What's Black and White and Rusty All Over?

Avery Hardoll BP Super. Oil on canvas.

Bauxite No.2, Composition in Black, Red and Yellow. Oil on canvas.

Barking

Blue Birchbark, and companion piece Red Birchbark, now at the Found Gallery, Dunbar.

Birch Bark

Red Birchbark, oil on canvas.

Wolf

Chester Burnett, aka Bigfoot Chester, aka the mighty Howlin' Wolf.

A monstrous vocal and physical presence, standing at six feet three, nearly twenty stones in his prime and wearer of size seventeen shoes, Chester was a big man in all senses.

City At Night.

New oil painting, a night view. One of two paintings inspired by a visit to the Symbolist Landscape exhibition in Edinburgh, in particular Riddarfjarden by Eugene Janssen, which I sat and looked at for a long time.

Florence, Night, oil on canvas, 76cm x 51cm.

Squarescapes

Some new squarescapes that came out of this summer; either lovely or grey and pissing it down.

Barley, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

North Sea, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Evening Beeches, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Whiteadder in Flood, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

In order, sunlight on fields in the Tweed Valley.
The North Sea on a grey, wet day torn with bright patches.
A clump of beeches just up the road from where we live, a very sculptural and elegant shape.
The Whiteadder in one of its many spates this summer, as seen from high up on the bridge by the Ahlstrom plant at Chirnside.

Seascape

St Abbs, moderately agitated.

Harvest Time

An evening scene, round about the end of August, in the field behind the house where we used to live in Staffordshire. It was flat and open, and there were always good skies and an interesting light.

This was done with a lot of rough, claggy underpainting with palette knife, and finishing layers done with brush and the edge of a piece of card. The sky was largely brush and fingers.

After the Harvest, Edial, oil on canvas, 60cm x 50cm.

Heavy weather.

Coldingham Bay, after a couple of days of September storms.

This used to be a long landscape of the Cheviots and the Merse with sun coming through clouds, but it was both difficult and, I eventually admitted, boring the arse off me. As it turned out, all that painting underneath gave the new surface an interesting, rougher texture.

After the Storm, Coldingham Bay, oil on canvas, 91cm x 36cm.

Pheasant.

Pheasant. Bugger to photograph, as the field of green heightened the light reflecting off every brushstroke in practically every direction.

Pheasant, oil on canvas, 49.5cm x 59cm.

Price of Fish: Ullapool.

Fishing boat in the harbour at Ullapool, west coast of Scotland.

The Price of Fish: UL7, oil on canvas, 75cm x 50cm.

Updates on other Price of Fish canvases, to be found at the Found Gallery, Dunbar.

More Fish.

Two new 'Price of Fish' canvases.

Hopefully to be for sale at the Found Gallery, Dunbar, soon.

BF Blue & Gold, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 60cm.

CN6 Blue, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 60cm.

Collected Works

At present there are five more 'Price of Fish' canvases in the studio* in varying stages of completion and I started wondering what they would all look like together. 

I think this is all of them, including the dredger that kicked the whole idea off. A pleasing number of these are sold and dispersed across the country, and it's still an odd feeling to know that I might never see them again but someone somewhere is seeing them - and hopefully, enjoying them - every day. 

It's an idea I don't seem to be getting tired of; it's really hit a nerve with me, and, it would seem, other people too.

*Spare room.

Rust

Back to the joys of rust and weathered paint.

The Price of Fish: BK Black & Green, oil on canvas, 50cm x 60cm.

 

Lemons

Lemons. 

A number of things came together to bring these paintings about. Firstly, Twitter contact Abigail Bosanko changed her avatar to this striking painting:

I'd never seen it before; it's called 'Pink Roses, Chinese Vase' by S.J. Peploe, one of the Scottish Colourists. Then we went up to Edinburgh to look at the Cadell cycle of their Scottish Colourists exhibition, and I got the chance to see this painting in the flesh. It's fantastic; it hangs in the far corner of the room and drags attention towards it. The draughtsmanship and the underlying geometry is so confident and solid, and the paint is put on in magnificent, thick, chunky slabs of colour - and what colour. It hums with life. It's also got something I find really exciting, that apparent ease and simplicity and confidence of a painter who really, really knows what they're doing.

The Cadell exhibition I was less keen on (a bit passionless) but again it was exciting to see big, vigorous paint strokes on big paintings that work right the way across a large room.

Then the Crossing Borders exhibition at Paxton House wanted some pieces that could 'hang together' so I thought I'd try to put together something of what I'd got from the gallery visits. Obviously it doesn't stand up to Peploe's work (you'll see how small and grudging I made his picture) but I think I've moved on with something, and that's always a good feeling.

Snow

Two new landscapes, the Borders under heavy snow. Two views - across the Merse from Chirnside ridge, and from Ninewells Mains to the distant Cheviots.

Wintry views, just as Spring arrives. I am nothing if not topical.

The Merse, Snow, oil on canvas, 60cm x 49cm.

Ninewells Snow, oil on canvas, 60cm x 49cm.

Coldingham Rocks.

New painting. A study of rocks on the beach at Coldingham, Berwickshire.

Coldingham Rocks,  oil on canvas, 60cm x 49cm.

Squarescapes.

 New squarescapes.

From Lindisfarne, Out to Sea, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Mainland, From Lindisfarne, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Moonrise, Chirnside Station, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Snow Shadows, oil on canvas, 20cm x 20cm.

Sketch for Snow Shadows.

The Price of Fish: Grey and Green.

KY grey and green, oil on canvas, 46cm x 60cm.

Looking Forward ---->

The Price of Fish: Prospection. Oil on canvas, 50cm x 60cm.

Prospection, the latest in the 'Price of Fish' series. It's going to be available in the Found Gallery, Dunbar, along with a companion piece 'KY, Grey & Green,' which is titled but just lacking some finishing touches.


I can't recommend the Found gallery enough, not just because they have the pleasing habit of selling my work and asking for more, but because of the beautiful work on display. Go in for a look if you're in or near Dunbar.


Update: it's now in the Found Gallery. The FOUND GALLERY, Dunbar High Street. Ideal Christmas present for the ferrugipiscophile in your life.