Inselberg - Nimbus

oil on card 21x15cm

This is the third of the four 'Small Scale' paintings to get finished, and there's some music to go with it - Brian Eno's 'The Secret Place'. The album, 'Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks', was playing while I was immersed in the cloudwork, and this track cut through and resonated. I quite liked its cold emptiness with a hint of 'hidden bulk'.

The composition is near as dammit a transcription of the source location – in Iceland, taken from google streetview. I think the hill has been stretched vertically slightly, and there's been some adaption of the foreground to make it read better. The distant rock on the right is actually much nearer to the viewer than described – it was drawing too much attention to itself, though, so I moved it back with a bit of grey haze. Now, instead of being small and near, it's big but far away.

Now, the title: A Nimbus is a cloud of any form – like Cumulo-nimbus or Nimbostratus - that has rain, snow, or hail falling from it, and an Inselberg is an isolated mountain or hill. This one is Hjörleifshöfði - which should really be in the blog title, but I felt some pity for the staff at the gallery who'll have to type that out and possibly be asked how to pronounce it. Not being a cruel man, I settled for something more prosaic instead. If it helps, though, the 'ð' is pronounced like the soft 'th' in 'then', 'there', 'other' and 'smooth'.

Technical-wise, this piece is done in the usual sequence of pencil, acrylic wash, then oil. It was the third to get started, and just about painted itself – which was a relief. It suffered the same uneven priming as the others, but I didn't worry too much and just got on with it. My cheap soft nylon blending brushes had suddenly begun to be less effective – no idea why, perhaps they are stiffening up or hadn't been cleaned properly – so I used my good round Badger hair blenders in the sky. I had got out of the habit of using them, but the results were so positive that I forked out for some mid-size Badger flats from the same supplier. Badger hair is narrow at the base and bellies out before the point, so it has a natural splay. It's very tough and resilient, but surprisingly soft, and produces a very fine fade or blend when lightly touched into the wet paint.

It's the hair used for classic shaving brushes. My Dad's first job was as a barber's lather boy - preparing customers for their shave - and it was a nice thought to be using the same material. Apparently Badger hair brushes improve with use, rather than deteriorate. Which is good news, even though I'm not sure what that means.

I am quite pleased with this little piece. The composition is strong but very simple, and was quite liberating to paint. I like the subtle blue tint on the denser Nimbus just above the mountain, and the Raw Umber glaze that glves the low band of light a slight tarry look.

That's all four of them taken down to the gallery now – The Open Eye Gallery in Dundas Street. The show – the annual 'On a Small Scale' - will mainly be on-line, but it'll be open to view subject to social distancing. It should go live at the beginning of December. Because there are so many tiny paintings on show the staff will be quite strong on limiting the numbers in the gallery at one time, so it might be best to get an appointment first.

I'll post the last one of the four come December, but it'll be up on the 'On a Small Scale' section when that goes live if you can't wait. See if you can spot it...

 

Pobedino

oil on card 21x15cm

This is the second of the four 'Small Scale' paintings to be posted. The location is near a village called Pobedino - in the Russian Kaliningrad enclave, just to the east of the Russo-Lithuanian border - and is all about the sky. Of course.

It's done to the usual basic drawing, acrylic wash, then oil paint system, but this time with a small tweak - I used a pale blue Caran d'ache crayon for marking out the clouds. Any crayon that is visible through the oil layers blends in a lot better than a pencil mark would, and will be embedded within the paint a lot more securely than graphite. I'd be loathe to advocate painting on top of thick blocks of crayon, but I'm fairly happy with light lines of it. Caran d'ache comes off the priming with an eraser a lot easier too – with none of graphite's greasy streaking – and if necessary it can wiped off with water.

I've always been uncomfortable about using pencil for the initial drawing and placing. A couple of my painting tutors at college had discouraged it as they were of the opinion that the graphite would seep upwards through the oil paint to appear on the surface many years later. The reason that I'm reluctant to use it is because it is a very weak and slippery material, and anything laid onto it is liable to be very easily peeled off later. When we use pencil to draw on paper and smudge it for effect, we're making very good use of graphite's loose structure, but it's usually a wise move to spray a fixative onto heavy soft pencil to 'lock' it.

Not that graphite is totally 'The Devil's Artstick' – as I've already said it's a fantastic drawing material - it's also an excellent dry lubricant, and is widely used for smoothing stiff locks and keys. Nuts & bolts, and screws, also turn better with a scrape of pencil lead, and I've sorted many a tricky zip by running an HB up and down it. In past workshop days, I used to rub a block of graphite along my wood lathe bed to ensure a smoothly gliding tailstock without it gumming up with oily dust and shavings.

I'm quite happy with this painting, despite a little mini-crisis of confidence about the cloud tones (I went with light and atmospheric rather than dark and heavy), and I'm very pleased with the soft blue I mixed for the sky layers and thin line of far horizon (Ultamarine, Zinc White, some Ultramarine Violet, and a touch of Burnt Umber, if you must know). An honourable mention has to go to the little stray puff of cumulus to the upper left – it's the best piece of cloud painting there. It was done with the least amount of effort per square inch, and I still have absolutely no idea how that comes about.

Just to end, a bit of sad news. One of our tutors from Edinburgh College of Art days – David 'Dai' Evans - died a few weeks ago. He was much-liked and respected by his students, interested in what we did, and who we were (not always the case with other tutors), and always helpful. Dai was a highly skilled and interesting painter & draughtsman whose final style was about simplicity and subtlety.

Madam bought me a 'Small Scale' painting of his a couple of years ago - a beautiful little cup and saucer still life. It's a delightful little painting, and each time I look at it, it gets better and better.