THE CANAL BY NEW LANE, BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Well, my first ever pastel demo seemed to go well on Wednesday. This was after a watercolour workshop on Saturday and yesterday I had tricky tooth root extracted ( well, that was what the dentist told me, so much so she sent me to another dentist to get it done).

So I havent done much painting of my own which I can show to you. Hence another oldie: a winter scene of the Leeds to Liverpool around the Lancashire town of Burscough. It sold at my local library – now converted into housing estate – where our club put paintings on top and between the bookcases and hoped for a sale. Occasionally it happened.

Other canal scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MORNING AT BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Regular readers will probably know I have been banging on about revisiting old paintings in preparation for upcoming workshops and demos I have been asked to do. Trial runs leave you with a painting that you can exhibit, which is a great side product and one I am certainly in need of. This is because I have overcommitted to two solo exhibitions and a group show from November onwards, which at times are running concurrently. I need frames and more paintings. The frames have been ordered and I am making some late additions to the paintings.

Here is one. I’ve posted a version before, but this time I did it in a long format – mainly because I have a few spare long format frames and not much to put in them. It is of the Leeds to Liverpool Canal at a small town called Burscough – north of Liverpool.

It was a lovely morning, well worth getting up at 5am for and I remember doing a couple of paintings in the warm sun before being regaled by a musician who complained for a good half hour, as I worked, about payments for gigs – or the lack of payment, as I recall. I told him to take up painting: then he would really have something to complain about.

Other canal scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

NARROWBOATS AT BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Another old painting. I sold this to my gardener who also came along to the art group I ran after he was telling me that the teacher at the art group, he originally went to, didn’t turn up one afternoon because he had fallen asleep after lunch. I advised him to join our group where he would get help and advice for free from the other members. He saw me painting this at one of our sessions and asked to buy it.

Other canal and narrowboat paintings are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

NEW LANE BRIDGE BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

An old painting from 2006. I sold this at an exhibition we put on in our local Birkdale Library. The library is now a housing estate, but a group decided to resurrect the Birkdale Library and it is now housed in the old stationmaster’s house at our local station ( I posted a painting of a train in the Birkdale station recently). My next door neighbour is heavily involved in the project and I was helping him build a bookcase for the library over the weekend. I think he regretted taking on the project as it was a large complex piece, not helped by non-parallel walls of the old building and a router blade that slipped during cutting out the joints.

I think I’ll stick to painting.

Other canal scenes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

A FEW MOMENTS AT BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

It was the stance of the fellow by the narrowboat that caught my attention. Coupled with the shade of the tree and the haziness in the background , I thought that it might make an interesting picture. The location is the old quay at Burscough with it’s cobbled pathway at the side of the Leeds to Liverpool canal – if you are going in that direction. It is the same location where I painted the old guy with his kettle – posted on 12th April, only taken from a slightly different angle.

Perhaps it is the slow flow of the canal that creates a gentle, unhurried ambience upon its banks. Time to talk, time to pause and stare, time to sit with a hopeful eye on your fishing rod. A narrowboat glides by and walkers wave, whilst ducks unhurriedly part to the canal sides and find another place to search for their watery fare.

Other canal scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

BURSCOUGH DOCK – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Life has been a little hectic of late and has prevented me from doing much painting. Fortunately I have a few old paintings that I havent shown on this blog before. Here is one I did this in 2005 and it sold. I came across an image of it yesterday and was pleasantly pleased with it, well, apart from the perspective of the arch over the near window. Though it was the reflection off the sliding door and the cobblestones that caught my eye.

This old building has since been gentrified with bars, boutiques and galleries, but the brick shell remains. The area is great for subjects to paint such as the canal and the old mill you can see in the distance.

Even more canal side paintings can be found for sale on my blog: grahammcquadefineart.com

WALK BY THE CANAL – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

A slight change of subject now I am back home. An image from my recent visit to the canal: a dog walker taking an early morning stroll. This is on the Leeds to Liverpool canal near the small community of Burscough.

After the almost relaxing holiday I’ve just had ( ’til I tried filling in the documentation, a traumatic experience for a sensitive soul like myself, to get home, which took the best part of a morning that should have been spent poolside with a cold beer) I’m now entering a busy period with two commissions, two exhibitions and a demonstration coming up this month. This will be the first watercolour demonstration I have done since January 2020, after which our first shutdown started. Then I will be preparing for Christmas – how fast time flies. It seems such a short time since my last Christmas exhibition which, admittedly, lasted from November until March, due to the Covid lockdowns.

Other canal paintings are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

MORNING AT BURSCOUGH – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Last week I was out, early morning, by the canal painting. As I was scouring the canal footpath, looking for suitable subjects, I saw the scene above. Without room to sit, I took some photos and painted this when I got home.

The sketches I did manage didnt have the same impact and I rather regretted not making myself a nuisance by sitting painting on the path.

With this view, above, I think I liked the light on the big tree as much as anything else.

Here, you can see the morning has got into its stride. The white of the boat immediately caught my attention and in the background the hawthorn berries gave some welcome complementary to the greens.

Whilst I sat and painted, a guy came to talk to me. He was a musician and certainly got my sympathy regarding the problems he had with the effects of both covid and music streaming on opportunities and income. Trouble was he spent twenty five minutes on this subject – so it slowed me down somewhat.

When I was putting together this article I thought it might reawaken the Troll who whose cowardly sneering peaks at the sight of canal art and who has been silent of late.

Wrong again. OCD Troll raged similarly against my last post – a seaside scene. So much so. that they sent two mouth frothing messages yesterday :

This is in no way ART!!….it is pure s***e!

And then twenty minutes later:

Pure crap.

Well the art was sold, Troll – yes art ( Troll’s ignorant of art history – what chance have I got?) to an artist, actually.

Other art is available for sale – even to Trolls – on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com – that’s right, Troll, FINE ART. And I’ll be putting it out for a good while longer.

MOORINGS AT CRABTREE LANE – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

Another view of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal near Burscough in Lancashire. It’s a place that I’ve painted before but here I dwelt on the cluster of shapes created by the narrowboats and houses and in doing so made it a portrait format. This format also allowed the full reflections of trees and posts. The bankside vegetation also added interesting detail.

At this point on the canal is a narrow swing bridge – partially visible on the left which allows traffic to cross the canal.

Other canal scenes are available on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com

CANAL COTTAGE – WATERCOLOUR PAINTING

On my last post I showed two sketches I did on a morning painting trip near Burscough in Lancashire. Here is a scene I saw on the way between those sketches. The old cottage and canal boats caught in the sunshine, contrasting with the shade of the bank I was cycling on. This was the reason why I didnt paint it at the time – being in the shade, the paint would have taken an eternity to dry and I would probably be still painting it.

Presently I am debating whether to go in darker with the overhanging leaves on the near bank: I was taken by the gloominess and darkness of the bank compared to the brightness on the other side. Perhaps a metaphor for life – though it looks like the cottage needs a lot of work doing to it and I’d much rather be out painting.

Other canal scenes are available for sale on my website: grahammcquadefineart.com