Rattray Head – Clive Ramage Art

Spectacular Winter Show with Graystone Gallery at ‘The Art Hotel’, 24 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

I am very excited to be showing several of my oil paintings and handmade prints with Edinburgh’s newest purveyor of fine art, Graystone Gallery. Owner Lesley has found a truly inspired space for her inaugural show in what has to be the most exquisite and stylish boutique hotel I’ve ever seen!

And you are invited to the Private View at 24 Royal Terrace this coming Thursday (details below).

On any given day, the walls of 24 Royal Terrace, aka The Art Hotel, are full of colour and when I dropped off my own works for this winter show last Friday I was astonished (in a very good way!) to see such a huge variety of great art in one incredible setting. The pictures above give only a tiny taste of what it’s really like in there!

Glitter Moon – Blue
Etching and screen print
58 x 48cm (image size)

The hotel owner, who has personally collected art from around the world and curated each and every room herself, not only has excellent taste but has created a highly unique setting in which you can indulge yourself over a cocktail or a fine whisky while taking in some fabulous contemporary art.

The Bass Rock (Nocturne)
Oil on wood panel
74 x 74cm framed

Alongside some pretty huge and important works by the likes of John Bellany and Alan Davie, there’s a highly ecclectic mix of landscapes, figurative and abstract pieces that should pique the interest of any art enthusiast. I could easily have spent a day in there myself!

Dubh Artach
Oil on wood panel
74 x 74cm framed

For this first Graystone Gallery pop-up show a number of the walls have been rehung with works by around 20 contemporary artists from Scotland and beyond, including 9 by yours truly.

Where There Is Light
Oil on wood panel
78cm x 78cm framed

So if you love art and happen to be in Edinburgh this coming Thursday evening then you need to get along to the private view (details below)!

Rattray Head (Cirrus Clouds)
Oil on canvas
79 x79cm framed

If you can’t make that then the show will run until 2 Jan 2023. And, as you can see below, Lesley has also organised a number of events to run alongside this show, including an Artist’s Night, at which I and a couple of others will discuss our techniques and inspirations.

It all promises to be a very special feast for the eyes and one not to be missed this festive period!

arTay 2022 – Part of Perth Festival Of The Arts

After 2 year’s absence from the art show calendar, I really can’t wait for arTay 2022, which opens at 10am in Perth this coming Thursday 19th May and runs until 7.30pm on Sunday 22nd.

Every May, and as if by magic, a large marquee appears next to Perth’s Concert Hall and is filled to the brim with a great assortment of fantastic artworks.

Dubh Artach, oil on wood panel – 75x75cm (framed)

But all the real magic is what’s on show inside the marquee!

With more than 70 artists taking part and a few hundred pictures to hang and label, it’s a challenge to get it all done and looking great in just a few hours. It’s not all hard work though and there’s always a great atmosphere, with Hugh and his team making it all the more fun by providing lots of coffee and cakes to keep us all going until the show is hung. Remarkably – considering the often competative nature of a typical ‘hang’, and with so many artistic egos to be found in one relatively small compass – I have yet to witness a punch up!

*Rattray Head*, oil on canvas – 57cm x 57cm (framed)

As well as helping to hang the show on Wednesday, I’m also very much looking forward to catching up with lots of artist friends and maybe matching some new faces to familiar pictures and names too.

So these are the four paintings I’ll have in the show. Three fairly large atmospheric lighthouse oils and my latest dreamscape (or ‘longing’) painting of Edinburgh, as seen at night from across the Firth of Forth.

[Contact Hugh at Frames Gallery, Perth for more details, or if you would like to reserve one of these paintings. Tel: 01738 631085]

Edinburgh Nocturne, oil on canvas – 95x95cm (framed)=

If you happen to be in or near Perth then do come along and see a huge variety of great work by some of the country’s best artists. Along with many of the other artists, I’ll be at the ‘arTay Party’ preview on Friday 20th from 6pm.
Hope to see some of you there too!

Frames Gallery

10 Victoria Street, Perth, Scotland, PH2 8LW
01738 631085
info@framesgallery.co.uk

Studio News

I thought I’d post a few pictures from my new studio here in Aberdeen. I’ve been working up here for a few months now and have really enjoyed getting back into painting with oils. Having my own studio again is wonderfully liberating, as I can work much more freely and splash the paint and thinners around without worrying about getting it all over my furniture at home! It’s also great to have all my work materials out of the house and to be able to find everything I need within arm’s reach.

I also became a member of the very highly regarded Peacock Print Studio earlier this year. Working there has been a real eye opener on many levels, and having the entire space to myself (thanks to Covid!) has felt like quite a privilege. But I’ll dedicate a post to all of that at a later date.

So, in the meantime, here are a few pictures of things I’ve been working on recently at my studio in Eagle House.

This first one (above) is an oil painting of Rattray Head Lighthouse, between Peterhead and Fraserburgh. Some of the pebbles in the foreground were carefully painted while others were literally lashed onto the canvas using a liner brush with a very runny mixture of oil paint and thinner.

This second Rattray Head picture is a larger version I decided to do after feeling quite happy with the first. Both need further fine tuning though. The lighthouse painting below it will be built up in painstakingly slow glazes to convey an altogether different mood using a different technique.

The following 5 pictures are the products of my end-of-the-day palate scrapings (as I like to call them). When I’m finished working on the main picture each day, I basically smear together all the colours left on my palate and add a little oil painting medium to produce what Whistler would call his ‘soup’. He would apply this liquid paint in streaks across his canvases to produce many of his nocturne paintings. This painterly ‘soup’ often produces the loveliest of greys which I then use as the ground for future paintings. These sky and beach pictures were done this past week from imagination and I’ve yet to decide how to finish them off.

The above picture is a quick sketch I did this week of beautiful Bennachie. I’ll work it up into a finished painting, but quite like the dreamy quality of it as it is. And below is another of Rattray Head from a different angle and then there’s Catterline, one of my favourite places to paint and to spend time.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this past week or two. Every week I intend to start a whole new batch of pictures and finish at least some from the previous weeks, and continue on in this vein for many years to come. So as long as I can keep my studio (and lungs and head!) free of turpentine fumes, I’ll also try to keep posting regular updates on what I’ve been working on and also where the work will be available to see and buy.

Watch this space!

Making Headlines

Here’s a link to a piece in this week’s Dunfermline Press about my show Northern Lights -An Artistic Odyssey of Scotland’s Coast.

Text from article below:

BE captivated by the beauty of Scotland’s breathtaking seascapes and lighthouses at the Fire Station Creative’s latest exhibition.

‘Northern Lights: An Artistic Odyssey of Scotland’, the first solo exhibition by self-taught Dunfermline artist Clive Ramage, 45, launched at the weekend and will run until November 22.

The artworks on display are based on Clive’s year-long travels in his camper van around Scotland documenting the landscape and scenery from Stromness to the Mull of Galloway, after being awarded a grant by Fife Contemporary Arts and Crafts.

Screen Shot 2015-11-12 at 16.08.22

The inspiration for the project came from Clive’s childhood experiences growing up in Arbroath.

He said, “I’ve always been drawn to the sea. Each night, like clockwork, the Bell Rock, Isle of May and Fife Ness lights would intermittently flash their beams out across the cold, dark sea and I would watch – mesmerised at my bedroom window.

“Those magical, exotic lights across the sea have continued to tantalise and inspire me and I have always wanted to capture something of that magic and atmosphere in pictorial form.”

The effects of the weather also provided their own inspiration for Clive’s paintings.

“The colours and atmosphere of each location probably became the more important feature of the work,” he explained.

“It wasn’t so much the lights themselves that were intriguing me pictorially, but the wild spaces between them, the surrounding landscapes.”

Clive has previously exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour.

He is also a member of the Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshops and rents a studio in the former fire station.

He added, “Fire Station Creative is such a beautifully renovated space for exhibiting artworks.

“The wonderful Fife coast and the East Neuk in particular have also proved to be a huge inspiration to me, so it will be great to be show some of that work here too.”

Gallery curator Ian Moir said, “We’re really proud to be showing off the talent that comes from our own studios.

“I think this exhibition will be well-received by the public. The subject matter is very accessible and the artworks have been extremely well-executed. It’s going to be a great show.”

Entry is free. The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm Wednesday to Saturday and 11am to 4pm on Sunday.

Northern Lights – Now showing at Fire Station Creative, Dunfermline

Here are a selection of some of the paintings currently on show at Fire Station Creative. All are for sale.

The Bass Rock Lighthouse (80x80cm, Oil on Canvas)

Stromness Lighthouse (50x50cm, oil on Canvas with Gold Leaf) SOLD

The Bell Rock, Blue and Gold(60x60cm, Oil on Canvas) SOLD

East NeuShoreline at Cellardyke (40x120cm, oil on Canvas) SOLD

East Neuk Cottages Awaiting the Turn of The Tide series (40x120cm, Oil on Canvas)

St Monans Harbour (Red Boats) (40x120cm, Oil on Canvas)

Bass Rock Nocturne (40x50cm, Oil on Board with Gold Leaf)

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Edinburgh Art Fair

As well as having the solo paintings show on at Fire Station Creative, Dunfermline, right now, I will also have some of my Edinburgh etchings on show and available for sale at Edinburgh Art Fair this weekend.

Please click the links for more info! I’ll be demonstrating printmaking techniques there tomorrow, so stop by and say hello and have a go yourself if you can make it!

Hope to see you there!

Clive

The Lights That Never Go Out

Here are the first photos from my journey around Scotland’s amazing coastline (Ardnamurchan, Mull and part of the East Coast). I will be using some of these as the inspiration for new paintings and prints. Plenty more to come, so keep watching this space!

Fife Council grant acknowledgement pic

The Lights That Never Go Out – A Map of Scotland’s Lighthouses

Here’s a map of all the Scottish lighthouses that I found at Ardnamurchan Point. There’s a lot of them! Almost 100 and pretty much all built by the Stevenson family within 100 years from the first (the Bell Rock) which was finished in 1810. I hope to get to as many as possible over the next few months as part of my project, The Lights That Never Go Out, An Artistic Odyssey From Muckle Flugga To The Mull of Galloway.

So after a day spent washing clothes and repacking the campervan after the Easter trip to the west coast, I’m off again to spend the next few days and nights sketching and photographing the lighthouses between Montrose and Fraserburgh. Tonight I’m hoping for a clear and starry sky (ie. no fog horn!) spent at the foot of Rattray Head.