Angeltastic

It has to be a good weekend when new pictures of art events and new pictures are vying for space on my Facebook profile and blog! Having had a truly superior and inspiring day yesterday visiting the Number Four gallery in St Abbs, today I spent my usual Sunday slot at Ritchie's gallery in Leith and set to creating little box canvases for the now-looming Angel Haven show. And...I was on fire!! Angel-tastic day of really enjoyable painting and listening to music and chatting to the odd customer.. a bit slow on that front but still red-dotted a picture of Ritchie's for payment later and advised on a commission they want to go with it! So, all in all that will be a decent payday for a brisk fifteen minutes work after closing time!! It is really worth going in a bit early and hanging back a bit late - I have never, ever been a clock-watcher and just enjoy the time to myself dottering about getting paintings done in a cat and distraction-free environment. Found a great Taschen book on 'The Portrait' and put it aside to have a browse and a cup of tea at some stage in the day... never got there! Too many little angel ladies were begging to pop out onto the box canvases that I used to so hate working on..

Ritchie is hitting his stride with his side of the show by the looks of things- lots of lovely little ones all over the place on box canvases and wee boards, and a small but very cool collection of 'icon' influenced angels with gold leaf downstairs in the office waiting their moment.

Really kicked my temporary colour-block I think; for a few paintings there I was struggling to come up with colours in my usual way, which is essentially instinctive. I think maybe I was doing that thing I do of thinking too much about something, which of course causes it to malfuncition.

Watched pot never boils, over-thought colour never harmonises.

And with that cheerful note I am going to keep the ball rolling and head off for more of the same in the studio, where I have also (of course) started another new big 2 x 2 footer despite having told myself that I have to concentrate on the little boxes for the two remaining show now...

But it is going to be sooooo cool, I just know it; I was 'dickering' (great word, just stole it off someone) around with drawings of buildings, which I hate, and suddenly spun off into a great elephant and angel image. Really free, man. It's gonna be a winner, and far more interesting than buildings, to me anyway.

Delivery Number Four

One of those truly magical days when it so nearly went horribly wrong right at the end, forever erasing the wonder. Luckily, it didn't; wonder intact. Went down to St Abbs to deliver paintings for the Christmas show at the very lovely Number Four gallery and so, so nearly ran out of petrol in a monsoon on the return journey! Phew.

The gallery turned out to be somewhere I was familiar with; St Abbs has a great bird colony on the cliffs and I had visited a couple of times years back when I was fresh in the country and out and about more; once I came on my own and came dangerously close to flying off the cliff top in a gale, so I approached with caution on this occasion.. Last time I visited I remember peeking into some lovely old farm buildings overlooking the plateau above the cliffs, where craft workshops were supposed to be, but were closed up. This is now the gallery, and so much more has been made of the space and location; I am in awe of the work that has gone into it and in love with most of the artwork. Jenny Martin, who runs the gallery, also creates some gorgeous minimal landscapes on fabric with very cool Japanese style minimalist frames - a kind of glass sandwich with wooden top and base held together with string (cord, twine...) which works really well. I also became very attached to a lot of different ceramicists - I always love a good potter and there were a remarkable number of great pieces here, especially little relief pictures by Hilke Macintyre and patterned ceramic plates by Pollie and Gary Uttley. Both of these I am eyeing up for myself, as long as the cats are able to keep their paws off. I should have written more names down, as I was quite overwhelmed a) to find so much great work and b) to be about to hang my work among it! I think it will look awesome though; my long deliberation about which pieces to take, and all the reframing, was worth it in the end. It is a good feeling when you are content and proud of a piece you leave behind somewhere...

The day was kind to me as well; weather so sunny and crisp that the right hand side of my face was pink and glowing by the time I turned off the A1; the views over field and coast were just fantastic and I felt myself coming all over landscapy again. If only there were more time in the world I would put all these ideas into being and have a housefull of paintings, all of different experimental ideas and genres. Alas, I do what I can in the time I am given.

Had one of those really 'wow' moments coming back as well; couldn't have timed it on purpose - just as the most amazing view up the coast to the Bass Rock hove into view, low sun steaking the fields gold, the trumpet solo from Slaid Cleave's 'One good year' came on the ipod. This is a moment in music that will tear me up on a dull Monday morning, so in this instance it was just beautiful; I love that song and it is one of those that holds a place in me and Stu's little story. Hey, we all have them, I'm not the only sentimental fool in the world!

And so now we wait - I will take Stu down to see the show as it will look just great, I know; the preview weekend is the 13th - 14th November and then it runs right up to Christmas. How cool would it be to see one of my favorite paintings sold for Christmas; 'Suki's Rubicon' marked a real change and development in style at the start of the year and I love it dearly as a painting and because of what it taught me. I would, however, be pleased as punch to see it go to a good home; I am always happy to send the little ones out into the world...

Inhale, and..

' The deep breath before the plunge'; that's the quote I've been thinking about for the last week and it finally found me- I couldn't remember it or where it was from but it was hovering on the fringes of my memory. Then we decided to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy over lord knows how many nights (having no TV means that we often slap in a DVD to watch on the laptop over dinner) and lo and behold, on about day five I found the scene with Gandalf leaning on the ballustrades of Minas Tirith (no idea how you spell it) debating the impending final showdown with Mordor. So... that is how I am feeling this week. That's what that whole paragraph was about. Deep breath - pause before shows opening, Plunge - shows opening and result being somewhere between lots and nothing. Read a wise article a while ago that told me not to expect the great dramatic moment where someone shows up and announces that I am the new messiah, or similar, but to enjoy the drip, drip of small and encouraging moves onward and upward towards my goal. Wise indeed. Earlier this year I was soooo excited to have some pictures in a gallery window for the first time; my first official solo gallery show last year was a bit of an anticlimax through no-one's fault but my own overblown expectation. The guy with the messiah announcement didn't show up, not many others did either and the event sunk without trace. Or did it...? The point, I think, is that it taught me things that I built on over the following months, it instructed me in areas of gallery ettiquette and lingo that I was previously unaware of and it gave me a really good long breathing space on my own to look at the big picture, not the piddly detail right in front of my nose.

So essentially I will try very hard not to be disappointed whatever befalls me and my work this autumn, but try to wait and see how the experience pans out in the longer term.

Tomorrow I'm off to deliver the first five paintings to the Number Four gallery in St Abbs, so the plunge begins.

Bubble Wrap

Where would we be without it? I tend to have a couple of sheets in the back of my car permanently to wrap pictures, probably making it look as if I sleep there, but the bubbly plastic wrap has become the saviour of painting packagers everywhere. Luckily I am a recycler of the stuff and have a few suitcases full because tonight was the wrapping of the first show to leave the house for Christmas... It has to be said that the course of bubbling does not run smooth with a cat in the house, and Twig did what they do best and chewed string, ran off with masking tape and leapt with gay abandon onto any piece of wrap that moved, yowling gleefully. But hey, that was to be expected. Importantly the whole mission was accomplished without loss of life or the insertion of tape or string into Twig's stomach (or screws for that matter, they were also fair game as toys) and all five pictures are now safely stashed in the hall where the clawed beasts cannot venture and turn my hard work to plastic ribbons.

Also managed a job that has been sitting waiting on my attention for about nine months now; the contents of my desk drawer. These were removed to a cardboard box in the hall (now occupied by the paintings, which is the only reason that the job is now done) when Stu started renovating my desk way back in the spring. Logic told me that if I hadn't needed anything in said box over the course of this time, which indeed I hadn't, then the best course of action was probably to chuck the lot, but I persisted and found among the rubbish a few gems of usefulness. Okay; I found an awful lot of pens with no writing capability, an awful lot of notes and lists written on scraps of paper, a few old bills and a collection of useful cards and leaflets pertaining to shows and galleries. Nothing that would have been missed, admittedly, but some worthy things saved.

Twig is, naturally, now in proud possession of the box and will remain so for the evening, after which she will have no interest whatsoever in it ever again. It will, however, probably remain in the middle of the living room floor for at least a week before it is rehomed. And gawd bless 'er if she isn't rummaging in my handbag and making off with a banana found therein; why? Keeps my on my toes...

Set myself a fairly easy schedule for tonight and have now completed the tasks and am off for a treat - reading in bed while awaiting Stu's late return. Varnished the new painting 'The Advent of Bun Hanzo' and nearly finished its framing, but I am out of tape so that will have to wait now until I am in the gallery on Sunday to purchase more. Also received proofs of the greetings cards I have been waiting on, which are to sell alongside the show in Ritchies (and no doubt use as my own Christmas cards); they look really good and I am pleased to have something like that done, as I realise not everyone is going to want to buy a painting, but at least I can send them away with a memory jogger in the form of my name and email on the back of a card.

And that, I think, is that for now; box canvases start tomorrow for various destinations, so that will be my evening occupation for the next three weeks until the main show hangs.

Back to The Mitchell

Recovering my rejected paintings from Glasgow; submitted to the RGI show for no apparent reason as I am not an RGI member and I am not from Glasgow; right enough there are exhibits that share this with me, but I still didn't have much of a chance. Luckily it gave me a day out in Glasgow, and as a bonus I got to go and see the show, which was only achievable by missing the actual collection day last week and having to beg special dispensation to collect my sad, rejected works a week late while the show was running. Surprisingly easy and relaxing run through to Glasgow made far more pleasant by Stu's company as we managed the normally unmanageable and had a day off together. You would imagine that the laws of probability would make this happen every, say, seven or ten weeks, but we have managed gaps of months this year; it's made weirder by the fact that prior to that we worked together for over three years. Good to see him sometimes while not eating or sleeping...

The RGI show was good and reasonably priced which was nice in these belt-tightening times, and we even splashed out on the catalogue. Most of the names were known and predictable but a few wild-ish cards in there too; to be honest I didn't mark off anything in the catalogue as 'of interest' that turned out to not be by a member, ex-Glasgow Art College, RSW member etc. but the pieces chosen were all very fresh and I was relieved in a way to have been rejected for a bunch of predictable sellers and crowd pullers; far better than finding a room full of new names that had knocked me off the wallspace. Enjoyed going around with Stu too as he always adds a fresh eye to what I have to look at; oddly we both chose the same artist as out 'show fave' but different pieces; Joe Hargan's 'Summers Dream' and 'Anima Mundi'. I'm not always a fan of every of his pieces, but these two were both really loose and imaginative, and both great colour. I am smarting a little at seeing so many great colourists as I give myself a hard time about my own use a lot of the time. Sometimes I am almost pathologically lazy or clumsy with colour choice and I end up, as I did this morning, correcting or altering what I have done. Bun was subjected to a last minute change of an orange panel (which Stu quite correctly and helpfully described as 'cheap' orange) for duck-egg blue and cream. Made a huge and educational difference which is well illustrated by viewing the 'before and after' pictures. One to learn from. Pleased as pie now she is finished and liked my oldest chum's comment on Facebook that it seems joyous and fun; I am indeed in a good an optimistic place right now so long may it persist. And thank you Bill.

We had a really big yellow moment at the Mitchell; there seemed to be a real collection of paintings using yellow in a postive and daring way. I have always had a bit of a problem with yellow, especially incombination with other primaries, so I am determined to set myself some excercises in colour combination to aid my learning curve. Milan was very yellow; never has a city struck me as being connected with a particular colour as much, and such an individual one; yellow houses, artwork, shops, clothes.. .I have never seen such a proliferation in a city.

Finished all the little niggly details for the Number Four gallery paintings, which I deliver on Saturday; two I have reframed in Stu's superior surrounds, and done some patching and revarnishing on the ones that had just returned from the Marchmont Gallery. Thinking of putting a couple of cheeky wee box canvases in the car in case they would like them too; good Christmas pressies and that...

A good day, a yellow and grey and blue day. Off to eat dinner and watch 'Violent Cop' on the laptop for our dining pleasure.

Host of Angels

Just put on my T-tree oil face cream from Body Shop, forgetting that Twig the kit is obsessed with that kind of smell; there is little more tickly and disturbing than a furry kitten sniffing every inch of your face including nostrils, eyes... when I do my teeth she tries to french kiss me to get the minty flavour. Freak.

Officially finished the last of the angels tonight; at least the last of the angels for the Christmas show at Ritchie's. Something tells me that after this year I may be painting the winged ones for a long time to come, at least on and off; they really strike a chord with people and I have a feeling its more the wings and the flying than any religious connotation they have held in the past. That and the 'guardian angel' idea, which, lets face it, we could all do with being true. Flying is freedom is self at its finest; escape from the humdrum and the ability to see all. The last in the line for this show, but the first in her own little series (could only be 'of two, but we shall see) is 'The Adventures of Bun Hanzo'. Bun is, or was, the wayward and adventurous daughter of the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzo of 'Kill Bill' fame; killed at seventeen in an ill-advised duel she quickly assumed the role of guardian angel to the young women of her village and performed her trademark acrobatic martial arts all the better for the addition of a set of wings. She was also a school champion jive dancer, a fact that influences her 'moves' in the arena of life-saving, ass-kicking angel work; always impeccably dresssed in her trademark floral platforms, frowned upon in her teen years but relished in her role in the afterlife. Bun epitomises the survival spirit and devil-may-care attitude idolised by her mortal peers and her presence, sensed but never witnessed, has created a powerful underground mythology among her target audience.

I am thinking of writing up all the narratives that have evolved this year to accompany the show; from Madame Tabere, the Engel flusterer to the 'roof of the world' messenger angels via the tree dwellers that kicked off the project and the very lovely Bun Hanzo.... quite a cast.

Feeling once again the trepidation which quite understandably comes from the idea of putting up your artistic output for the last six months on general show. Will anyone bother to see it? Will they like what they find? Am I barking up the wrong tree entirely - my target audience is unclear to me still. While I would love to have my paintings on my wall and know there are others out there who feel the same, I don't have the commercial clout of so many others, I think that goes without saying and is something I will have to live with; but I am me and thus unique.

On that note I shall adjourn to the studio, empty easel in place, and set about some of my more commercial projects; the little box canvases are selling well and regularly and I enjoy doing them, so what's to complain about. They also give me good ideas as I tend to paint them straight out of my head, so any path can appear before me. Let's see.

Stages of creation

I did that thing tonight that I was talking about the other day; spent half the night on a painting, finished it pretty much and celebrated what I thought was my finest hour to date. Then came back half an hour later and picked holes in it (metaphorically speaking, I'm not that weird).
Now, at close of business, when the green lights running in strips around the tops of the wall are reading 'market closed', I am content again and looking forward to adding the finishing touches (is there a cool French phrase for that? Must be.) tomorrow. Would love to do it now but the fat lady is singing and I am in danger of messing up if I try and work any further tonight. The painting in question is my much heralded (by me) 'Bun Hanzo', yet another character appeared from the depths of my addled brain. I have already got a frame for her and I have been plotting her sequel in my sketch book in traditional style. This is where I say 'this is the last one for this show, I'll do something else now' and then pick carefully back in my own footprints and start the next 'last' one. The next last one is Bun again, this time with a very coarse, pallette knife and scrafito background in neutrals overprinted with 'wallpaper; Bun is the only colourful element in this one and she is all zingy silk kimono and pattern overload like origami paper, but still as a stone in the corner of her humble dwelling contemplating the scene. Or that's how it looks in my minds eye just at the moment...translation follows shortly.
Bought my first Hemingway book today having realised the large gaping maw in my literary knowledge, ie: haven't read any of his stuff. Good old Oxfam came up with a very sixties edition of 'Green Hills of Africa' so the journey starts there, once I have done with Kirsty Gunn's novel that I am cherishing at the moment.
Bought a print from a fellow artist in a moment of gay abandon on the internet tonight; a great little piece of a kind of abstracty harbour in lovely neutrals and blues, colours after my own heart; by Jackie Gardiner. I do like a treat.
The weather tonight is so wild it is trying to enter the house at the seams and is sounds like the biggest bucket of water in the world is being tipped over my roof; almost as disturbing as the one tropical storm I have witnessed in Thailand - and that was pure scary. Bed time, perchance to sleep for the crazy rain.