This is the final painting for the Open Eye Show. It's another view from a train, of Binns Hill - just East of Linlithgow.
The sky is broadly as in my original photo, but the landscape has been flipped left to right - enabling an upward sweep across the panel. A dark cloud moving in from the left was painted out, and the wooded rise on the right is invented. The dark cloud was replaced (I couldn't get away from it looking like a pointing hand – which looked ridiculous) with some vague altocumulus clouds from elsewhere and the second rise is a selective cut-and-paste from the left hill, woods and all. The landmark tower has been disappeared.
The cows were in the original source photo too, but they have been multiplied, shifted, and rearranged in order to gather interest towards the left, and fade interest towards the right. The tiny figures behind the wall are taken from photos of American gangland murders – difficult to source and select, but a lot easier than wading through swathes of atrocity images.
My initial intention was to construct the sky with transparent layers on the white priming, while the landscape features were to be drawn in black fluid acrylic, then semi-obscured by a mid-grey layer which would kill off the white priming. That plan went off-course fairly quickly. While the landscape plan worked – quite well, actually - the sky went very thick and very murky very quickly, and I lost control of the cloud forms. This necessitated an even, semi-transparent, white layer over the entire sky, and a rebuilding of the cloud forms in grey monochrome, with final blue tinting overlays. The whole thing, frankly, turned into both a bit of a slog, and a race to get the damned thing finished in time to be dry enough for the show.
I think it's turned out all right though, and there's a nice soft glow to the sky, but a special mention has to go to the cows. There are sixteen full cows here – seventeen if you count the half-obscured one fifth from the left. Drawing cows that look like cows – and not like horses or pigs – is tricky at this scale, and I think I've done quite well here.
This painting was actually finished on the 27th September but I've deliberately delayed posting this blogpost in order to include some post-production, pre-delivery stuff. The most important of which was the varnishing.
This was somewhat fraught due to the fact that my preferred finish turned out to be unobtainable in the uk. All Winsor & Newton's production is done in France now, so I presume there's a container full of W et N's Professional Satin Varnish Spray just sitting in a lorry park somewhere. I managed to stumble – in rising cold panic – through a series of sprayed and brushed-on gloss varnishes, finishing with a couple of light modifying layers of an unknown brand satin spray. The finishes aren't too bad I think, with only a minimum of cat hair in the brushed-on layer, and you would never know that I had managed to scratch (stray fingernail), and then fix, two of the paintings in the process. Not saying which ones.
Pre-show tension is a strange phenomenon, and this time it manifested itself in my being locked into two random previously-unknown songs - Richard Thompson's 'I misunderstood', heard on the radio, and Brandi Carlile's 'The Story' off the telly. I simply couldn't get them out of my head – especially the latter, which I actually dreamt about after the first hearing. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened – prior to the show two years ago I had a trapped song fragment going around my brain. I hadn't a clue as to what it was or where it had come from – I still don't - it just filled my head. At least I could identify these two, and they were actually pretty good. Which was some relief, and make of that what you will.
Anyway, all the paintings ended up safely wrapped (only just - the very last bit of my roll of bubblepack, right down to the cardboard core, was exactly enough for the last two small pieces!), and we carefully taxied them down to the gallery. The day after that my watch stopped, the battery run down. Phew.
So, as if any regular readers needed reminding, the show is at the Open Eye Gallery, on the corner of Abercrombie Place and Dundas Street, Edinburgh, until 4pm Saturday 20th November, and is on-line here. Those wanting to visit should be aware that numbers within the gallery are currently restricted to between eight and fifteen, and face masks must be worn.
Madam and I just back from having a sneaky look today. They've done a smashing job hanging it, the show looks great, and it's been boosted with just a couple paintings from the last show. Which is fine, they deserve a second shot
If you're coming along, my show is in the room on the right as you go in, but make sure you take in Tom Mabon and Paul Barnes' work while you're there.
