Village Exhibition

Just an advance notice to tell you all that I shall have an exhibition of paintings at the end of the month in:

South Luffenham Church, Rutland LE15 8NX

Preview Evening
Friday 28th June 7 - 9pm
Wine and Canapés
tickets £5

 the exhibition will also be open on
Saturday 29th June
  & Sunday 30th June
1 - 6pm
including Open Gardens in the village
entrance £5 payable at the church both days
~
home-made Cream Teas available in the Village Hall all weekend

Now come on, what could possibly match up to this sort of value?....£5 to see Chelsea Show class flower arrangements, stuff your chops with canapés and wine, listen to live harp music, and see my paintings AND meet me!  And that's just the Friday night...

for the same price on both Saturday and Sunday, you get to see all the superbly manicured Open Gardens in the village, see my paintings AND still see me!  Offers like this don't come round every day you know! 

I hasten to add that the entrance fees do not go to me, but to the upkeep of the village church!  Hope to see some of you over the three days! 

Tickets will be available on the door for the Preview Evening on the Friday, but it would help if you could let me know if you intend coming, so that we know how many hundreds to cater for, thank you! 

email: peter_barker@tiscali.co.uk

tel: 01780 720427

Back from Patchings!

Patchings Festival was a blast as usual, meeting up with some painting friends, some Facebook friends and especially being blessed with good weather for a change.  

Oh, and I was also lucky enough to win an award in The Artist Patchings Exhibition, which can be viewed online at http://www.patchingsartcentre.co.uk/festivalexhibition/onlinegallery/exhibition2013/index.php
You can vote for your favourite painting by clicking on the green 'gallery' button in each of the four categories and then clicking on your favourite and then the blue 'click here' button to vote.  The painting in each category with the most votes by the close of play on 1st September will receive the 'Peoples Choice Award' 

Here is a photo showing my two paintings hanging in the exhibition alongside my mate Haidee-Jo Summers, who also won an award!

Anyway, here are the paintings I did at the festival in chronological order.

The Elderflower Stump, Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

 The Village Field, Oil on Board, 10 x 12 inches

 Summer Welland, Oil on Board, 9 x 12 inches

Winter Dawn, Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

 

  Spring Growth, Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

And here are a couple of photos of my stand - this was after close of the festival - it wasn't always this quiet!

 

Patchings Festival of Art

I shall be exhibiting and demonstrating in the big main painting marquee on all four days of the festival, and the weather promises to be great this year, so I look forward to seeing some of you there!  Please make yourself known if you're a follower of my Blog or Facebook page, if you can get anywhere near me of course, what with security and adoring fans - I'm incredibly approachable despite my worldwide celebrity status, ahem.....

There are also 70 odd (very odd) other artists to see as well as me, including David Curtis painting a portrait of Sally Bulgin, editor of the Artist Magazine, on Friday, and painting landscapes in his own tent all day Saturday, Ken Howard talking about his new book on Saturday, and various others.  Full details at http://www.patchingsartcentre.co.uk/patchingsfestival/patchings_festival.php

High Summer by the Welland

Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

This one's a demo I did today at Brinsley Art Group, a lovely crowd of folks. This is how far I got after the allotted two hours - got the basics down, but needs a bit of refining back in the studio, but thought you'd like to see it 'in the raw' before it's titivated.

Rusty Barn in the Exe Valley

Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

A pretty dull day in the Exe Valley this, but the inspiration for the painting was that beautiful orange rusty roof of the barn nestling amongst the farmstead, like a jewel in an otherwise green landscape.

Sometimes, painting a flatly-lit scene can be interesting, as was the case here, in capturing the close tones with little contrast, with, perhaps, the hint that the sun might just break through the clouds.

The Green Teign

Pastel on Clairefontaine Pastelmat, 13 x 19 inches

Here's my Pastel painting from yesterday's demo at the Sock Gallery in Loughborough.  This was how far I got after 2.5 hours work in front of a massive crowd of 6 or 7.........people.  I shall probably refine it a bit back in the studio, but the basic groundwork's been done.

I don't find Pastel the ideal medium for this sort of scene, with so much green foliage, but painting the water was good fun, with broad downward strokes of Pastel and a few judicious horizontal swipes here and there.  Oil would be my preferred medium to describe such greens of the trees, having the facility to mix so many subtly different greens, rather than relying on the somewhat inadequate Pastel sticks available, but I like a challenge, masochistically!

Great artists in their own words

Well done BBC - yet another hour-long homage to modern 'art'.  It's been a while since I've had a rant about the garbage that the BBC's open door policy to the talentless takes great delight in thrusting down our throats.  The UK has a plethora of brilliant painters, never mind the rest of the world, yet virtually none is ever portrayed by our national broadcasting service.  

Unless I am very much mistaken, I believe that the VAST majority of the viewing public would much rather watch an hour of a great modern painter actually painting en plein air or in the studio, instead of watching some pillock piling up rocks, or tipping water down a rockface, or putting a cow's head in a glass case with a million flies, or embroidering the names of all their conquests on a tent, or wrapping the Reichtstag in silk sheets, or staging a happening, or making another 'installation'....need I go on?  

We do occasionally get a retrospective of Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir etc., if there happens to be an exhibition at the National Gallery, but why no modern great painters, like Curtis, Brown or Howard?  You would think, if you watched the BBC, that all art made these days is the sh-t that graces the walls of the Tate. Depressing, when there is SO much brilliant art out there that NEVER gets a look in on our TV screens.  Grrrrrrr!  Rant over.

Demo at Loughborough!

Just in case any of you are near the area, I shall be painting a Devon woodland river scene in Pastels 'live' in the Sock Gallery in Loughborough Town Hall, tomorrow, Thursday 23rd May, between 10am to 12.30pm-ish (knowing me I'll go over, like Ken Dodd!) as part of the Leicestershire Pastel Society exhibition.

Entry is FREE - now short of me paying you to come and watch (and that's not going to happen), you can't get much cheaper than that!

I have two paintings on show in the Gallery, along with all the other members' work - well worth a look.  The exhibition is on until July 2nd, but why not come along tomorrow and see me - I'm the same approachable chap I always was way back before I became a global megastar, ha ha.....

No Tobogganning

Oil on Board, 12 x 17 inches

This is a glorious, panoramic view over Dartmoor that I've painted for my Devon exhibition in November.  I was immediately drawn to the wind-carved old tree with its dark under-canopy and vivid Spring foliage, set against the ever-receding blue tones of the vast distance below in the valley, spotted with little cottages in the Dartmoor villages.

I started painting the backdrop, using more blue and white in the mixes of my three primary colours for the distant hills, fields and trees, then added more red and yellow and less white as I painted the ones nearer the foreground, thus portraying the illusion of three dimensions to the painting, hopefully. If you pay close attention to the relative tones and colours, that illusion of depth will be created.

The title?  Well, that sign on the five-bar gate reads 'Please do not toboggan in these fields'! 

Summer Reflections

 Oil on Board, 10 x 14 inches

I painted this one as a demo for the Crown Hills Art Society in Leicester last week.  You can see how far I got in just under two hours before finishing it off in the studio today.

 

It's one of my favourite painting spots near Duddington by the River Welland, where its course has a double bend in it and is wide and slow-moving.  To capture the effect of the gorgeous, slightly disturbed reflections by the gentle summer breeze, I employed the texture of the gessoed surface, by dragging a sparingly loaded brush of the light, sky colour across the darker tree reflection in the centre, giving that broken look, hopefully!

 

Incoming Tide, Mousehole

 Oil on Board, 7.5 x 10 inches

Here's another one of Mousehole Harbour, this time down on the foreshore at boat level, with the tide lapping in. 

The morning light was gorgeous, lighting up the yellow tarpaulin on the left-hand boat, with some sparkly bits on the sandy mud which I dragged in using a palette knife over the tacky underpainting.  The right-leaning mast of the boat was at a perfect angle to push the eye out through the walls to the distant shore and gentle, scudding clouds.  I also loved the beautiful greeny reflections of the harbour walls, with the bottom weeds and ropes still visible.

Boats have a lot more fiddly bits on them than trees, quite labour-intensive actually, the way I paint anyway.  I'm yet to figure out how to paint all those bits more loosely!  All in all, it's a very colourful painting and perhaps would have made a good larger one. 

Wildlife Abounds!

 Up at 6 this morning, I trolled down to Barnsdale Wood by the shores of Rutland Water, arriving at 6.30 to catch the early morning light. I heard the barking of a Muntjac straight away, then within a few minutes heard some cracking of twigs and realised I was being watched by a small herd of Fallow Deer, above.  

 

About a hundred yards further on, I heard more movement and spotted a Muntjac Deer scampering away, the large, white tuft on his rump flashing as he bounded off.

A few minutes later I stopped, scanned around looking for a good composition for a painting, then spotted a face looking at me...it's dead centre, above.  Yes, it's a Fox!  He had spied me before I him.  I moved two steps towards him and he about turned and was off up the hill, giving me a flashing glimpse of his rufus back.  I've cropped the photo to give a better look, below:

Then, on getting back to the studio, I fed the birds, had some breakfast, then watched a very healthy-looking Hedgehog come out of the undergrowth on to the lawn before scuttling back into his daytime hideout.  So, what did you see before 7 this morning?

Traffic Lights, Mousehole Harbour

Oil on Board, 9 x 12 inches

Here's another one of Mousehole, from almost the same spot as the last one.  It was 6am and with the sun very low in the sky, I loved the effect it had on different coloured buoys, lighting them up like traffic lights, hence the title.  It was a bit fiddly putting so much into a small panel, but I enjoyed it just the same.  I do love the juxtaposition of the intensely lit reflections and edges of the boats, set against the dark of the harbour walls and hulls of the boats in shadow - makes for a dynamic painting, hopefully!

Through the Gap, Mousehole

Oil on Board, 7 x 10 inches

I know you've all been waiting, but I've given up on the watercolours for now.  Having been selling very well lately, I'm very pleased to say my oils and pastels are in demand, so I can't afford to spend any more time trying stuff outside my comfort zone (sorry Colin!).  I really want to have some time off and have a full-blown, concerted effort at watercolours to try and get them up to exhibition standard.

 

Anyway, here's an oil of glorious Mousehole in deepest Cornwall.  I painted this one 'en plein air' about four years ago, stored it away and dug it out yesterday to finish off, so here it is.  I'm doing a few Mousehole paintings for the Little Picture Gallery, http://www.littlepicturesmousehole.co.uk,  a wonderful gallery run by Paul and Judy Joel in Mousehole, so stand by for more.....

Fairy Glen

Oil on Mountboard! 16 x 20 inches

Now here really is a blast from the past. I was digging out my watercolour paper today, having been hand-painting frames for a week, and discovered this oil painting of mine, circa 1968, 45 years ago, phew!

Having painted it on mountboard, it's deteriorated over the years as can be seen with the mildew on the left-hand side .  

I think I've got better over the years......hopefully!  This should give hope to any of you folks who despair at your efforts. Next one WILL be a new one, a watercolour if all goes to plan....