and deepening my understanding - so I'm looking forward to what the rest of the year brings and will be ready to start all over again next february - but who knows what challenges I'll set myself then?

Red Cat - day 27

The other day I was reminded that I have some chunks of burnt sienna. It can be a messy thing to use so did this in the studio, at an easel - the only drawing this month that has been and I think you can see the difference - more movement, more swing. I also used the whole width of the paper - still only a4 sized, but it'll be the biggest drawing of the bunch - for me charcoal, chalk and my bits of sienna rock are for big drawings - unlike ink, pencil and watercolour that seem to suit small better. There are always exceptions though - I can see possibilities in using the liquid graphite on a big brush, getting big sweeps of tone on the paper, then going in after for detail.

This kind of idea getting really has been the big benefit of doing the 28 drawings later every year for me - I'm all fired up with possibilities now and hopefully you'll all see the benefits in my work over the next year.

Oh, and I just had to do a cleaning one at some stage - after all, it's what she does the most, after sleeping.

Oil Painting of Mrs Cat - Day 26

Finished - maybe. For today, at least. At this stage I generally stop, put the painting up on my studio wall somewhere and see if it annoys me while I'm working on other stuff. In a week or two I'll take it down, have a closer look and either do more to it or decide it is done and put a layer of retouch varnish on it.

Then it goes back on the wall until I decide to either do more to it (it it's crying for attention) or send it to a gallery. Depending on how long it's been it then gets a final coat of varnish or gets taken directly to the framer.

After that it depends very much on other people what happens - although I have a sneaking suspicion I might just keep this one for myself!

Monoprint Failure - day 25

OK, so today is a cheat in that I actually did the print yesterday - but I had the ink out for the linocut and really wanted to experiment a bit more - that's what it's all about, right?

Sadly my experiments didn't go very well - there clearly is some kind of trick to doing monoprints, either that or the ink I've got is just too cheap - it was drying out before I had finished drawing. Also the charcoal paper I used was probably not the best thing as the lines on it have come through clearly. Again, more research needed - this is one of the reasons I like doing the 28 drawings later challenge - it gives me so many ideas to explore until the next one!

Linocat - Day 24

The lino was cut on sunday night in front of the telly, but I've not had a chance to try printing from it until today as I suspected it might be a messy business.

Which it was. Having never done any print making before the whole thing was new to me so I didn't expect quite so much mess at all the stages - from all the little bits of lino cut out to ink getting everywhere. I also didn't expect the ink to be quite so sticky and thick - none of the finer cuts really came out, sadly, but on the plus side the ink being thick has given the fur a lovely mossy look.

But I think I might read up a little before my next linocut.

Stretch - Artgraf Watersoluble Graphite - Day 23

This was done with water soluble graphite from Artgraf, that comes in a little tin I bought at the Royal Academy last week. I thought that graphite might suit a picture of kitty with the grey winter trees behind her and I am fairly pleased with the results although as always with new media I can think of a few ways to do better next time. I used a chinese brush, which is my favourite for life drawing - I can really see this stuff being very useful indeed in the life class, especially if using pencils as well. The finished work has a lovely granulated, slightly sparkly look, which might suit a future project I'm thinking about. So although not entirely pleased with this drawing really glad I did it as I think it will lead to lots of other, better works.

Paper Cat - Day 22

Finally caught up, day 21 done on day 21. And what an unexpected bother it was. Maybe I should have used glue, or photographed it, rather than trying to scan it, which meant thinking in reverse and trying to move teeny bits of paper around underneath other bits of paper. The blanket is of course her favourite and we shan't mention what she's doing.

Cat Statue - Day 21

Right from the start of the month I knew I wanted to do a little statue at some point. But I've never done any three dimensional making so wasn't sure what to use. Initially I thought I'd use fimo or clay, but then I saw some plasticine in the art store and since it was both much cheaper and less complicated it seemed like a better option.

However I may have bought too small a pack - this little statue is only a couple of inches high, so adding any kind of detail was pretty difficult, especially without tools. If I do it again maybe I'll use a pencil or something to draw on whiskers. Still, sometimes simplicity is a good thing, and thinking in three dimensions was a nice change.

Kitty Portrait - Day 20

Only anther week to go so I've looking back to see what I've done and what I've not yet managed - next week should have more experimental (for me) works, as hopefully I'll have a wee bit more time. I'm also getting more familiar with cat anatomy, which should allow a bit more freedom, and have already used all my normal ways of working.

One of the things I noticed I hadn't done was a close up, so here it is. Using white pencil in a tonal manner is new, too, of course, and more difficult than I expected.

In The Studio - day 19

A wee update of what is going on in the studio

Another layer has been added to the kitty painting - really just darkening the darks and finding the pattern on the blanket. Hope to finish this in one more go over the next week sometime - you can see the earlier stages at day 12.

In comparison with Day 3 there hasn't been any huge changes - two new tea cup paintings started, two much closer to being finished and one done. Various bits and bobs have been done on the portraits as well so that they are pretty much all at the stage where they have had most problems sorted and just need finished. I haven't had the time to do that recently though as need at least 4 uninterrupted hours - here's hoping the next couple of weeks will be better!

Yawn - Day 18

It has been a busy few days and I am knackered. So, it seems, is Mrs.Cat, so this is a very quick drawing from us today. I was trying to get some energy into the drawing, use the pencil in different ways and so on, will have to have a look how well I managed tomorrow.

Trafalgar Lion - day 17

A day late with this posting - not a lot of internet access yesterday, sorry folks.

Anyway, hopefully this chap is instantly recognisable!

Preview of the preview - day 16

This little largely unintelligible drawing is a sketch of the wall on which my painting is hung at the Lynn Painter Stainers Prize exhibition - I have just spent a fair bit of time having a good look at the show and there are some stunning paintings. Tonight is the official preview and prize giving, so am about to get dressed up ready - very exciting!

What about the cats, though? Today has been a bit hectic, so I'm cheating today and showing you a couple that were done yesterday at the National Gallery, hope that's OK with everyone.

Ruben's Tiger - Day 15

Today I traveled down to London so had no time to draw the cat. Instead, I went to the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy and drew the tiger from his Tiger, Lion and Leopard Hunt painting.

The exhibition was very interesting, had loads of different artists so you could compare styles as well as having sketches and drawings - very interesting to someone trying to learn how to paint better. Also the lighting was good for a change - no problems with glare, lso for most of the works you could get up real close.

I'll be down here for the next couple of days, so will do my best to keep drawing cats - just not mine!

Valentine Kitty - Day 14

It's Valentine's Day and I thought I'd share the love a little to the cat. But I don't think she was very impressed by her rose and she tried to eat her ribbon. Oh well.

You Dancin? Day 13

This morning I got the ink and dip pen out to see if I could capture how kitty looks when in play mode - we did a little photo shoot last weekend and I've been itching to use these photographs.

I really wanted to get a sense of movement so thought I'd layer the drawings. The first two worked well together but I'm not so sure about the third (on it's own) drawing - but it is an experiment, and something I may try again or incorporate into a painting - we'll see.

For me it is also a relief just to draw in line - I know teachers really really hate people doing this and I know you don't get the sense of depth or tactile qualities that tone can give you but it is just so much simpler and easier and I think more suited to momentary things. What do you think?

Starting A Painting - Day 12

A little slide show of a painting that I started this morning, showing the stages of the first stage of a Jane painting. It seems to run too fast, so will post each photo seperately.

First is the drawing, squared from photoshop, using watercolour pencil.

Next are the darks - if it doesn't read at this stage, then I need to go back to the beginning, re-draw, re-think. Not this time, though!

Then I add the mid tones, and generally things look much worse as the white of the canvas is still showing. In this case the white is oil primer on aluminium - an experiment!

Lastly I add the lights - these are much darker than they will be eventually, same as the darks are generally not as dark. Everything is grey/brown as well, so I can judge easier the colour of the next layer easier - in this case, there will be lots of blue toned greys and black, which is why the colours here are more brown, which should add a bit of contrast.

At this stage I stop to let things dry and for me to consider the painting while stuff is still changeable. It'll probably lie about my studio for a week or so while I work on other stuff, then hopefully I'll be able to finish this in one more layer, maybe two.