I signed up for a couple of Christmas Fairs this year. Last weekend I was at the Aboyne Playgroup Fayre in the Victory Hall in Aboyne. I am pretty much a novice at setting up a table, but tried not to let it show too much. I have a list, which helps. It means I don't forget vital things like table cloths, sticky labels and pens and a flask of coffee. Actually, there was free tea and coffee for the stall-holders at this event, which was great. I managed to make not too bad a fist of setting out my stall, in the end (you can judge for yourself - photo above). I'd been assigned a table at the top of the hall, next to the face-painting. It was fun to watch a series of children be transformed into dogs, butterflies and (a sign of the times) angry birds. More fascinating, for the people-watcher that I am, was to see the personalities of these small beings, already well developed. The confident ones strode up to the chair, sat patiently while the art was applied to their little visogs and then picked up the mirror to admire the results. The shyer ones had a small motif drawn on their arm or hand. And the shyest didn't want their faces painted at all. Or perhaps it's not shyness; perhaps it's just the difference between extroverts and introverts. The sparkly blue butterflies went out into the world (or hall, village, Deeside) saying "look at me, I am pretty!", whereas the unpainted ones did not wish to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps they feel beautiful enough as they are. Santa's grotto was behind me on the stage, so I did not get a chance to observe the small people there. But I could see the steps leading up there. Again, it was fascinating to see what went on. The small people who dragged mummy or daddy up the steps, desperate to tell Santa their wishes. The mummys and daddys trying to persuade their offspring to to go and visit the man in the red suit with his long white beard and big black boots. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I'm sure there were a few tears in that grotto. But hopefully more smiles than tears. This Sunday I will be at Redwood Winter Fair in Echt Village Hall from 10am - 5pm. (The Fair is on both Saturday and Sunday, but I will just be there the one day). There will be face-painting, I believe. Hope to see you there!
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This week, I've been helping out with the hanging of an annual exhibition of local artists. Somehow, I volunteered to be on the committee last year and so have been involved in organising some of the publicity for the event. This has included getting posters and postcards printed and setting up a Facebook fan page.
Nothing too onerous or complicated. And then it came to hanging the exhibition. Everyone on the committee turned up at the hall on Tuesday morning to help out. We were variously armed with lists, hooks, hammers and sticky labels. Some people were wise enough to bring a packed lunch. Suffice to say, it took a while. There really is an art to hanging an entire exhibition. I have only ever had to hang about a dozen paintings before; all my own work and in a reasonably small space. And that has been tricky enough. It never looks right at the first attempt. Often it doesn't look right after the third one. Quite often, it's back to what looks remarkably like the first attempt before it looks right. I gradually came realise that what looks "right" to one person will not necessarily be how someone else thinks it should look. There are so many factors to take into account; size, shape, subject matter, orientation (portrait or landscape), frame size and colour, boldness of colours of the image, to name the main ones. I'm sure there are many more that I have no clue about. Oh, and spacing between the paintings. And height above the floor. Oh yes, it's a tricky task indeed. And despite the fact that there are these factors to consider, it is, at the end of the day, not a scientific decision, but an artistic one. By the time we left, we were all happy with our efforts. I'm hoping that everyone attending this evening's preview will be suitably impressed! The MBC festival Art Exhibition is on at The Phoenix Centre, Newton Dee, Bieldside, on Saturday 23rd & Sunday 24th August, 10am - 5pm. Teas and coffees and cakes available too. It's nearly the end of my week's exhibition at the GALE centre in Gairloch. People have come and gone. They visit the centre for different reasons. Some come in search of accommodation - the staff are unfailingly patient and helpful, even when requests are made quite abruptly. I guess it must be stressful to arrive in an area without any accommodation booked and not know where you will be staying that night. Stressful, unsettling, unnerving. And they are supposed to be on holiday. The headline in the local newspaper yesterday was about the lack of accommodation and long queues for ferries out to the islands. I hope this alarmist attitude doesn't put visitors off. There are often still beds available in Bed and Breakfast places which do not advertise on websites, or through official organisations. I have not heard of any tourists sleeping rough in ditches anywhere. The campsites are busy too, with tents, caravans and campervans.
Others come in to obtain information about what to do in the area. Or for directions to the campsites or the harbour or to the nearest cash machine. Or where to get fish and chips. I've chatted to many of the visitors here this week - from those who return year after year to the area, either simply because they love it, and/or because they have family or family connections, to those who have never been here before. Everyone is positive about their experience. Even on a grey drizzly day, there are comments on the beauty of the scenery and the wildness of the landscape. On a beautiful sunny day, such as today, there are fewer people in to browse the gifts and crafts and souvenirs, or to sample the lovely homemade cakes. They are all out busy enjoying the sunshine, either on a boat trip, or on one of the many unspoilt beaches, or perhaps up a mountain somewhere nearby. And that's as it should be; that's why we come here ourselves, after all. It's that time of year again. I am preparing for an exhibition of my paintings, to be held in the GALE centre in Gairloch, Wester Ross. The same place where I held my Local Letterboxes exhibition last year. It is a lovely place; specially designed to be energy efficient - lots of wood and glass and light. There are huge floor to ceiling windows along the front which look out over the sea towards Skye. Not just towards Skye, you can see the north end of the island. I took some photographs of the building last year, which you can see above. I'm not quite sure that whoever put the sign together in the top middle photograph had fully thought through what the finished article would look like. Perhaps I am just being childish. Not that that is such a bad thing.
I am busy framing paintings, deciding which paintings to reproduce as prints, mounting work, putting together new sets of greetings cards and generally gathering my work together. It has given me a good chance to review what I have done in the past year. I realise I have probably not been as focused as I might have been. I start out with good intentions - to paint a series of boats, or buildings, or birds. And I end up with a smattering of each, a few birds, a few sheds and houses, some more boats. Perhaps that doesn't matter. This year's exhibition is entitled "Inspired by Scotland", so all of these subjects can happily be included. It's an eclectic mix. It will be interesting to see what people think. I could put it off no longer. The idea that had been fermenting in the back of my head for a significant period of time had come to fruition. Although if it was fermenting it should surely by now be an alcoholic beverage. Never mind the detail. I had an idea, ages ago. As you already know, I live in northeast Scotland. The referendum about whether or not Scotland should become independent from the rest of the UK is happening this year. On 18th September, to be precise.
Travelling around the country, I've noticed signs in windows, declaring the inhabitants' voting intentions. Personally, I never do this. Declare my intentions. It's an inherited trait; my parents never told each other how they were voting, in anything from local to general elections. Sometimes I haven't decided until I read the ballot paper. Sometimes I have. I don't believe it's anyone else's business. So I have been intrigued to see the signs in house windows. Playing on my own extremely indecisive nature, I thought it would be fun to create a painting incorporating the sense of history, along with the possibility that different members of one household are likely to have different opinions. A recent trip to Perthshire provided me with the source material; a photograph which I took of a quintessentially Scottish house. A large house in the country, true, but a sandstone one and typical of the area. The rest of the task involved putting pencil to paper, brush into water, into watercolour and a fair bit of time. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labours. Now for the next task; to decide on a title. One of the many things I love about the west coast is the light. More specifically, the way the light changes. One minute you can be walking along the beach with blue skies all around and the next, the sky is slate grey and so is the sea. And more often than not, there are wet spots on the stones and pebbles on the beach, or pock marks in the sand, if there is a significant amount of precipitation. There may be a gleaming patch of sunlight on the sea, in the distance. Not so much a patch, perhaps, as a sliver, a sliver of silver. And then there are the beams of light which come down through the clouds, a reminder that the sun is in fact still up there, waiting to put in another appearance. This rapidly changing light is great for photography, but much trickier for painting in situ (or plein air, as they say). It's a good incentive to work quickly so as to capture the moment. Soon it will be warm enough again to do some outdoor sketching and painting again - I'm looking forward to it.
I'm heading west this weekend, laden with some of my creations. Some original paintings (including those pictured above), mounted prints and a selection of greetings cards. The paintings are going to be brightening the walls of the lovely Steading Bistro in Gairloch (in behind the Gairloch Heritage Museum). The plain white walls will be a great backdrop for my boat paintings. There are a couple more which are now complete, but didn't quite make it to the framers in time - photos soon. I'm really enjoying painting boats, although getting all the curves and angles and proportions right can be quite a challenge!
I'm hoping there will some gaps in the rain over the weekend, to get out and about. Feeling in need of some brisk walks on the beach, to blow away my January cobwebs. If I'm lucky, there will be enough light for a few photos too. I have been collecting autumn leaves. Quite a few different kinds. Lime, sycamore, chestnut, beech, oak and gean (wild cherry). The colours at the moment are beautiful - gold, bronze, red, yellow, orange and mixtures of all these together, often all in one leaf. I was supposed to be at a printing workshop last weekend - it was postponed, but I still wanted to experiment with some printing ideas of my own. So I tried some different ways of printing, using the leaves I had collected. Watercolour paint proved to be a bit thin (at least the pan type, which I normally use for painting). Instead I tried gouache, which I have used very little for painting. The consistency proved to be much better for making impressions. I experimented with paper textures - smooth paper worked better than rough. The upper side of the leaves seemed to work better than the underside. Fresh leaves worked better than dried ones. It is all subjective, I suppose. It depends what kind of end result you are aiming for. It was fascinating to see the range of effects that could be achieved using such a simple method. Multiple layers of colours gave particularly interesting results. To be continued.
I have been experimenting with collage this week. I saw quite a few examples of this technique, using all sorts of different materials, during my tour of North East Open Studios last month. Perhaps some of the pieces I saw could be classed as mixed media; I'm sure there are specific definitions somewhere. I stuck (pardon the pun) to paper and glue for my playtime. A pile of old magazines, some newspapers, my pot of PVA glue (which temporarily went missing), a pair of scissors and some pieces of cardboard for bases, and I was off! It is a surprisingly absorbing occupation, I found. I did not consciously look for patterns or themes. I also did not aim for an overall picture or image (such as a landscape) as the end result. In fact I am not even sure that these are end results! I am tempted to add some paint (acrylic, or gouache perhaps) to some of them. I will be revisiting collage very soon, I think. The Orange and Blue effort above, based on the sheet music of the tune with that name, inspired a painting I did today. It's fascinating how different types of creativity feed each other. Fascinating, and fun!
Every so often, it is necessary to refill one's well of inspiration. That's one of the many things I love about North East Open Studios - I can go out and fill my well with all sorts of lovely things. These are not necessarily finished pieces, or paintings, or creations. They may be fabrics, or an assortment of tools on a workbench, or raw materials waiting to be made into something new. Or they may indeed be finished items. Paintings, ceramics, textiles. All with their own colours and textures and depths. Here are a few images of things I have seen during my days out visiting NEOS participants. I am sure you will understand what I mean. |
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