Visit to the National Gallery, London.

Canaletto: A Regatta on the Grand Canal

While I have been to many local art exhibitions and seen some fabulous paintings, it had been playing on my mind recently that I really ought to visit one of the art galleries in London. This in mind, I booked a couple of train tickets for my wife and I earlier last month. The extraordinary thing about train travel is, though fairly expensive, if you can book your journey off peak, a month or so ahead, you travel for peanuts in comparison. Our tickets from Market Harborough to London cost £17 each – the same journey bought on the same day as travel would have been near £90 each!

Regatta: (detail)

 Although it was October, the weather proved outstanding, with a lovely warm sunny day where we were all walking around in our summer clothes, but unlike summer, it wasn’t too hot and we weren’t looking around for somewhere shady to be comfortable. The great thing about London is that there is so much to see, and like Paris, much of which on a grand scale. Our chosen venue was the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, a huge building with the most impressive portico elevated from the north side of the Square.  From this portico, the view across the Square was brilliant, dominated by Nelson’s column and those huge lions at the four corners of the statue, this set amongst the fountains, all rounded off nicely with Big Ben clock tower in the distance.

I learned later that the National Gallery houses well over 2000 of some of the world’s greatest paintings! More amazing though is the fact that entry to view these marvellous works is absolutely FREE! Having said that though, there is a large donation box as you go in, and as soon as I stepped inside the first hall and saw the magnificence of the work that greeted me, I realised that the note I dropped into that box was the best value for money I’ve had for a long time!

OK, I’ve seen some really old paintings at various historical houses we’ve visited over the years, but nothing could have prepared me for this. I was absolutely in awe of some of the works on display. So much so, that the amount of time it took me to take in various paintings left me way behind my wife in the viewing stakes! I was glad that we took advantage of the audio commentary, where we wore headphones, and just tapped in the painting number to hear the info on work and artist.

National Gallery, London (C)(Frank Bingley)

Some of the paintings were incredibly large, some taking up almost entire walls in these halls, which in themselves are huge affairs with sky high ceilings! This in itself had dramatic impact, but even more so was to see work by the likes of Monet, Renoir, Degas etc. close up and REAL – the actual work right before my very eyes. It is difficult to describe the effect of seeing a well-known painting in front of you rather than in a book or on the computer screen – just amazing!

A blogger friend of mine, Sandra, recently blogged of her visit to this place, where she was so taken by the works of Van Gogh. Well, I never got to see his work as it soon became very apparent to me that it would take considerably more than one day to see and appreciate everything on show in the National Gallery. I am very much a fan of Renoir, and I did get to see a number of his best known works, but the artist that I was so taken by was Canaletto. His huge works – vistas of Venice on a grand scale, were a marvel to behold indeed. His portrayal of all the buildings, canals and hundreds of people throughout his works was astonishing, and in such detail too. It must have taken him months, no years to paint these scenes. Incredible!

After we could no longer stand on our legs, a cup of coffee in one of the bars was a welcome respite. Here, there were lots of computer terminals where you could look up all the details and location of works on show. Again, free access – all the information readily to hand. Afterwards,  there were the (inevitable) gift shops, where one couldn’t resist coming away with a little souvenir of our day at the National Gallery, London.


This post duplicated on Market Harborough Art Club blog.

Nude Study

It's been 15 years since I did a nude study, or any type of life drawing. Not sure if this constitutes a life study, as I used a model from pixellovely gesture drawing, but it is the nearest I am going to get to a life study just now.


Goodness me, I'd forgotten how hard this can be! This should have taken me 30 minutes, but I spent a good hour on this, and went into too much detail (as usual). The medium here is Conte pastels, but being quite chunky sticks, I think it's impossible to get a lot of detail with them, and they are really, really messy!


This is on a large scale (A2) cartridge paper. My life drawing tutor from way back would not let us use any smaller than this, and I can see why, as with larger sheets you feel less restricted and end up with a looser drawing.


This has been an interesting little exercise, but I feel that I would have done a much better job if I'd have stuck to watercolour. The only point here being that, if I'd have used watercolour, I would have probably made the same old mistakes, whereas with pastel, I've managed to make a whole lot of NEW mistakes!

Foxton Locks

Foxton Locks

It’s been so long since I posted anything on here, that I should think most of you have deserted me!


To be honest, I really haven’t done a lot of art work over the last few months – there always seems something else that needs doing, and of course, you now the old saying about “a well-oiled rag” etc., well it really is true, because I am so very rusty that I may have to start all over.


This is a very quick sketch I did the other night of Foxton Locks. It’s a popular local attraction that gets very busy especially during the summer months, by both visitors and spectators alike. It consists of a staircase of ten locks, which raise or lower canal boats by more than 75 feet. The view is across the top two locks, and shows the upper side ponds, which save a lot of water that otherwise would be lost as the boats go through the system.


While this is only a rough sketch, intended for a proper painting that, well, may or may not get done, it has shown me how rusty I have become – something of a wake-up call really. If I am ever going to master this watercolour thing, I really have to buck up my ideas and get some practical work in!

The Inquisition

The Inquisition
Aquarelle pencil and wash.

Last year, I took a painting along to our local art club for evaluation by a professional artist. It was a busy scene at an outdoor cafe, and there were lots of people in the painting. While the evaluation was pretty good on the whole, our professional artist remarked that I had "seen too much", and that I should have concentrated on a small group rather than including everyone in the picture. Well OK, but that wasn't what I wanted to portray, I wanted to get the feel of all these people sitting at the tables and chatting away, an atmosphere.


This year, while in Wells, we walked around the busy market there. Camera in hand, I got a few pictures, mostly of the stalls and lots of people browsing around them. Now, a few months later, aqua pencil in hand and nothing much on the telly, I thought I'd have a go at sketching one of those market scenes. Looking at the photos, thinking about what a lot of work there would be in them, our professional artist's words came back to me, "seen too much"! This in mind, I centred my attention on a couple of women at one of the stalls. I was helped in this fact by having used a camera with 12,000 pixels, which allowed me to zoom in on the subject with little loss of definition.


The sketch above is what I came up with. I used an aquarelle pencil for the sketch and initial shading, followed a wetted no.6 paintbrush to pick out a few mid tones. It took me around a couple of hours, which is about my attention span for a drawing or painting A3 size. I do tend to lose interest rapidly after this time, so although it is not perfect by any means, it's as good as I want it to be. Is that the right way to feel about your artwork? Maybe, maybe not, but that's just the way it is.


The picture below shows the original scene. By taking the two women out of context, the busy market atmosphere is lost, but now the scene takes on a new feel. They are both looking inquisitively at something we can't see. Something that makes us wonder and think that they are definitely interested in something? In the original photo, they are both obviously looking at the market stall, but in the drawing, no matter how many times the viewer will come back to look, they will never know what.

Wells Market: Original scene

In a photo like this, there are lots of little scenes going on if you look around for them, so maybe I can get several paintings from this one photo, instead of painting the scene as a whole. Mr professional artist, maybe you were right after all!

Life In Miniature

A little while back, I saw three beautiful little frames at a car boot sale. Although they were small, the width of the frames was around three inches, and the finish was battered gold. As the stall holder only wanted a couple of pounds for them, and they were in excellent condition, it would be foolish to pass them by. The high cost of frames has prompted me to keep a lookout for second hand frames at such venues, although if frames are in a car boot, there's usually something wrong with them, but these were good.


This last week, I've done a couple of miniatures to fit the frames. Well, I say miniatures - the maximum picture size I could get away with in these is 14x8.5cm, which is the smallest that I have ever painted! Using small brushes is a must with paper this size, and I have to say really quite alien to me - I like nice big brushes usually.


The first painting was a simple landscape and I was fairly pleased with it, but I'll have to do it again, because in my rush to get it into one of those frames, a major faux pas occurred! I had cut the mount, which fitted perfectly, but on cutting the backing board, I hadn't noticed that my painting was underneath it. You guessed it, my lovely painting sliced in two! Bagger, what a plonker!


Any way, it might have done me a good turn, as some of the finer lines did look a bit chunky and I would never have been completely at ease with it.


The painting above is of a terrace in Bath, England. This is the back of a lovely terrace nestling beside a river - I knew instantly that it would be a good subject for a painting, though I would never have guessed such a small one at the time. Using pen and watercolour wash, I've completely ignored the lines in many places. The actual buildings were all shades of grey, but this would have looked a bit dull, so I added light tones of reflected colour liberally in places. The sky took on a mind of its own, as the French ultramarine I used ran back on itself, making branching patterns so typical of this colour. I'll leave you the viewer to judge whether this is a good or bad thing.

Journal 6/8/2011 - Kibworth Windmill, Live!

Kibworth Windmill

Armed with my trusty paintbox and a few of my Art Club colleagues, we set off for an 'en plein air' painting session to the Kibworth Post Mill. The journal tells the story, so I'll just say that it has been around 15 years since I did a painting outdoors on location! We were on private land and well away from public view, so onlookers were confined to club members and not at all unnerving really. Once I got stuck in to the job in hand, everything and everyone else faded from my mind while I sketched away!

Prabal and Brighton

Busy Brighton

A couple of weeks back, my wife and I went on a coach trip to Brighton on the south coast of England. The journey would normally have taken us around three hours, allowing for a break on the way, but the sun decided to do its best for us and it turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day – perfect. Maybe not so perfect though, as it was a Sunday, and anyone in England will tell you that if it is a warm, sunny day on a Sunday, chances are that half of London will decide to descend on Brighton, and this day they certainly did! This meant that the traffic jams while trying to enter the town added another hour to our journey. Never mind though, we still had around four hours to explore this seaside town.

I had never been to Brighton before, and I was little bit worried that it might turn out to be one of those tacky coastal towns with shops full of cheap, oriental tat aimed at the mass tourist fraternity, and a beach washed up with muddy looking seawater. Well, I have to tell you that I was pleasantly surprised. OK, there was a fair amount of tat about, and the beach was mostly pebbles making walking difficult, but the sea was at least clean and the atmosphere was fantastic. The pier, disputed to be the longest in the world, was full of interest, with shops and little seafood places along its length, and a fun fair at the end.

Sketch

The seafood looked so inviting that we purchased a tray of freshly caught prawns, and boy did they taste good! I did however have a bit of a shock while eating them. We had little cocktail sticks to eat them with, and as I was lifting one into my mouth, a huge common gull appeared from nowhere, and grabbed the prawn as quick as a flash before the prawn even touched my lips! I’ve seen these birds do this before on TV, but you don’t realise how big they are, and how strong and agile too. There were hundreds of them, all soaring, weaving in and out of people, looking for some poor unsuspecting soul to grab food from.

At lunchtime, we decided to eat inside! It was at this little beachside café that we had the most gorgeous line-caught cod with chips that I have ever tasted in my life. Fish so fresh, and batter so light; mouth-watering.

There were rows of scooters on the sea front

Brighton, on Bank holidays in the 1960’s was a favourite target for mods and rockers. Rockers would wear leather gear and ride motorcycles, while the mods wore fashionable clothing and parkas, riding scooters adorned with lots of mirrors and spotlights. I must confess, that I fell into the latter, but never made it to Brighton, and just as well, as whenever the two sides met, fighting and chasing would inevitably break out between the two rival factors, causing headlines in the papers and riotous scenes on the TV next day.

Brighton Pavillion

The thing about Brighton is that it’s not just about the sea front. For those who would venture more into the town, there are some lovely parks, and the jewel in the crown is that famous pavilion. We caught a glimpse of it on the way in, but you have to be up close to appreciate the scale of this building, with its oriental architecture. My only regret is that we just didn’t have enough time to see inside – that will be an excuse to visit this lovely town again sometime.

Well, it’s about time I talked about the painting. Here I’ve done a sketch of a little part of the town that caught my eye. This is a pre-painting. It was Prabal who convinced me that a pre-painting was a good idea to practice before doing a painting for real. I have never thought of doing this, but it looks like a good idea, because now I know what works in this painting and what is not so good. The abnormality in this work is the fact that a pre-painting is normally smaller than the proper painting will be. This is the largest painting I have ever done, being A2, and is done on smooth, white cartridge paper. The work proper will be A3 simply because I don’t possess any watercolour paper in size A2! Being cartridge paper, it doesn’t hold the paint as well as knot 300gsm, and of course, the paper buckles.

Brighton Beach (before the crowds descended!)

It was my intention to keep the background buildings light so that the foreground figures will stand out well, and I think it’s worked pretty well here, and I like this part of the painting best of all. The sky isn’t at all correct though. It should be darker above and much lighter down towards the horizon. I’ve used French ultramarine here, blending in yellow ochre lower down, but too strongly.  The figures are a little out of scale, as a couple of their heads on the right are too large. I love the guy in yellow in the centre though, and the lady on the left. I think that I will need to do some squaring up when I do the painting for real, and improve the perspective a bit on the road.

This is also the first time I’ve used a ruler to guide me with those tall lamps and building columns. If you look at the sketch, you can see that I have not put too much detail in the buildings either, especially the windows. I’ve read that putting the detail in with the brush speeds up the drawing stage, and keeps the work looking loose. The time taken to do this work is 90 minutes sketching, followed by two more 90 minutes sessions adding the paint. So overall, around five hours, which for a painting this large and this detailed is pretty good.