If there’s one thing I know I’ve always been good at, it’s procrastinating! So my New Year’s resolution is to try to get to my studio (or at least start working from home or wherever I happen to be) before 9am Monday through to Friday … from now on and for ever more!
Ok, I know we’re only half way through the first full working week of the year, but I have managed to keep to my new regime and – I have to say – I’m pretty impressed with myself!
So here’s my output so far for the week; 4 small paintings based on previous etchings and larger paintings, all finished and delivered for the latest mini works exhibition at Morningside Gallery in Edinburgh (which begins in a couple of week’s time).
Hope your New Year has gotten off to a good start!
Awaiting the Turn of the Tide 1-4 (8×6″ mixed media)
I wish it wasn’t just my paintings and prints that will be attending tonight’s wonderful looking banquet at the Abbot House. They’ll be adorning these fine medieval walls for the coming weeks, so drop by and have a gander if you’re in the vicinity. All are for sale just in case you’re still on the hunt for something with a very personal touch and created by my own not-so-fair hands!
I’ve decided to throw open my medieval studio door again this weekend, but it’ll be on Sunday instead of Saturday. Hopefully that means a few more folk who couldn’t make it last time can do so this time round. So please come along between 11am and 4pm for a final chance to pick up a great bargain limited edition etching or painting before Christmas!!
Yesterday’s open studio day turned out to be fantastic in many ways. I met some lovely new people who made the extra effort to climb all those stairs to my studio and, thankfully, their thoughts and impressions of my work were very positive – always good to hear! It was also great to catch up with a few old friends too.
As well as being an opportunity to sell and show my work to new clients, the viewing also provided me with a chance to see a lot of the work I’ve been doing over the last couple of years framed and hung together as a collection, instead of being shipped off to various galleries, where there is often little opportunity to see that or to get a feel for how it’s all going or any feedback from clients. That was very useful, as sometimes it’s difficult for me to see the cohesion that exists between the individual pieces I’m working on at any given time. This is particularly the case with the etchings, as it can take a pretty long time to complete the whole process of making them and I usually like to work on just the one or two at a time. I think it all worked well together as a whole though, and seeing it all together gave me a few ideas for new pieces to add to my series of etchings and paintings.
I enjoyed the whole experience so much I will be doing it all again this coming Sunday. So if you couldn’t make it this time, please come along between 11-4pm at the Abbot House!
So after a very long but productive week and a successful day yesterday, I decided to crack open the gluhwein and sample the Christmas festivities on offer at Edinburgh’s Winter Wonderland. I feel very lucky to have what I think is probably the most beautiful city in the world – especially at Christmas – right on my doorstep. And what artist could fail to be inspired by scenes such is this!
Here’s a couple of new prints I’ve just finished. Dunnotter Castle in particular is quite different from what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years, but I have loved the painterly method and the scratchy effects you get from using sugarlift, which is how I did this plate. Picasso invented this style of etching where you paint or use a fine nibbed pen to draw a suger solution onto the metal, then once it’s dry you cover the whole plate with straw hat varnish before pouring hot water over it. The water and the heat makes the sugar solution expand and burst through the varnish in the areas you painted, exposing the bare plate. The varnish elswhere on the plate protects it from the acid. You then clean the plate and add an aquatint (a fine spray of acrylic or resin-based dots which acts like a protective mesh screen) to it and begin the process of exposing it to the acid for the various tints. The tiny dots of aquatint again protect the metal beneath them allowing the acid to only etch the spaces in between, thus creating tone. I usually bathe the plate in 30 second dips for each tone, but it depends on the metal and the acid being used. It can be a wonderfully expressive technique and I’ve used it a few times now.
Edinburgh from Inverleith Park below is another sugarlift etching. I’m looking forward to experimenting with it some more in the coming months.
Storm Approaching Catterline (80x80cm oil on canvas)
It has already been a ridiculously busy few weeks for me, what with various galleries putting out requests for new work in the run up to christmas and also preparing for and entering the end-of-year open exhibitions etc. Last night I conked out at 8! And next week is going to get even more hectic! I somehow have to get a load of paintings and prints including the one above to Gallery Heinzel in Aberdeen (that’s a new one for me) before 5pm on Monday and then get back in time to take my son to his violin lesson in Edinburgh at 5. I also have to finish sorting out the prints I’ll have on show at the Dunfermline Printmakers stand at the Edinburgh Art Fair by Wednesday morning (was actually due in yesterday!) then help deliver most of our prints and equipment to the fair, which is ope to the public on Friday at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh – plug plug! On Friday I’ll spend the whole day at the art fair along with some of my printmaking pals showing people how to screenprint and use an etching press and then I have to get my print of Edinburgh Castle over to the RSA before heading off to Cornwall on Saturday for a week of sketching in the campervan, with my girlfriend and her 2 mutts! Oh yes, and then there’s the 3 gallery preview shows I’d like to go to between now and next Friday – mainly for free wine, of course!
Jeez, I think I’m in the middle of a middle class crisis!!
Talking of exhibition openings, I have 2 free tickets to get into the Edinburgh Art Fair. They can be used any of the 3 days it’s on (and also the Thursday preview). If you’d like to have them then all you have to do is share/retweet this post and I’ll select the person whoo did that and is most likely to spend loads of money on prints! 😉 Anyway, here’s a few links to some of the things mentioned above:
