A different kind of week

Well the past week was certainly different. Having previously sung the praises of WetCanvas.com, I found myself suddenly in a position to re-assess my views.
It all came about after someone posted their latest painting, which in my opinion was a plagiarised derivative of my 'Field of Fire' from a couple of weeks ago. Naturally, I voiced my protests. However, not only did I receive no support for my claims, but it transpires that it is not permissible for the membership to even make such, and I was issued an 'Official Warning' by the moderators of that forum for having had the nerve to do so!
I suppose that posting ones work in the 'web' invites abuses such as plagiarism, and even theft by downloading copyrighted material. There is nothing that one can do to stop it. We have to accept that if we wish to share our art with the world, then there will always be someone out there willing to imitate, or even straight-forward copy, (steal) that which we have created. The only alternative would be to bury it at the end of the garden, and then, what would be the point of making it?
At the end of the day, if someone likes my work enough that they feel compelled to copy or steal it, then I should feel complimented. Needless to say, I find that a hard one to swallow. Painting is my blood, I paint because I have to, but I would like it to also be the bread upon my table!
All this business left me with little spirit to paint for a few days, in fact I didn't even pick up a brush. The canvas sat unattended on its easel. But it was inevitable that the phase would pass eventually, and it did.
The painting which follows is the result of my return to work. With it I have tried to nail the inner experience that I felt, as I viewed this scene on many occasions, on my early morning walks to work in the next village.
It depicts the patchy mists rising from the river at first light, as viewed from the road bridge adjacent to the lock-gates.
There is always something very mysterious and ghostly about such a scene. Nothing moves but the mist itself. No human invades the view, and the only sounds, other than the birds in their dawn chorus, seem distant and detached. It is as though one is isolated from the rest of the world, outside of time, alone in a dawn of re-creation.


Misty Dawn over Mountsorrel Locks (24x2") Acrylics painted on canvas

'Field of Fire'

This is the latest painting from my easel. I must admit that I was surprised by the reactions it generated when I posted it in the WetCanvas acrylics forum.
It drew associations ranging from the bush and forest fires, which cause such devastation in other parts of the world, to memories of 9/11 in the USA. Others found it just plain scary. What it represented to me was contrarily benign in comparison.
For many centuries man has harnessed fire and employed its purgitive powers in order to clear land prior to, or after, the raising of crops. Here in the UK it used to be a common sight to annually witness the burning of corn stubble after the harvest was complete. It was the way by which the farmers would rid their land of disease, and return nutrients to the soil quickly. In more recent years this practice has mostly given way to the use of pesticides and chemical nutrients. I'm unsure which of these practices is the more environmentally friendly or harmful.
Here though is my description of such an event.


Field of Fire (24x20") Acrylics painted on canvas.

'Buttermarket'

Here's one that I completed last week. A semi-abstracted view of a local landmark. Really I just used the form of the architecture as a vehicle to play with light and colour.


The Buttermarket (20x24") Acrylics painted on canvas

Two Takes on the Peace Garden

The Peace Garden is a very small green enclosure in my village, planted with trees and accomodating a memorial to the fallen of two world wars.
Here are two loosely interpreted cameos in which I have tried to describe the differing seasonal attributes of an old stone-wall boundary within the garden. The first is an autumnal impression, the second, a high summer afternoon.

(Click to enlarge images)

Peace Garden #1 (24x20") Acrylics painted on stretched canvas



Peace Garden #2 (24x20") Acrylics painted on stretched canvas

'Green Cottage'

This is another very recent painting, and one with which I encountered a few struggles.
It is a fairly loose interpretation of a cottage located within my village.
My first problem involved getting a view of the whole of the building. There seemed to be always at least one vehicle parked right outside the front. Eventually i collected a series of photographs, which enabled me to piece together the layout.
The next problem was one of season. My decision to paint this subject was taken in the middle of winter, when all the trees were bare, and the Wisteria on the front of the cottage itself had been severely pruned back. Thus some imagination was needed.
Of course, without a proper reference from which to work, I had no way to judge relative values of tone and colour temperature. I was forced to set the two main trees as a datum reference, and try to balance everything against them. This was not as easy as one would imagine, and resulted in my having to rework some areas to create the correct spacial perspective. I also had to employ a level of artistic licence in my description of the foreground, replacing a busy road and a narrow stretch of flat, closely manicured grass by inventing the footpath and gradients.
Anyway, this is the result of my labours, together with a couple of detail photographs, which hopefully will illustrate the technique employed.

Green Cottage (24x20") Acrylics painted on canvas.


detail pic.1 (click to enlarge)


detail pic.2 (click to enlarge)

'Composition #1'

Although my work often deviates considerably away from reality, it is very rare that I paint something that is totally abstract.
This is one such creation, and is titled 'Composition #1'


Composition #1 (10x7") Watercolour on Bockingford w/c paper

'Cathedral Porch'

This is another painting from last year.
I had been exploring the back-streets of Leicester with my camera, looking for possible motifs to paint.
It was a wet and grey Sunday afternoon, and having just visited a German Expressionists exhibition at the city art gallery and museum, with all its vibrant colour, I was finding little that inspired me. So I headed over to the cathedral, in the belief that the eclesiastical architecture would surely fire my imagination.
Unfortunately I found it clad in scaffolding and plastic sheeting...it was having a facelift.
I was just about to give up hope when I spotted the railings outside the rear entrance porch. Closer examination revealed the wonderful arcading on the inside ceiling. Now to get both the railings and the ceiling into one composition required me laying on my back in the rain and aiming the camera at a very strange angle. It did however provide me with an unusual perspective. The resulting photograph was as grey as the day, but a little imagination delivered this :


Cathedral Porch (19x22") Acrylic painted on 140lb watercolour paper
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'Brisbane Skyline'

This painting was my submission to a WetCanvas! monthly 'Different Strokes' challenge. (Link = http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=467629 )
The idea behind the challenge is that one member submits a photo reference and invites members to interpret all, or part, of the image in whichever way they choose. Participants then publish their result on the same predetermined date.
The photograph we were provided for this particular exercise was an aerial(?) snapshot of the Brisbane city skyline, almost totally devoid of colour.
Anyway, this was my interpretation of it.


(Image is clickable to enlarge)

Brisbane Skyline (24x20") Acrylics on canvas.

'Fallen Bole'

Here's one that I completed a couple of months ago.
I finally got round to a studio work-up of a plein-air reference from over 20 years ago. That plein-air study can be found elsewhere in this blog.
This 200 year old plus birch tree, although having fallen to a very precarious angle, was still very much alive in Sealyham Woods in Pembrokeshire.


Fallen Bole, Sealyham (20x24") Acrylics painted on canvas.