It seems to be birthday season around here – not mine though – so expectations are for a hand painted card. I must admit that I dont do as many as I used to, but still, for each one you have to stop what you are doing and think of a suitable subject.
And here are a selection of the present crop. A particular pitfall is doing the same subject for the same recipient, particularly when they get them on consecutive years.
Yeah, life in the fast lane – and I havent even mentioned the Christmas cards…
Floral and wildlife paintings can be purchased from my website at unbelievably reasonable prices: grahammcquadefineart.com
Regulars may be tired of this subject, but it shows the heart of my town, Southport, and the subject is still popular at exhibitions. For me, I like the challenge of the architecture and the figures. On this one I battled with the shop windows, as on my main source photo the windows were obscured by a figure and on the other shots, with the focus on the street, they were too dark to be meaningful. I was pleased with the outcome. Abstract marks, some on damp paper, others on dry gave the reflective qualities I was after and made a good contrast to the brightness of the street. They also feel right.
I also wanted a view without much of the traffic. For me it is a busy thoroughfare and cars are part of that, but a lady who bought a painting of the street earlier in the year, made the comment, that there was too much focus on the traffic on paintings I showed her. This comment made me think that for many, the focus is really on the buildings, pavement bustle and the shops under the arcade. So, here is my attempt at redressing the balance. Hope you like it.
Other Lord Street paintings and townscape paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
With predicted record UK temperatures I assumed the next day was going to be cloudless and packed my painting gear in readiness for an early start. At 5-30 it was hot, but not cloudless, but, ever the optimist, I started out and hoped the light would improve.
The first painting is of a subject I’ve done before, but not from this angle, sitting on the roadside verge, looking out across the fields at the distant Aughton Church and the cottage with the reflective roof tucked in on the left.
When a Range Rover narrowly missed me as speeding commuters passed on the lane behind, I knew why I had found a different vantage point in the past. Still, I lived to tell the tale and here is the evidence.
Retreating to a safer position in the middle of a field, I was struck by the variation of colours from the different crops and the seed heads of the grasses which I achieved by scratching out with a scalpel and then adding a bit of shading.
Perhaps a bit of tiredness had crept in on this line of trees along a track, though I think some good light might have made a difference. Yep, a bad workman always blames his light.
On Saturday I received an anonymous wordpress comment on my email. I assumed it was from Troll and deleted it. Then it struck me that it had arrived in the middle of the day and Troll unleashes it’s invective at night, probably fuelled by alcohol. I decided to chance a look at the comment.
It was from a lady who had seen a copy of this painting, of one of our local parks. Posted in 2016. She asked if it was available for sale. The image she had seen was the one below which was half imperial. Since then I had cut it down to quarter imperial – the one you see above.
But the story begins much earlier. After blogging the painting, I exhibited it at my local framers. Someone quickly decided to buy it, but wanted it in another frame. Glyn, my framer, obliged, without taking a deposit. However, when I packed up the exhibition some six weeks later they hadnt returned.
In the meantime, an acquaintance, after visiting my exhibition, gushed that she would have bought the painting of Hesketh Park if it hadn’t been sold. So I contacted her and told her that the painting was now available. It became quickly apparent that what she had told me contained as much bullshit as the promise the first ‘buyer’ had given to my framer.
So the painting came back home. I told Glyn to contact me if the first punter returned, but they never did.
I then put it into other exhibitions, cut down, in an attempt to sharpen it up. To no avail. I even removed it from my website. So when I received this enquiry I had a bit of a frantic search trying to locate it. Fortunately I still had it, but at first I didnt realise the painting the lady was looking at was the old one.
Anyway, all’s well. The lady should receive the painting today. It is a present for her son, to remind him of the days when they visited the park.
It may need a little more work, but it’s essential done. I saw these daisies on some waste ground near to where I live one sunny day and was struck by the tonal differences. Initially I painted them in watercolour, but I wanted to emphasise the transition from shade to light and decided that it would be better, and easier, to do the piece in acrylics.
I also have this canvas, which I made some time ago, and have used before. I thought that the shape was well suited to the subject and complemented the tonal transition of the piece. At the bottom of the painting are some juicy blues and purples from the previous painting, which I kept and built on. They are not very visible on this shot.
We’re getting some warm weather, but there is a lot of cloud with it. Monday was different – bright sunshine – so I got on the bike to find some nice light and shade. I started where I had finished on my last outing:
It was right down the end of the lane and past the three poplar trees you can see in the last sketch I posted. I spotted a track up the hill, one I had never been along before, and soon found a view with the long morning shadows.
After that sketch, I continued up the hill and looked across the fields to a cluster of houses I have painted before, but from the other side:
Then back down the hill: I was off to find a morello cherry tree I had spotted a few years ago whilst sketching. I have some morello cherries from trees in my garden, but wanted a few more to make a decent batch of jam. On the way I spotted this scene and paused by the roadside and sketched the cottage up the track.
There were a nice series of curves bending this way and that. Throw in a few powerlines and you have got my attention. I was a bit disappointed with the outcome – perhaps a bit too heavy handed. It also could do with a bit of judicious rearrangement. I have some photos so another version might be on the way.
After this it was off to the cherry tree, but when I had got there the tree had been stripped bare by the birds with plenty of pips hanging by stalks, but all the fruit was gone.
So, it looks like only a couple of pots this year.
This is a view I’ve presented before, but wasn’t too pleased with the execution. So I’m having another go: trying to get the smoky haze of a summer’s day. I also wanted a simplified foreground which pushes the focus on the deep ravine of the River Wear in Durham.
Most of the sky and background were done wet in wet so I lost control of the forms. I was able to do a bit of shaping when I added more darks to the bottom of the far trees and flattened the waterline. It has made me relook at some other river paintings. I thought I had better warn you.
Other landscapes and river scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
I worked this up from a recent sketch which I posted here week or so ago. I’m not sure whether this moves on much from that sketch. What I loved, though, was the reddish hue against the deep greens and the glimpses of light at the far end of the clearing. I tried to go in loose with dark greens over the first red wash used for the tree trunks. Then I built up tones to give depth and texture.
These images may seem familiar, but that is because I have already posted sketches to these commissioned works. A friend of mine did me a favour and passed my name on to an Interior Design company that wanted some abstracts for their new showrooms and headquarters. After producing sketches they changed their minds and decided that they wanted the paintings to reflect their favourite architectural work. We settled on Frank Lloyd Wright.
These are the paintings I delivered to site the other day. They are both 30x40inches and are quite textured – as the client requested. I mixed paints with hard moulding paste and applied it with a palette knife. Though I do use palette knives, impasto work is not a process I have used before. In that way the commission opened up new possibilities for future works.
Below are the paintings in their new home.
As you can see on the photo on the left, they sit on either side of the door to a showroom.
I have done many commissions over the years but this was the first non-figurative one. I found the process quite challenging, trying to get into the heads of the clients. Personally I would have taken both paintings further. When I delivered them, so they could see them in situ, I suggested further developments, but they liked them as they were. I hadn’t wanted to go too far away from the sketches that they had chosen, so in that way I saved myself extra work and hardship.
Expecting to do more work, I hadnt even signed them. Yesterday I took along my red paint and stuck my moniker on them. Job done.
Other abstracts and semi abstract work is available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com
We decamped for a few days to London. The wife had come up trumps on the Wimbledon lottery and had some ticket options. Not that you win any tickets, no; just the right to purchase some centre court tickets. This, though, is a step improvement on getting up at 4am to stand in line to try and get entry to the outer courts on the day.
I decided to go down with her and mooch about SW London while my wife and daughter – who lives in London – sipped Pimms and downed a few punnets of strawberries whilst watching a match or two.
Here is what I did instead. The first one is a sketch of Putney Bridge. This bridge spans the Thames between Putney and Fulham. As I sat on the Putney side I was caught by the bright London busses crossing the bridge, adding a bit of colour to the scene.
The church in the background is All Saints in Fulham which is on the perimeter of the grounds of Fulham Palace, the seat of the Bishop of London. I didnt know it was there until I wandered across the bridge. Entrance to the grounds was free and I did another sketch in the palace gardens as the other punters sat on the terrace and took tea.
The light wasnt very good, but it was a pleasant way to pass the day and I visited places I hadnt been to before and then enjoyed some evening meals out with family.
graham mcquade 