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.

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.

 

The Price of Fish: Grey and Green.

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

Rust Never Sleeps #10, and a bit of #9 again.

Three new completed canvasses. I've been dabbling and fiddling with these for a long time, and changed the whole bottom half of 177 because I felt the balance of the painting wasn't right as it was.

These are off up to a new gallery in Dunbar on Monday, so I'm hoping a couple will be on display for the opening on Saturday.

Rust Never Sleeps #9: 177

'177' - Oil on canvas, 18" x 24".

Rust Never Sleeps 8: H2 Blue.

May have been a bit previous in posting this because I've not quite finished the rope in the corner, but it's close enough for jazz.

And another one blocked out very roughly. Very excited about this one, it's going to be a beauty I think.

Rust Never Sleeps 7: Supreme.

'Supreme', oil on canvas, 16" x 20".

Rust Never Sleeps 6: St Amant.

St. Amant, oil on canvas, 16" x 20".

The St. Amant, registered in Ballantrae, and operating mostly out of Peterhead, I think. Less baroque than usual and more sternly industrial but I quite like the simplicity of this one.

St. Amant, a quick Wikipedia reveals, is patron saint of vinegrowers, innkeepers, brewers, vintners, bartenders, and , oddly, Boy Scouts. Pissed ones, presumably.

In some exciting rust-related news, I've had some paintings accepted for display in Number Four gallery in St. Abbs.

I had a quiet snout around while Laura was giving them some of her jewellery (out on display now, and looking very fine) and I'm both surprised and delighted to be accepted there. They have some very, very splendid work; glass, ceramics, paintings, bronzes, jewellery, and it's all beautiful. They're having a Spring re-hanging soon so some of my work will be up and visible then. Can't quite describe how happy it made me: I took along nine paintings, thinking they'd choose a couple, and they took the lot. I got treated like a Proper Artist. A little bit of validation goes a long way.

Number Four gallery's website can be found here, and again, a big thanks to them.

Rust Never Sleeps 5: H*3

H*3, oil on board, 18" x 24".

I know at least one person has been waiting for this, so here it finally is. More rust.

Another one from the rich seam of colour, font and rust at Eyemouth harbour. I've got three more canvasses roughed out and ready to go.

I added the diagonal shadow at a very late stage on this, and it suddenly made the whole painting make sense. It's difficult to give a sense of perspective and depth on what is obviously a flat surface, but the shadow just made it 'leap' somehow.

I was looking through some estate agency auction materials from the mid 1830s today - handbills, posters, lithographic prints, maps etc., which was a very exciting thing for a history and font nerd. I got some interesting ideas, not unconnected with the fishing boat work, which I'm quite excited about. Hopefully something will come of it. More rust first, though.

Quietly Pleased, Anyway

Rejoice, oil on board, 18" x 24".

An appropriate sort of title, as I got this accepted yesterday for the Open Exhibition at the Gymnasium gallery in Berwick. It's title of 'Open' is surely intended to be ironic as finding out about how to enter involves dropping hints with people who know people, picking up envelopes on park benches and finally meeting with a shadowy figure in a windy doorway who is initially cagey but eventually slips an email address, typewritten on a sheet of paper, into your hand and when you look up he has vanished.

Anyway, it's another picture of rust, a combination of a couple of boats in Eyemouth harbour. We had a day at Eyemouth a few weeks ago (the seal really is blind, I discovered. I sceptically thought it was just a ruse by the mackerel vendor) and I stocked up on some splendidly weathered letters and numbers. The 'Rejoice' was up on the slipway and I only had the normal lens on so I could only get a very cropped, pixellated image. I went back the next day with the telephoto lens, having decided to paint it, only the buggers had got there before me and it was pristine again:

Rust Never Sleeps 4

Wood & Iron iii, oil on board, 18" x 18".

This is a larger version of a work I did a couple of years ago (below). I took photographs of these sea defences on the Norfolk coast about two years ago, and have found them interesting to work with ever since. I made a photographic triptych first, and then decided to paint them as individual images. I used acrylic I think, although it might have been oil, on hardboard. They're only about eight or nine inches square, but the larger board meant I could explore some of the colours and forms in more detail. The colours, considering it was just timber and iron left to weather, were remarkable. That's why rust is interesting, see...

Groyne 3, oil on board, 9" x 9".

(Coughs quietly: I'm not sure I don't prefer the smaller, earlier one...)

Rust Never Sleeps 2

Dredger, oil on canvas, 16"x20"

I feel like I've had something of a breakthrough with this, and it's a style and subject I want to do more of. It's simultaneously tight but loose (heard that somewhere before) and satisfies both of my apparently contradictory feelings in painting. I like very much this idea of pursuing the 'natural abstract,' and the exploration of layers that time and decay reveals. Anyway, here it is, and there's more to follow. I'm quite excited. I think this may be my best painting yet.