AFAS Summer Show - The Regular One

I am the publicity officer for the Society and also on the hanging team so this is a very busy time.  However I did manage to get my 6 paintings ready and mercifully all were selected.  Two have sold so far, one of which is another, much larger version of Old Harry Rocks, shown here with 'Crown Mines, Botallack', painted alongside David Pilgrim in May:

A little 'Sennen Against The Light', also painted on the Cornwall trip in May, was also sold.

Some more of the contemporary stuff included Francesca Bex's Butterfly Bomb series:

and Karl Hamilton-Cox's 'Skin Deep':

Karl's is acrylic on leather and very gothic!

The team has worked tirelessly and here are some shots of the weary bunch:

plus one of the hanging being done in the main gallery:

Next time I will report on the few excursions I have made with the pochade box in the past month, including a productive week at Westonbirt School.

Armed Forces Art Society Summer Show

I should say 'shows' because for the first time this year we are running a contemporary show - Out of Line - alongside our regular one in the Mall Galleries.  Everyone who uses the new Threadneedle Space is meant to put only really contemporary work in there.  We in AFAS have risen to the challenge (others, sadly, have failed) so I am really proud of our members, many of whom have worked well outside their normal zone to produce interesting and thought-provoking work. Katie Tunn, John Ashton and I have curated the new show.  It has consumed vast amounts of time and energy but we feel that it has been worth it.  It has expanded our range of media, styles and subject matter and encouraged our younger members to pursue their own artistic goals rather than 'fitting in'' with the perceived club requirements.

We had to plan the new show more carefully than our regular show, so that members did not waste time on concepts that were not going to be accepted.  We wanted a very spare look to the show and you can see that in this photo, which shows my mini-installation 'Figure Eleven' as well as John Ashton's 'Khe San Approach and Richard Salter's 'Tree of my Conscience'.

My piece has earned the epithet 'Tim's Tomb' and as it took me 25 working hours to make it certainly buried everything else.  It is a C4th limestone tomb lid with Victorian cast brass 'knight in repose' mounted in place of the original carved Ogham script (C4th Irish).  The face is that of the classic Figure 11 Target - used by armed forces worldwide.  I think I have posted more details elsewhere.
My favourite piece is probably Anna Poole's 'bleeding boot' video  actually called Footprint of War, with a soundtrack of Queen that we can't play because of performing rights issues.  I like it better with no sound actually.

It starts quite innocently like this:

There is blood everywhere at the end.

Katie's 'Fin' series is also very interesting as she is better known for her 'beautiful boys' but is now concentrating on marine conservation issues:

John's 'Khe San' is the most popular of all the Out of Line pieces - and at 16 feet high the largest!

In the next post I will include some pictures of the regular show.  Both finish tomorrow at 4pm.

Recent Excursions

Rather than bore everyone with endless descriptions of the tomb project I thought I would put up some of the plein air sketches that I have done recently - in reverse order.

Yesterday was my birthday and as I has spent the day before, which is Maddy's birthday and our wedding anniversary, treating her to a special lunch followed by a visit to West Wickham House, I was let off to paint for the whole day.  Knowing that David Pilgrim had had a good day there on Sunday I thought I would try Marlow.

I found the river bank below Marlow Lock and after brief introductions I was kindly invited on board Jonathan Kipps' canal boat - a beautifully fitted out craft with 11 foot beam - while it waited to go through the lock.  I met those of his family and friends on board and off we went.  This was obviously going to be my birthday treat!  We negotiated the lock, went on past the town a little way and they dropped me on the North bank at a great spot for painting the bridge.  How kind some people are.  They reminded me of the time when we lived in Nepal and everybody helped everybody else.  Anyway here is the sketch:

I then moved down river, looking for a shady spot as I had fried in the first one.  No luck, so I pitched up at the lock and painted looking back from there.  This one is a bit bigger than I can normally manage - and you might say it shows! - but it is a lovely subject.  It has quite a few dark passages and I think if I tried it again it would be early on a sunny morning, working with the light rather than contre jour.

On 20th July I drove over to Waterperry and spent half a day at Art In Action.  I saw Tony Merrick, who was one of the demonstrating artists, but could not get near Paul Antonio.  I had not realised what a prolific and accomplished pastellist Tony is.  Anyway, towards the end of the afternoon I started an 8x10 of people going home:

On 14th July David Pilgrim drove us down to Bath where we met up with Valerie Pirlot and had a lovely wet day, first painting in the square across Pulteney Bridge and then at the Circus:

Rain!  Bath

Gay Street from the Circus, Bath

I am still knocking out the odd 'postcard' when I have no time for anything else.  Really they are just studies of the big shapes and tones in a scene but at least they keep me looking.

Belted Galloways below Beckley 4x6 inches

Having finally finished the 'tomb' I now have much more time to get out painting so I hope to be posting some more sketches soon.

Figure 11 - The Tomb

It is ages since I posted anything myself but I have been following the blogs of my favourite sites - like those of David, Haidee-Jo and Valerie - through the summer.

The reason I have not blogged a lot is because I have been building a mini installation for the Armed Forces Art Soc's new contemporary show in London at the Mall Galleries this August.  It will be run alongside our regular show and three of us are organising and running it, so it has been a lot of work. 

I think it will be worth it as we are now able to include many of our artists who find it difficult to get their work into our normal show, either because they are working in 'forbidden' media (photography for instance) or because the style and content of their work is difficult to place in our regular show.

When we looked at what might be submitted we found that there was a shortage of 3-D work so muggins here volunteered to come up with something based on Figure 11 (I will explain that later!).  From 8 basic concepts I chose the tomb idea as being the most practical.  It has taken me nearly 23 hours of work (so about plein air 12 paintings worth!) to finish it, stretched my carpentry skills to the limit and forced me to remember some of the skills I had in scene-painting for amateur plays years ago.

Here is Figure 11:

He is about 5 feet high and is used all over the world as a military target.  Anyone in the Western Hemisphere who has served in their armed forces will recognise him instantly because we have all shot at him.

My concept involved the idea that the ubiquitous Figure 11 represents some sort of universal enemy and that this status is not only undeserved but has a long history.  The image was created soon after WWII and I would like to be able to acknowledge the copyright but it is claimed by more than one agency including the Crown. 

I imagine that the essence of the image is in fact 4th Century and that the concept of Figure 11 'hostis humani generis' goes back at least as far as the end of the Etruscan era in central Italy (circa 300BC).

The main piece is a limestone tomb lid, largely intact, with a C4th inscription in Latin but using the Ogham alphabet (C4th Irish).  This image is supposedly underneath the Victorian tomb brass that is in the 'knight's pose' but is very definitely Figure 11. 

The lid also carries a quote from Aneirin's "Y Gododdin''  of C6th in old Brythonic language but using New Roman Cursive with the addition of a 'y' (for which there is no latin symbol). 

Separate artefacts include a supposedly 300BC stone plaque inscribed on boustrophedon form with 'hic iacet instar undecim hostis quondam hostisque futurus', which is a sort of forerunner of the better-known inscription that is supposedly on Arthur's grave - ie 'here lies Arthur the once and future king'.  Also, I have produced a separate replica of the Ogham inscription, now supposedly covered by the Victorian tomb brass.  Various other bits and pieces contribute to the 'archaeological museum' feel.

The tomb brass contains shot holes, lit from within the space below the lid by orange-red LED lights.  We have tried arrows, rods, even red roses in the shot holes but they spoil the continuity of the image.

In the next posts about Figure 11 I will include some pictures of the construction.

Meanwhile a plug for the show.  It is on from Tue 28 Aug until Sat 1 Sep 10am to 5pm and entrance is FREE.  From Trafalgar Square walk through Admiralty Arch (no cars because of the Para Olympics), past the Marines memorial and it is the next large building on your right.

Cornwall 3

It seems hard to believe now that we crammed so much into 8 days.

As well as Sennen and the mines we ventured to the East side of the peninsular on several occasions - usually because we thought we would have better luck in poor weather with a harbour such as Mousehole.  Two sessions at Mousehole produced several rather grey paintings, the least grey of which is this one:

Falling Tide, Mousehole

I think this was the day when the wind caught the new umbrella fixed to my easel and lifted the whole lot sideways, spewing kit all over the harbour wall and propelling a tube of Naples Yellow into the water.  That brave fellow Worthington immediately dived in and rescued it for me.

On a particularly rough day, Michael Worthington and I made our way to the little cove of Porthgwarra and enjoyed some wet spray whilst painting this sort of thing:

Heavy Seas, Porthgwarra

Another postcard of the scene:

I did two more versions before we decided we were sufficiently drenched to need a cup of tea (on these occasions the Kelly Kettle comes into its own).  By that time too, the waves were actually  rising well above the horizon line.

A fine morning spent at Perranuthnoe, looking SW towards St Michaels Mount and NE into the local bay, netted Michael and I two more views.  We also had a good session at Cape Cornwall, back on the West side.  My second painting there was of the open air pool, which is refilled every high tide. 3 brave souls in wet suits tried it for a while but it was a very cold day:

The Open Air Pool, Cape Cornwall

My wish to paint the Irish Lady again was rewarded with two sessions, one a 20minute one and the other when I had more time.  The 20-minuter was necessary because I was also trying to catch the sunset from Pedn Men Dhu and had to switch at the last moment.  I like the rushed one better than the other - it has more life even though it is not topographically accurate.  First the fast one:

Irish Lady from Pedn Men Dhu (in 20 minutes)

And then the more leisurely version:

Irish Lady from Pedn Men Dhu

The sunset postcard was actually a disappointment but you only get those 5 minutes and it can go either way.

Finally a few more 6x4 postcards:

Nearing Sunset, Sennen 6x4

Wave Study 1, Sennen Beach 4x6

Wave Study With Gannet Fishing 4x6

And Zawn A Bal - as we now know that it is called.  David P made a much better job of the light on the water (see his blog) by using the side of his palette knife - a technique I intend to try next time!

Zawn A Bal, Botallack 8x10

What a trip - great company (those guys really lift your game), great place to stay (Atlantic Lodge) and superb subjects to paint. I don't even mind that it is such a long journey to get there - the anticipation winds you up nicely.

ROI Picnic

Before I post the third Cornwall report I thought I would do a quick post on the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) picnic at Strand On The Green, Monday 28 May 2012.  I was invited as a Friend of the society - as I guess Sue Edwards was - but the rest were members or aspirants.  It was hell getting there on a Monday morning but I managed to start at about 10 am with a10x8 looking West towards the Cafe Rouge area, preceded by another of those 6x4 postcards:

The tide was falling all the time so I wandered down to the Cafe Rouge area to see what the others were doing.  I felt quite uninspired so did two more postcards of Oliver's Island (one shown here) before heading off for coffee and cake at the Cafe Rouge.

I was joined by a substantial number of like-minded people.  I think we had all found it a bit of a struggle.  The next two hours were spent sipping tea/coffee and talking about art!  We left at 5pm but I then realised that I would be caught in the rush hour so went back to the Cafe Rouge and painted it from across the road:

Cafe Rouge, Strand-on-the-Green

This might make a good subject for about 3pm on a sunny day.

Cornwall in May - Second Post

I have been having trouble with Google's new blog software in my normal browser but David Pilgrim has advised me to use Chrome, which seems to have eased the problem.  Incidentally, I was disappointed that Anneka Rice did not concentrate on David's work during the Queen's Jubilee Pageant (he was one of the 20 'chosen ones').  It will be great to see David's masterpieces - what a great souvenir of the day.

Anyway, back to Cornwall!

First Sennen beach.  Living so close, this was always a draw, so we did quite a few paintings on or near the beach.  Here are a few:

Turning Tide, Sennen

High Tide, Sennen

Against The Light, Sennen

On my last morning I went up to a spot that David Pilgrim and Mike Richardson had used and looked back down to the cove:

Sennen Cove From Near The Lookout

The weather was rarely good but we took our chances.  For Pendeen, Botallack and Levant we were quite happy with heavy seas and the occasional bit of sun to add some sparkle.  Pendeen was our first port of call and I have to admit I struggled that day but you have to go through that initial period before you find yourself in the groove.  I climbed the Enys from the back but found nothing so did this one of the light from low down :

Pendeen Light from across the Zawn

Botallack and Levant were more successful.  First Levant on a cold, blustery day:

Pendeen Watch from Levant

Looking the other way on a brighter day we captured Trwellard Zawn:

Trewellard Zawn from Levant

At Botallack the Crown Mines were once again an irresistible pull:

Crown Mines From Zawn-a Bal Headland

Before I tackled this I did one of those 6x4 postcards that I find such fun:

Crown Mines Rock Study 6x4 inches

These little things seem to have a 'presence' all of their own and are very useful as colour/tone notes.  I now carry around a box of them in case I have 20 minutes in which to do something.  I am tempted to go up to 7x5 but where does one stop?!

I still have to cover the other locations but I will close this and do a third Cornwall post tomorrow.