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Every two years a remarkable exhibition takes place at Baldersby Park, North Yorkshire, which attracts just about every leading artist in the North. Its on this week. For details CLICK HERE.
Some of my pictures in this years show are below.
Ladyhill , watercolour. One of the paintings in the current Art in the Bar exhibition.
Edinburgh Rooftops These are two new multi-layered handmade screen prints of Edinburgh which I've been working on over the last couple of weeks. The city was my grandfather's home town and its somewhere I've returned to regularly for many years. Most recently I've been in the city researching locations for my forthcoming Places of Pilgrimage exhibition (more details HERE) when I went to see Greyfriar's Bobby's memorial, where people leave dog toys and sticks for the ghost of the Skye terrier, and the Elephant House Cafe, where J.K. Rowling used to write. (Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall-Smith are also customers). Scotland's capital is a place of contrasts - sometimes stern and forbidding under grey skies and sometimes bright in the sun. A place of dark deeds - the "Resurection Men" trading corpses - and home to one of the greatest art festivals in the world. A good humoured phrase often associated with "Auld Reekie" is "its all fur coat and nae knickers" which pretty much says it all! I've captured Edinburgh in two different moods - the brooding and the light hearted - taking the same view of the city or both from Calton Hill. On the skyline is the castle and, in the foreground, the tower of the Balmoral hotel.
When I first came to the Dales I was blown away by the beauty of the landscape. Swaledale and then Wensleydale opened up before me: tiny barns in the corners of green and buttercup fields, clusters of ash trees overhanging rambling stone farmhouses and the ever-present drystone walls. But as we drove from Hawes, through Widdale, something amazing appeared - the Ribblehead Viaduct. This enormous structure effectively bridges the spaces between two of the three peaks when approached from the East. With Ingleborough to the left and Whernside to the right the vast twenty-four-arched viaduct spans the rough expanse of Batty Moss.
In those days the Settle Carlisle Railway was being threatened with closure and this building was one of the key reasons. Looking closely at the piers I could see that they were being held together with vertically clamped lengths of rail. Prior to its eventual restoration the viaduct was in serious danger of falling into the peat bogs around it. Fortunately, after much campaigning, the viaduct and the line were saved. Its somewhere I frequently return to , sketchbook in hand, and it never fails to amaze me, even in the kind of weather I've captured in the painting above. There are all kinds of stories about the area round the viaduct. Here's one from my book Tales of the Dales: The Gearstones Fairies When I went down a pothole for the first time it was a brief trip of a few minutes. We walked into a cave called Calf Holes. I remember water flowing over my boots, the daylight disappearing and that once-sniffed-never-forgotton smell of carbide lamps. The stream rippled before us into the dark and I saw it fan out into the depths of the cave as it formed a waterfall. Later the same day I made my first proper trip underground. I had a helmet but the rest of my gear consisted of a pair of borrowed wellies, a torch and a boiler suit. Despite the wet and the discomfort of crawling and contorting myself I was amazed by the other worldliness of the pothole. Over the next few years I went through some wonderful caves, learned the difference between stalagmites and stalactites (tites come down!) and saw things you couldn’t see anywhere else. Its not surprising that they are lots of stories to do with potholes, but this tale is very strange. The two men who told it to me promised to write down all the details and email them, but I never heard from them again. Two cavers, with a passion of caving photography, went to a pothole at Geartsones, high on the plateau where Ribblehead Viaduct stands. They changed into their wetsuits, unpacked their gear and set off. But once underground they found that, whatever they did, their floodlights and cameras stubbornly refused to work. Finally they gave up trying and just decided to go through the cave for fun, rather than waste the day, so they stashed their gear high above the water level and set off. Now the cave was fairly full of water but it wasn’t a fast flooder so they weren’t worried about getting trapped. However there was a low duck in the cave where they would have to put their heads underwater briefly to enter the main chamber. They were both experienced and negotiated the duck without a hitch. When they got into the main cave, however, they immediately felt something strange happening. Around them they could hear, what they could only describe to me as “fairy music” – unearthly sounds ringing and echoing across the deep water in which were standing up to their necks. Simultaneously they felt a gentle, insistent force pushing them back the way they’d come. They were both convinced that someone or something was telling them that they weren’t wanted. Without panic, but puzzled and slightly frightened, they retreated. The next week one of them returned. After a few sleepless nights he’d convinced himself that he couldn’t let this experience turn him against potholing and he had to face his fear. He went back to the main chamber and – nothing! Everything was calm. Mightily relieved he went home. But a few weeks later he was back with a school party. The water levels were well down and the visit was exciting for the children but in safe conditions. In the cave he asked a little boy what he thought of the place. The lad paused and then said: “Its great, but I don’t like the people in the rocks.” If you'd like to buy Tales of the Dales it costs £12 and you can order it by clicking HERE If you like the painting its available, framed, at £595. CLICK HERE for more details.
This is my new screen print of 30, St Mary Axe in the City of London - formerly known as the Swiss RE building and mostly known as the Gherkin. Its been one of my favourite buildings in London for a while. I love the way the framework twists around the contours of the building, I love the way the light catches it in different ways and I love way it contrasts with the older buildings of the city - particularly the medieval church in the foreground. This is a hand pulled three colour reduction print, each layer created by painting on the screen with screen blocking fluid so the picture is created in negative. I like to keep editions short and this one is an edition of 13 plus one artist's proof with a slightly different colour final layer. The print size is an image of 17mm x 24mm on rough watercolour paper 28mm x 38mm. The Gherkin is priced at £119. If you'd like a copy send an email by CLICKING HERE. For a long time people were not keen to buy art online and then, a few years ago, something changed their minds. These days I am approached for paintings and prints by way of Masham Gallery website, my Facebook and Twitter connections, through the various other gallery websites where my work appears and through this site. In addition there are a number of art outlets that start up every year - the only problem is knowing which ones to use. There's Etsy and Folksy for the craft end of the market and Saatchi for the more out there stuff but I've recently set up on a well established platform: Artfinder. Artfinder seems to offer one of the easiest buying systems and it also seems to attract some very good artists. So I've put up a selection of some of my favourite paintings and prints, including those above and below. I hope you see something you like. To visit CLICK HERE
Nearly three years ago I set out on a journey to discover stories of the Yorkshire Dales and then visit the places where they were set. I was looking for special places that had inspired legends or were the set for great stories. I found them in abundance and wrote a book: Tales of the Dales. I also staged an exhibition of the paintings, which led to a second exhibition. This, in turn, led to a commission from the renowned gastro-pub The Angel (at Hetton) asking me to paint a group of pictures and write a book of locally based stories. So I'd been researching the area between Grassington and Skipton and coming up with a pile of interesting tales (and some great painting locations) when the Grassington Festival asked me to talk about stories from the Dales and how they feed into my work. Therefore on June 25th I'll be speaking about what I've been doing and telling some stories at a special lunch at the Angel. If you would like to join me tickets are available from the Grassington Festival. For details and to book CLICK HERE My current exhibition - The High Country - finishes next week on the 18th June. Its a collection of paintings about the areas around the head of Wensleydale and the glorious three peaks. This is Penyghent, above, where I had my first taste of the Pennine landscape which has been my home for the last 27 years. The exhibition is at Herriot's Gallery, Hawes in Wensleydale, DL8 3QW. (Open by appointment at other times) If you get to see it drop me n email and let me know what you think. |
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July 2023
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