Sky Sketch – October 2018

acrylic 15x10cm

More of a currently-showing news event than a recent painting post...

This is a little sky sketch done out of the front room window a couple of months ago. It's been a while since I've done 'live sky' in real time, so I did a little batch of them. What's interesting about these were that I used acrylic paint, as opposed to the usual watercolour. It's 'Fluid' acrylic, and has the consistency of thin cream - unlike the thick 'toothpaste' of the more usual 'tube' acrylic - but has very high pigment density. It dries fast, can take rapid subsequent washes, and the white is so much more reliably white than gouache. Useful stuff...

The real meat of the post is that I've had a painting hung in the annual SSA* open show. It's 'Down to the River' - never been out the house before. This is one of the rare exhibitions where pieces don't have to be for sale, and it's there for display only.

The show is in the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) - the Greek building on Princes Street at the Mound – and is open to the public from now till Thursday 17th January. It's free to go in and wander round. It's a very varied exhibition of current Scottish artwork, sculpture, prints, installations etc, and definitely worth a look. 

So, if you're in Edinburgh for Xmas, New Year, or just hanging around in a gloomy January way, you could good do a lot worse than popping into the RSA gallery and seeing what's what in contemporary art in sunny Scotland

* Society of Scottish Artists

Fence

oil on card 21x15cm

The last of the four little paintings for the Open Eye Gallery's 'On a Small Scale' show, and there's a music track to go with it - Richard and Linda Thomson's 'I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight' (1974). I'd never heard this song until earlier this year, when it rather gloriously played out the last episode of Channel 4's 'Derry Girls'. Great song, and for some reason it fitted this grey, rainy day.

The source image comes from another photo from a train - hastily snapped in the brief gap between Stirling and Bridge of Allan - looking north at the tail end of the Ochil Hills. Roughly across the field from here

Compositionally, it's an almost entirely unaltered transcription of the photo. I've omitted some unwanted tree stumps, simplified the mid-distance, and left out some optimistic blue tints where the cloud had started to thin out, but that's about all.

I think I got my choice of materials just right with this one. The greens and earths are all in mixes of Stand Oil and Damar Varnish, and all the paint in the sky is mixed with Walnut oil, and softened, smoothed, and blended on the surface with a very fine-haired fan brush. This difference in materials has maybe enhanced the soft, wispy, appearance of the sky. 

The dull colours and close tones in the sky are, for me, a very fulfilling mix of cool and warm

greys. These are made from cool Paynes Grey and warm/neutral Ivory Black, and cool Titanium and Zinc Whites, and Michael Harding's Warm White Lead Alternative*. 

This one just about painted itself, and is the best of the four. As it happens, all four 'On a Small Scale' pieces have sold. I'm happy to say that I know who's bought this one, and I'm very pleased at where it is. 

Which is nice...

*An interesting blend of Titanium and Zinc Whites with a touch of Yellow Ochre. Not like any Lead White I've known: takes ages to dry, and way too yellow, but is a very useful warm white. Schminke have actually recently produced an 'erzatz' Lead White. I'll be using it in the next piece, but an initial test against real Flake White looks very positive indeed