Studio Revamp

Last weekend I decided to revamp the studio. Even my husband had been saying it wasn't the nicest space to be in - and he's not usually that perceptive about these things! It was too dark, and whilst there was a space for most things, open shelving meant no amount of tidying ever seemed to make much difference to the clutter levels.

We started out by stripping everything out of the studio - paints, finished pieces, canvases, pictures pinned to the walls - even my desk! We gave the old pink carpet, which we suspected was sapping a lot of light from the room, a jolly good hoovering, before ripping it out completely. Under the carpets were some interesting old newspapers! 

We gave everything a good clean down, so we were starting fresh, then gave the floorboards a few coats of a white floor paint. It was actually not too bad a job, as it didn't need to be perfect - after all it's only a workroom and no doubt lots of paint would get dropped on the boards from my easel over time - just clean and bright. I touched up a few spots on the walls, and we gave the woodwork a freshen up in bright white paint where it had yellowed (or been replaced and never painted at all).

My previously pine-effect, plastic coated chipboard desk got a few coats of a bright pink, glossy spray paint to cheer it up, and the shelf above it got sprayed a similarly jolly shade of yellow.

Then came the task of sorting through every canvas, tube of paint, grubby charcoal sketch, book, pencil and pebble that had come out of the old studio - which took some time!

Once the end shelves were fully stacked again with completed work and materials, we used wood batons screwed into the studio walls and ceilings to hang old white sheets and bits of fabric (from charity shops and my old textiles box) to make cheap, functional drapes. The idea was to hide much of the necessary clutter of the room, and also bounce more light about.
 

I had spotted a photo on an interiors website of someones home art studio, where they were using some sort of ex-industrial cart as a movable station for paints and brushes. It seemed such a great idea! With short notice I was able to source this old wooden drinks trolley from a local charity shop, and it's just the job for keeping everything to hand!

Finally I created a cosy corner, with another second hand bargain Lloyd Loom chair and some old side tables from around the house. The idea is to have somewhere to sit and flick art books and magazines, also somewhere for people to sit when they come into the studio to chat to me as I work (as they often do, especially my husband). It's also a great spot to sit back and look at what you are working on and decide what needs fixing, or where to go next... The scarves are all treasured ones that I don't often ware, they provide a little colour in an otherwise mainly white room - and now I get to see them everyday. the cushion is from the Tate shop.

 

All in all I'm so pleased with my new space!

Studio Revamp, a set on Flickr.
(click the thumbnails to enlarge)

Make & Cake, Tain

I have just so much to update the blog with, but starting with the most recent thing and working back...

A few folk and I have decided to start a new group in our town (Tain, Ross-shire) for people interested in art, craft, photography or other creative pastimes. With the new breed of 'stitch and bitch' (I know a controversial name to some!) groups, knit and natters, etc we thought it was time Tain had something similar.

The tapestry Susan was working on during the meet
(I forgot, as was having such a nice blether, to take a snap of the group as we worked, silly me!)

I was actually hugely inspired by For Arts Sake in Kirkwall, Orkney (where I recently held an exhibition) and their programme of classes and groups.

A friend and I decided to just pop a few posters up and see what kind of interest we could gain in something very inclusive, laid back and unstructured. Our local library were wonderful in supporting us with use of their space after hours! I took along tea, coffee and cakes and we've decided to have a roster so the baking gets shared out between folk and most weeks one can enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour.

At our first meet we had a small but super-friendly bunch of people and managed to rack up a good array of activities - knitting, crochet, illustration, spinning and tapestry. I'm wondering when the groups properly up and running just how many different things we might get going on at one meet?

Quite a few people have stopped me today to say they couldn't make the first meet but thought it was a good idea and would come along next time, so overall I'm really happy with the response! There's been interest already in possibly forming a local photography club from the group, and perhaps some kids craft workshops as a separate offshoot by members.

If you're in the Tain area and fancy coming along to the next event, we will be meeting on the 15th May 2012 at 7pm at Tain Library. We'll be meeting every third Tuesday of the month. We have a Facebook group to share info and chat between meets. See you there!

A quick watercolour and ink sketch I made whilst chatting last night at 'Make & Cake'

Orkney Exhibition

Lots to blog about! I'm just back from Orkney hanging my little exhibition in Kirkwall, I thought I'd share a little post about the experience...

I was kind of lucky to make it over to Orkney at all, crossing the Pentland Firth is notoriously tricky and tends to be rather rough, and there had been some high winds that week. Thankfully when arriving at the slipway in Gills Bay I found that the earlier ferry had been cancelled, but my lunchtime sailing was still able to run. Phew!

Kirkwall is a lovely wee place, which is the capital of Orkney, and I think has a population of about 8,000. It has a stunning red-stone cathedral and tiny streets filled with many independent shops, as well as being an important transport hub.

My exhibition has been hosted by For Arts Sake, a Community Interest Company based on Bridge Street, just a few doors from the harbour along a narrow flagstone lane (a lane that seems to get narrower when you are trying to squeeze past a delivery van in a 3 + 3 seater car to deliver paintings).

From a bright and airy mezzanine floor in a shared building they run an art shop and gallery space, as well as hosting well-attended classes and workshops (spinning, knitting, portrait group, art material demo's...).



We held a little 'meet the artist' session, and a steady trickle of people came to take a look around the exhibition which was lovely - especially given the weather, which was pretty wintery and windy! I met some really interesting people and it was lovely to share my work. I arrived to find a red dot had appeared on a piece before the exhibition had officially opened too, which is always nice.


During my visit I was able to gate-crash the monthly spinning group and got to have a little go with a drop spindle - I made the mistake of saying I was inept when it came to anything involving yarn or textiles and the next thing I knew I being given a lesson! What do you know, I loved it... So that experience reminded me never to say never. I merrily skipped off to buy my own spindle to have a bash at home. I think I did nothing but practice spinning for the next 24 hours - it's very addictive! I even almost missed driving onto the ferry home as I was so engrossed in my work. I've now got a few metres of rough yarn (which I'm hoping to use in an art project) and a bit of a silly feel good feeling that I managed something I didn't honestly think I could.

I really like the set up at For Arts Sake. They seem held back by nothing but physical space, and the the people just ooze enthusiasm and warmth. The turn out to the spinning group was quite an eye opener, I just say - very popular. I left asking 'why do we (in my town) not have something like this', so as a small tribute I have made some moves towards starting up a small regular art and craft meet, so socialise with other folk doing creative stuff locally and see where we can take things from there... Could be interesting! I can see we will have a lot to learn from organisations like For Arts Sake!

The exhibition runs until 11th April 2012, Mon - Fri 10am - 4pm, Sat 10am - 2pm.

Still Untitled

A quick post about the latest series of abstracts I started a couple of weeks ago before dashing off to the Isle of Lewis for a week, painting (more on that to come, hopefully before I'm off on the next trip to Orkney, next week).

I posted here about them, but this is a kind of update now that I have a few more pieces in the series, they are hanging together as a group and concept a bit better...

I've still not been able to come up with a name for the series, they are a coming together of so many ideas it's hard to pin it down to one or two words... I'm hoping this blog post might stir the mind a bit on that front.

Untitled 1, mixed media on canvas

Untitled 2, mixed media on canvas, 20 x 24"

Untitled 1 (detail)

Untitled 3, mixed media on canvas, 12 x 36"

Untitled 5, mixed media on canvas, 20 x 20"

I'm just itching to do some more work on the series, but I have work from Lewis and other paintings to finish, deadlines to meet, before I can - hopefully when I return to this in a couple of weeks the moment won't have passed.

Orkney Exhibition

There's so much going on just now that I forgot to blog about my forthcoming exhibition in Kirkwall, Orkney.

I'm so delighted to be taking my Orkney work back to the area, it feels like a circle completed to me. The show will be running for a month, and I really hope people will think I have done Orkney justice - it's a tall order, it's a spectacular and amazing place!

The exhibition, featuring landscape and abstract work, centres around Orkney's Neolithic Heart and features paintings of the Stenness Stones, Ring of Brodgar, Watchstone, Broch of Gurness, Bay of Skaill and Scapa Bay.

It's being held at...

For Arts Sake Gallery
(which is above the VAO offices on Bridge Street in Kirkwall)

Friday 9th March to Wednesday 11th April 2012

open Monday - Friday 10am - 4pm, and Saturdays 10 - 2pm

I'll be at a Meet the Artist session on Saturday 10th March between 12 - 2pm - so if you can, please do pop along for refreshments and a first look at the exhibition, would be great to see you there!

If you are on Facebook, there's a Facebook event - just click 'join' to receive updates and a reminder.

(Images of some of the work in the show...)

As Yet Untitled...

What a contrast to the series of abstracts I've been working on for the last few weeks! All heavy colours and the relative gloom of peering through sea water... This week I think some premature spring has hit me and I've begun these (as yet untitled) light, airy, expressive, intuitive abstracts.

They have been fun - seems like rather an indulgence to carry on and do more, but I might just anyway!

I've been using the colours I seem to have picked for a whole host of landscape projects recently - cadmium red or crimson, cobalt blue, white and yellow ochre. The black marks are charcoal - something I quite often use for field sketches, working it into wet acrylics. I can't think I've used that on any abstracts before - but perhaps I have and forgotten...

These were unplanned, off the cuff, as I sometimes like to work -but of course this means thy are still inspired by various things. In this case I guess the list -or perhaps that should be 'ingredients' - goes Paul Nash, Katy Moran, Elizabeth Blackadder's early 60's landscapes, the boat in landscape painting I've been working on this week for the 'Ruin' exhibition, the cold Winter sun that came out for a bit this week, dividing up and balancing space, a big delivery or pristine white new canvases (not wanting to totally cover them), dreaming of huge open skies (Orkney, Isle of Lewis, Caithness), Valentines Day and themes of love, trying to get my affairs in order / make sense out of chaos before going away next week.

20 x 24" mixed media on canvas - as yet untitled

20 x 30" mixed media on canvas - as yet untitled

As I was messing about outside earlier today, trying to get some good light on the canvases to photograph them I was suddenly aware of a little face staring out of the house at me - my son watching and waving, if you can spot him there!

Stories from the Sea

I've been busy the last few days - it occurred to me that there might be limited opportunity to really get into painting abstracts over most of the coming year, as I have several mainly landscape painting trips to work on, and a big exhibition of landscape work in the late Summer. So I've decided to let myself mad for a week or two on a series of abstracts, before I get embroiled in all that.

I did a painting some time back called 'Treasures Beneath' which had come from imagination after playing with my daughters, talking of tales of mermaids, selkies and underwater adventures. This shot off to a new home quite quickly after being finished, so I didn't spend much time with it, but the idea stuck with me. I've wanted since to explore again the notions of what might lie under the ocean, briefly glimpsed and enchantingly enticing...

'Treasures Beneath' 16 x 20" acrylic on canvas, August 2011 (sold).

I had a large canvas in stock in the studio, waiting for a project. I love working large more than anything, but due to constraints of space and storage (and, to be fair, the state of the economy and wondering if folk really have the cash for such large extravagances) I tend not to allow myself to work big too often. I thought I'd let myself have fun with it though for this series - it's 30 x 40" so reaches my shoulder almost (I'm only tiny). I'd work even bigger if there was a way I could justify it!

'Treasures Beneath 2' came about after scrubbing out and painting over pretty much the whole thing at least once in full, and partially a few times over too - but I'm happy with the final result. It's fairly powerful - but I wanted to get that feel of the powerful ocean (the others so far have gone more towards the ethereal).

'Treasures Beneath 2' 30 x 40" acrylic on canvas.

Treasures Beneath 3 is so far a work in progress, I'm not 100% sure about it so have set it apart for a while...

Treasures Beneath 4 is a little 8 x 10" canvas that was done in between working on TB #2, just because I needed to focus on something else.

'Treasures Beneath 5' 8 x 10" acrylic on canvas.

TB #5 (excuse the short hand!) was a 36 x 12" canvas I had stacked in the corner of the studio, previously half started as a completely different painting which I'd given up on, I obliterated the colours and just used the existing surface textures to suggest where I might go with the new, ocean-appropriate colours. I'm really pleased with how it came together - you can spot a few warm-colour hints poking through from the previous painting, and I added some subtle red highlights too to play on this.

'Treasures Beneath 5' 36 x 12" acrylic on canvas.

The sixth painting was a fun experiment that I'd been waiting to try for a while... I often paint using rags, bubble wrap, bits of plastic, scrunched paper bags, etc but I'd never laid down a whole initial layer of paint using screwed up plastic. It's desperately messy but I found allows you to move the paint in a way you just can't with a brush / palette knife / paper / rags. There were some area's I wasn't totally happy with at the end, where the paint had missed or I felt the colour / tone wasn't quite as I'd like, but these were easily sorted by applying glazes to bring it all together and to a nice finish - as did adding some metallic paint.

'Treasures Beneath 6' 20 x 24" acrylic on canvas.

The last TB painting I've finished so far, number seven, came from a desire to stay fully within the cool side of the spectrum - I'm not sure it quite worked that way as the colour I was finally happy with having mixed for the first layer on the canvas has quite a bit of cadmium red in it. Nevertheless, it worked. There's quite a bit of surface texture under the paint so I decided to keep the mark making quite simple and let this play through.

'Treasures Beneath 7' 12 x 12" acrylic on canvas.

I've a couple more canvases on the go just now in the studio, so I shall see where they go and post an update in a few days...