Tag: Painting

Artist, illustrator, singer

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List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

Basically I would work for free if money wasn’t an object. I’m not bothered about sales, it’s the joy of getting my hands on paint, paper, canvas or pen and ink.

If I wasn’t creating art I would join a choir that travelled round and just did spontaneous performances of cool songs. Simply to make people feel better. I would do it without pay, just for the pleasure of entertaining people.

All I would need is enough money for food and shelter. Certainly I would try and share with other artists if money were no object. I would set up a small gallery near the coast and talk to people who visited it, but not as a salesperson, but to discuss art and creativity. I don’t enjoy selling, I’m an artist, not a seller. X

Clematis and Canal roses

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Clematis and canal roses with bottle oven

Every so often I paint one of the iconic bottle ovens from Stoke-on-Trent. These were where pottery was originally fired with coal fires. The city would be covered by a pall of thick smoke, morning noon and night.

They sometimes had metal bands wrapped round them to strengthen them, and the old bricks can shine like gold when there is a lovely sunrise or set. Arthur Berry, famous artist of Stoke-on-Trent used to speak about the beauty of the potteries towns. He painted and drew abstracted views of the six towns. He’s known as the potteries Lowry.

This painting is of a derelict oven, I’ve painted clematis growing up it, rewinding the ancient landscape. The blue area represents the local canals, it’s shape mirrors the bottle oven. The flowers in it represent the abstract canal roses that are found adorning canal barges throughout Britain.

Robin Hoods Bay

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A painting I did in situ in a house in Robin Hoods Bay in Yorkshire about 7 years ago. We were away on holiday and we’re impressed by the house which had it’s living room at the top of the building to give views of the cottage rooves and the sparkling sea in the distance. Sometimes I want to visit there again. .

Art

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What could you do more of?

Old digital mouse drawing

I have been ill and down for a while and I need to start feeling better and reclaim doing some real art. Yes I can work on my small phone screen and create small pieces of digital art, and yes, over the years I have done a lot. But I begin to need to paint again. It must be a good sign? I’ve got to stop being frightened of creating, fear of failure is holding me back. Will I ever get through being blocked? At least now I can admit I want to.

Overcast seaside

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Another painting of the Devon coastline. This is an old photo and I don’t know if I painted it in dark tones or if it was taken in a dark area. The headland in the distance gives you an idea of Devons rolling hills. It’s similar in Cornwall, hills that are rounded, climbing up to the moors. Dartmoor and Exmoor being two of them. Also in the foreground you can see golden sands surrounded by the dark jagged rocks that you see at many of the coves in the two counties. I hope I can visit again soon.

Painting

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Describe your ideal week.

I would spend time at my studio at Spode, painting, or drawing. My plan is to try and go back to it. I spent a few years there, then covid happened and I lost my nerve a bit. I started to go back, but health issues cropped up. If I don’t return soon I never will, but I’ve built a wall round things in my mind. If I can’t do things properly I seem to freeze up.

My ideal week will be less stressful, full of real art, not just quick digital drawings. I would then build on it, even if I was only in my studio a couple of days a week. I would try and produce more small paintings for craft fairs, but it’s about time I started doing some ‘proper’ paintings real fine art, not craft based. I just need to get my confidence back. I have good intentions but I keep prevaricating. Maybe I can have that ideal week. It needs to be soon….

Devon coast

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Acrylic on canvas. Devon beach and rocks on an overcast day. I think its near Plymouth, but the painting is probably 20 years old.

The rocks on this part of the coast are dark and craggy. The water makes them darker, with a slight glint to them. They form layers that slope down into the water and there are plenty of rock pools with barnacles and limpets. There might be small crabs lurking under seaweed in them. Between the rocks the sand is sandy coloured (goldish grey). With flat flakes of rock and stones and pebbles in discreet lines rolled into place by the tides. There are also strands of seaweed left at high tide where sand flies and sand hoppers dwell.

All this rembered because I painted the view.

Excitement

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Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

Jupiter tryptic

A couple of weeks ago I was excited that one of my paintings would be entered into an astronomy competition. A magazine wanted to see people’s artwork so I sent in this image. Then I got a message asking me to send in again with a jpeg (it was) as an attachment (my phone sends the image embeded in the email).

I tried again, it did the same trick. I started to walk upstairs to send the image on my PC instead. Snap! That was when my ligament snapped.

Of course I emailed to apologise and explain. I also asked if they had anyone technically able to get the file as I only have my mobile to use as I’m stuck downstairs! I’ve had no response, no reply. I feel dismissed and fed up. Excitement, what excitement?

Autumn Spring

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Although I was not able to attend the Open day at a spode this weekend, I arranged to have one of my paintings Autumn Spring exhibited alongside other people’s artwork. I think it looks quite good. I was experimenting with an abstract idea in 2019 just before Covid arrived. The idea is a mixture of oblong and squares on the Autumn side, all jumbled and crammed together and is opposed to Spring which is more lyrical and fluid. Representing overwhelming waste and damage, and what we are doing to the Earth, and the renewal and regrowth that the Spring could bring.

The Art and Craft

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What do you love about where you live?

My mural based on a ceramic design called Umbrella by Clarice Cliffe.

Stoke-on-Trent is a city built on Art and crafts. From Wedgwood and Brindley and the industrial revolution.

Ceramics were the main manufactured goods in the city. So much so that it became known as ‘the Potteries’. Different pottery owners experimenting with different materials, trying to make pots that could stand up to the quality of Chinese wares.

Manufacturers had water, clay and coal from the local area. Pots were transported out of the city on the newly built canals that linked it to the rest of England and then on to the world.

Designs were transfer printed onto plates and cups, opening up cheaper wares to the general public. But other work was hand painted and lined with gold and other precious metals.

What was needed to make all the pottery? Workers, making, turning, transfer printing, painting. Numerous jobs including the famous Saggar Makers bottom knocker. (You can Google this). The work couldn’t be completed without skilled labour that could translate designs into reality. Some female paintresses were allowed to sign their names to their work. Like Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliffe.

So much skill in one city. Burslem school of art taught many of the artists that were to work in the ceramic trades. One famous artist, Arthur Berry, became a fine artist and writer and play writer. He was one of my tutors at college. That’s why I love this place.