March 14, 2008
Cyprus art 2008
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After nearly a week out here in Cyprus, I have made a series of small watercolour and gouaches mostly from direct observation from my drives around the island. I am only here until next wednesday, so I do not expect to develop them until I get back. If I can get at least two new works for my show in Chichester then i will be very happy.
Weather remains a mixed bag. We had a spectacular thunderstorm the other night and today is extremely windy. I think my images at least convey that it is not the summer and I must admit, that when you take the heat away from Cyprus, it does all look a bit tacky.
I am going to make a prediction that Wales will lose against France tomorrow (6 nations rugby) and not win the grand slam - I would like them too, and I am going to visit a welshman tomorrow to watch the match in a cyprus cafe.. but I am not optimistic.
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April 28, 2007
Cyprus 2002 on YouTube
I am only now coming out of my flu bug which really did knock me out for the last two week. I struggled on at work, taking some time off… and when i have time off, my the devil makes work for idle hands! After doing the eca 1989 video, I started to get out all my old videos which I never had time to sort out. An in this age of YouTube, it is great that I can finally share some of them. I had done all this footage from Cyprus College of Art in 2002 (when i was still living in Chichester). So, I put it all together into a 15 minute montage over music (2 parts on youtube as they wont let you go over 10 minutes) and emailed all the people who were at Cyprus College of Art that year. Anyway, it gives a little insight into how I produced the work for this period. I only took a little footage in Limassol 2005 and none in 2006, so I doubt I will add them to the site. Anyway here they are:
The good news is that at last I am going to show a selection of all my Cyprus work in 2008/09 in the Otter Gallery at University of Chichester. It will be good to finally have a show there after my time in the area.
NEW STUDIO
I am moving into a new studio in Edinburgh next week - a space in Morningside - so at last I can get on with some oil painting for the show at the Queen Street Gallery (Emsworth) for November.
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May 8, 2006
light at the end of the tunnel...?
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Not a huge amount to say really. I have been working on the three pictures above this last week. I finally braved doing the big one of the pidgeon man/lady. I decided that it needed to be a lot cleaner and have no other figures, which were distracting and pointless. I think it looks more arresting now. Still much work to be done on it. The other two are nearly there. The lovers at the botanics is still a bit messy, but I see how to pull it all together now. one more session on both and they can be put to bed, hopefully.
That leaves the three others to work on and perhaps I wil have time to work up some of the little ones I started before xmas and never resolved.. Sometimes that works for me - rescueing old unfinished forgotten pictures.
Oh! I nearly forgot. I have been invited back out to Cyprus at the end of June for a month to teach and paint. So, it will be get the show ready, finish at Brookes and then off for a hot month in Limassol once again. Great!
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November 21, 2005
framed and sent off (phew)
I quite enjoyed my last week; by day I was this mild mannered lecturer - by night I was this demon framer working to a tight deadline. But got them all done and sent off. I even went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a wee treat last night. (bloody good!) Anyway, much too tired to give you chapter and verse so here are some picures of the works framed:
going to the Scottish Gallery
Going to John Martin Gallery
Not going anywhere (just yet)
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September 30, 2004
starting a new batch of work
This week has been a good solid week in the studio. I go for my swim, go for a coffee and look at the sea and then get down to the studio.
This week has been about planning and developing. And a little bit of printmaking as I am teaching print at Rochester. So, I did some colour mono prints and a reductive relief lino cut to make sure that I could teach it properly (for tomorrow). It was also a nice thing to do to get some of my ideas out of my sketchbook and into some kind of form. I have been a bit frustrated with how conventional my compositions have been, and they need to be more challenging and quirky. So the monoprints allowed me to take a few risks and gave me some new ideas.
I was also keen to get down some of the information I has sketched in my books from all the early morning train journeys: the dawn skies and mythical lanscapes flying past. And also the quirkyness of all those little provincial railway stations. So out came my watercolours for the first time since about March and I proceeded to produce about a dozen quite complex comps and studies. It was nice to see them emerge as I did not expect them to. It is lovely when that happens, especially whe you are not quite sure where they came from.
Another thing happened this week which was quite fortuitous. My Niece, Mae, (7 going on 16) is studying L S Lowry at school and was asked to find out something about him. I am afraid that dreadful 70’s song ‘matchstalk cats and dogs’ had marred my (and probabaly may others) interest in his work. But when I started to look up his work on the internet, I found work which I had forgotten about and saw what a sophisticated interpreter of human life he was. Wonderful paintings.
Talking of wonderful paintings, today I received an invite for a show of my good friend, Joe Fan’s paintings at the the Thackeray Gallery in London. Opening on the 12th October, running to the 29th. I have followed Joe’s work since we both started being lecturers together at Gray’s School of Art in the early 90s. You simply must go and see it. Here is an example:
Joe Fan Constrction for a Dream, Oil on Canvas, 44”×42”
Also, another wonderful figurative painter in Aberdeen, Barry McGlashan has just added new work on his web site, some of which you can see at his solo show at the John Martin Gallery next April. I especially love his new painting The Final Hours.
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