oil on card 21x15cm
This is the first of four postcard-sized pieces for the Open Eye Gallery's pre-Xmas 'On a Small Scale' show. The other three are lagging slightly behind, but will duly turn up over the next few posts. Re-starting at the easel after even a couple of month's break needed some aural kick-starting to blow away the accumulated cobwebs, quicken the senses, and get me keen at the easel. Something like, for instance, 'Bling (Confession of a King)'.
The source location for this piece is near a small Russian village called Smotrova Buda – in the area between Belarus and Ukraine. It's actually nearer to some even smaller villages called 'May' and 'Bee', but as this is an early autumn scene, I went for the less confusing title. 'Smotrova' sounds like it has something to do with looking or seeing (a lookout point?), but my Russian's really not quite good enough to make a meaningful translation.
Compositionally, it's all about the clouds of course, and the low evening light; and the receding open ground encourages the eye to realise the scale. The painting is more or less a straight transcription of the source image.
It's mostly painted in quite thin transparent paint – possible a little too thin, as some of the pencil underdrawing is a little too visible through the layers for my liking, and I wish that I'd been a bit lighter with my initial marking out. It's not bad though, and there is a nice 'aeriness' to the sky which in some areas could pass for watercolour.
Now, you may - or may not - have noticed, but I didn't produce a September blog post. I simply didn't have anything worth putting up. I'd ground to a complete halt artywise preparing for, and being part of, September's show at the Open Eye Gallery, and I didn't even produce any half-decent Window Work over that time. I definitely felt a bit wrung out by being, literally, 'on show'. Being the focus of attention is generally not my natural thing – I was perfectly suited as an antique restorer, where a successful job meant that the restored piece should look as though it had never been anywhere near a restorer.
As it happens I thought that the exhibition went not too badly. I had some sales – five of the bigger pieces, and six(or was it seven?) of the smaller 'sky' ones. Many good things were said (at least within my earshot), and I think most people understood what I was getting at. I do know that most of the folk who actually bought pieces did so after having had conversations with myself about the imagery, and that they 'got' them. I think the gallery were very happy with how it went, and so am I. Which is the way it should be.
Well that's done now, so I'm back on the conveyor belt again. Gently at first, with this quartet of very small paintings, then back to normal.
And that includes upping my Window Work efforts from not even half-decent to, hopefully, fairly presentable...
