Arran - Altocumulus

oil on card 21x15cm

A short post – with very little tech stuff for a change.

This is a view of Arran from Bute spliced into a sky of altocumulus clouds snapped from a train. Or vice versa.

In the original composition there was another – distant, more solid - bank of stratus cloud that sat behind Arran. Like many ideas, it seemed a good one at the time. I just couldn't make it work convincingly though, and overpainted it at quite a late stage so that it was more like atmospheric haze - quite a dramatic demotion, but an effective one.

I think I've made a fair enough stab at the clouds here, though I fear the upper cloudlets have ended up a bit too lumpy. These altocumulus rafts are very complex, and I'm sure I could've achieved a more ethereal feel – which is what I love about them - over more time and a larger area (and with probably a bit more thought). The island and the sea aren't too bad though and I'm very pleased with the clear transparent blue* in the right half of the sky. 

Lastly, this little painting seemed extraordinarily difficult for me to photograph – in real life it does actually look a little better than the image above (especially the blue). I usually manage to produce something not too far removed from the actual piece, but I do not claim to be an experienced photographer, and I have no idea why that should be with this particular painting. Very annoying.

That's all four taken in to the gallery this afternoon. Hopefully they'll be on the wall (with 350 others) when the show opens. That's at 'On a Small Scale', the Open Eye Gallery, Dundas Street, Edinburgh, from 26 November - 22 December 2018. Definitely worth a look just for the sheer variety of the work on display. I'm going to leave posting the last piece – Fence - till December, for the very pragmatic reason that I won't have anything even half-ready to post for that month.

* First thin layer - cloth dabber - Ultramarine + Zinc White, in Stand Oil + Damar Varnish: second layer Ultramarine + barest touch of Red Shade Pthalo Blue and Zinc White in a mix of Stand and Walnut oils, printed/modified/faded with cloth dabber...

Luminous Cumulus

oil on card 21x15cm

First of all, here's some floaty 'Nuagist' music - Brian Eno's 'Ambient 1: Music for Airports'. This helped my concentration when doing the fine softening layers of the cloud masses.

This is the second of the set of four postcard paintings for the Open Eye Gallery's pre-Xmas 'On a Small Scale' show. It's another composite piece splicing a cloud photo through our front room window with a quick snap of trees from a train. Like the previous one, I've had to extend some of the main cloud base a little to hide the roofs, but that's about it – and it hasn't altered the 'character' of the cloud at all. 

Compositionally, it's a bit flat distance-wise again, but this piece is more about the variations in brush-work than the spaces. The trees and ground are painted with small jittery, un-softened, brush-marks in fairly transparent varnishy mixes. The paint of the sky and clouds is opaque, but lightly placed onto the surface then blurred softly to soften out edges, and this goes a long way towards the luminous atmospherics in the sky that I was aiming for. The construction of this piece is quite interesting, and can be seen – along with everything else - stage-by-stage through the 'Works in Progress 2018 – development and technical' link under 'Evolution' in the column on the right of this page. 

Now, it's come to my attention that some people aren't aware of the notes attached to these 'Progress' images. Once you've selected and opened one, and have it on your screen, it's worth clicking the 'info' symbol at the top right – it'll make the tech notes visible. Note: materials, brushes etc are abbreviated after their first use. It's mainly for my own own reference, but it's open to anyone interested.

If you do take a look at this painting in the Works in Progress you'll see that I couldn't decide where to place the grass line – it wavers up and down a few times – and how the softness in the sky was built. As hinted at above, walnut-thinned paint was touched onto the walnut-wiped surface, then spread and moved with a very soft fan brush (not a hog bristle one). I bought a couple of very, very soft fan brushes when in Van Beek's art supply shop in Amsterdam earlier this year. They have a golden synthetic hair – very fine and pointed – and facilitate delicate soft transitions with thin paint. I'm currently researching who can supply these in the UK.

Two bits of news. Two paintings have been pre-selected for the SSA Open show (Society of Scottish Artists) – not always a guaranteed inclusion. I once delivered two pieces pre-selected for the RSA, and had to pick both up after being rejected on sight by the selection panel. Oh, the humiliation. So, fingers crossed for December's final selection. And... I've signed a contract for a show at the Open Eye Gallery - September 2019. 

About which I shall no doubt post as and when...