Paintings of Edinburgh

I think of myself as a landscape painter. But this year I have also been working on a series of paintings of Edinburgh. I have been praised for not adapting my subject matter to suit my style, but the other way round. In this case, the nice stranger who said this at an exhibition may be disappointed, for I am pursuing a unanimity of style. I start with a piece of watercolour paper. On this I collage bits of torn-up newspaper, using acrylic paint (usually white and raw sienna) as an adhesive. When I have made a sketch (or found one in my collection of sketch-books), I make the picture with black ink, and acrylic paint. For the ink I use either a twig or a home-made reed pen. I find this gives a more expressive mark than a conventional pen-nib. To apply the paint I may use brushes of all sizes, and also occasionally rags or a tooth brush.

Here is an example:

I like to think that this gets something of the feel of the place, even though all the details may not be accurate.

Around the Old Town I have usually found it satisfactory to use the paint sparingly, as in this view of the High Street from outside Gladstone's Land (up the outside stair).

On the other hand in this painting of a front door in the New Town I found myself using so much paint that the collaged newspaper more or less disappeared. 

Incidentally, there are far too few flowering tubs around the New Town steps and balconies. What a wasted opportunity!

So far there are ten paintings. Most of them are of views around the Old Town, but there is so far one landscape. This view of the city from Corstorphine Hill has an added resonance. It as here that, in "Kidnapped", David Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart parted company. While I was doing the sketch I saw two foxes run across the golf course.

The boldest - the background painted with a two-inch house-painter's brush - is of the Festival fireworks at the castle, seen from the Meadows. Quite a gang of us south-siders would gather up there every year to enjoy the show. We missed the famous waterfall down the north side of the castle, but thanks to portable radios we could enjoy the music.

This photo definitely looks less good than the original. If you want to judge whether the same is true of the the other pictures, drop in to the Cornerstone Cafe underneath St John's church on Princes Street. So far there are ten paintings. The cafe can accommodate five; so you will have to make several visits to see them all. My plan is to carry on with this series for a while, so there should be a few more to come.

The Duddon in winter - painting

After my last exhibition one of the people whose opinion of my paintings I value said to me: "I liked your show, but you want to use bigger gestures." In fact the larger paintings in the exhibition did have some big gestures, with rags or knife; but living in a smallish flat while we moved house meant there were more small paintings made with small brushes. But the incentive was there now to paint something less fiddly.

Step one was to cut a piece of hardboard 24 inches by 34 inches and back it with laths to stiffen it. Then I started with a house painter's brush and some ultramarine blue to give wintry feel all over and provide a background for the depth of the wood and the depth of the water.

The sketch was of the River Duddon on December 30th.

The next step was, still with the house painter's brush, to indicate the rocks and the line of the far bank. The rocks were mostly raw sienna, raw umber and cadmium orange, with a lot of white. Where the trees would be I made the strokes vertical.

Then it was a case of dabbing with the rag so as to represent the ground on the far bank under the trees. The colours were all wintry, darker as they receded into the wood.

The trees were put in with simple vertical strokes, varying the pressure on the brush so as to get a feeling of rough bark. Umbers and siennas and orange were the main pigments, but also some of the green of old moss, made with ultramarine and cadmium yellow.

All these painting sessions were separated by a good deal - sometimes days - of looking and thinking.  The actual painting sessions were more like an hour each. By this stage I was bringing the picture down to the sitting room for a few days and then taking it back up to the painting room when opportunity offered. Now came the moment I was worried about. I had to start working on the water.

The question was what should be light and what should be dark. And also what should be reflected. I did want to give the feel of an ordinary mid-winter day with a river neither in spate nor low.

I see that the photos, smaller and on screen, do not show how these versions were not quite right. As I said above, some days were spent thinking between each version.

The pale areas are made with ultramarine and white, raw sienna and white and cadmium orange and white. The fact that it is not clear which patches are reflections of the sky and which are white water over rapids is immaterial to me. I mostly used an old brush with stiff bristles to give a feeling of turbulent water, with layers showing though. From time to time during this process the rocks had been given a little more definition. The strong diagonals in the composition from bottom left to bottom right are balanced by the diagonals of the rocks, from bottom right to top left.

The loosely scrubbed pale patches were seen to contain a very distracting image of a face.

Well, I think this is finished. Some dark lines - mixtures of ultramarine, raw umber and cadmium red deep, were used to give a little more definition to the flow of water. Between the foreground rocks there was put a quick suggestion of looking through the water to the stones beneath. If this looks more like a touch of shore above the water-line that does not matter. Perhaps I will make some more changes, but I think this is it.

Art Exhibition - "New Landscapes"

During the last week of February I had an art exhibition in the Dundas Street Gallery, in Edinburgh. I showed 40 paintings, and lots of hand-made cards. I meant to write this in time to encourage folks to come to the show; that did not happen, but anyhow, here it is now. You can enjoy the views without worrying about the weather.

The Beast from the East arrives in Dundas Street

I paint places I love. As a result the method of painting is usually adapted to the subject, rather than the other way round. Sometimes I revisit a subject I have tried to paint many times before; but I like to think I have got a bit better with practice.

Wetherlam from Crowberry Hause

I do like painting in the open air, on the spot, but the weather is not always supportive of this approach. In August last year, when I walked about 2 miles up a roughish path to get the view I wanted of the Scafells, the ridge disappeared in cloud.

Plein Air

 Fortunately I had a drawing of the ridge made about 4 years before. so the picture was finished at home - keeping, I hope the on-the-spot feel.

The Scafells from the top of Mosedale

Sometimes I use rags instead of brushes. Nice people say I sometimes capture the mood of a place. This one was all rags. I hope it is recognisable. The skyline was altered after a second visit to the site.

The Langdale Pikes

On the other hand this one of Feshie Bridge was painted entirely with a palette knife, expect for the stonework round the arch. Like the Langdale Pikes it was done from sketches made on the spot. For some reason I cannot explain I do not find any pleasure in working from photographs, with only three exceptions I can think of - none in this exhibition.

Feshie Bridge

One of my most useful bits of kit is a pochade box I bought fairly recently. It fits in a rucksack, so I can take it up the fells or to the beach. All these pictures, by the way, are done in acrylic. I know this medium has its detractors, but it suits me very well.

The pochade box in use, painting the Bass Rock

Old Copper Level at Paddy End (painted with the pochade box)

The hand-made cards went unexpectedly well. Over 100 were sold. They are fun to do, and a lot less stressful than making a painting. Often I am trying to catch a mood and working from memory - or imagination.

Hand-painted Card in Acrylic

One very pleasing feature of the pochade box is that I can paint using it in the front passenger seat of the car, without making too much mess. This one, for example, was painted on a poor day, sitting where the road goes close to the shore, north of Ullapool.

The shore at Ardmair

That is quite enough for one blog-post. I may not be able to resist putting more paintings up in future.

The West Highland Line. Sketches.

On Friday I did something some of my friends regard as crazy - I took a day-return from Edinburgh to Mallaig.

I was lucky with the weather; it was more or less as I hoped all the way there. On the way back it was too dark to care, but I had three books with me.

On the way I was doing thumbnail sketches out of the window all the time. My art teacher said I ought to make a blog-post of them, so I have. Here they are.

The first section of the line from Glasgow Queen Street goes down the Clyde estuary, though Dumbarton and on to Helensburgh. It was near Helensburgh that I saw the first snow of the trip. Once the Cobbler came into view we were well into the Highlands. The snow line was around 750m, and there it stayed  for the rest of the way.

After Arrochar the line goes up Loch Lomond and over the watershed to Crianlarich. We frequently saw stretches of the West Highland Way. The foreground trees were as beautiful as the hills beyond, with rich autumn colours. But there was little hope of drawing them from a moving train.

Above Crianlarich the line takes a great curve round a corrie under Ben Dorain, whereas the main road goes straight on. After Bridge of Orchy it takes off across Rannoch Moor, where no road is. There is a station at Rannoch (just reached by road) and on at Corrour, reachable only on foot (or off-road equivalent).

Across the moor there kept being sights of magnificent snow-covered hills to the west. Although I have walked a lot of Glencoe and the Mamores in my time I could not be sure what was what; but that did not make the view any less. After Corrour we went down by Loch Treig. The hillside there is so steep one marvels at the engineers and navvies who built the railway.

Then we went down the Spean to Fort William, and a grey shower swept in, so I drew houses instead of hills. After Fort William the train does not turn; it sets off backwards. But that was no matter. There was so much room that I could dot from seat to seat as the view called. On the whole I preferred to be on the sea side. The sketch of Loch Eil, incidentally, was made of multiple views, as I was able to glimpse through the trees.

At Glenfinnan the voice of the ticket collector rang out, reminding us that we were crossing the Harry Potter Viaduct. The weather had cleared again. As we go down towards the sea at Loch Ailort there is one of my favourite sections, where the line goes the other side of Loch Eilt from the road. One feels in the heart of the hills.

Finally the line goes north up the Atlantic coast. There is Loch na Uamh, here Charles Edward Stuart landed in July 1745. Then there is a fine view of the extraordinary Sgurr of Eigg. So, with a glimpse of the white sands of Morar, we drew into Mallaig at about 1.30.

Next time you have a day off in Edinburgh or Glasgow, why not do likewise?

Painting birch woods

On a recent trip to the Rothiemurchus area we were surrounded by miles of superb woodland. Just across the road from our cottage was an area of magnificent birch wood, which I was determined to paint. After several days walking though it, and thinking about it, I decided to have a go. I also decided to take a photographic record of the process.

The first thing was to choose a site and get set up. My portable easel is over 40 years old now, but it still suits me very well. I can carry it long distances if necessary (not this time) and the adjustable legs allow me to get the board level even on a mountain slope. On this occasion it was just a case of finding a view I wanted, with trunks and undergrowth and bracken more or less spread as I liked. I used acrylic paints - as I usually do - so the equipment was simple.

The first step was to cover the whole board - a thin sheet of hardboard, coated with acrylic primer - with what I knew would be deep background. I used a rag for this. The nature and the direction of the smears was deliberately varied according to the subject. The sky was Prussian Blue Hue and Cerulean, with a lot of Titanium White. The dark patch on the right was Prussian Blue and Raw Siena. This was where there were some dark pines beyond the birches. The smears here were vertical. The foreground and middle ground were Yellow Ochre and Raw Sienna for the patches of bracken with a few bits of green made from Cadmium Yellow with Prussian Blue. Some of the same appears for birch trees in the canopy. I haven't used a tube green for years; I find they too easily take over the whole picture. As for the Cadmium Red Deep in the foreground - well great masters from Ruysdael to Constable have put patches of red in the foreground of landscapes and, unlike them, I don't have to invent a buoy or a jacket to justify it.

The next step was to use a round brush to put in tree trunks. The greys were made from mixtures of the colours already listed and also some Burnt Siena. The main point here was to think about composition. I was closely guided by what was in front of me but I thought just as much about the painting. For example, the largest tree was placed so that there was more or less a square to it's right, and the other large tree was placed so that the gaps between it, the edge, and the other tree were not equidistant. I wondered whether to have the tree just to the left of the big one leaning out of the painting. But I decided that I could use smaller branches to bring the eye back in, and I did not want to manipulate nature's composition too much and and risk making a stock illustration.

 
Three main steps are shown here. One was to use a small round to add some thinner branches. As before nature was my guide, but I was always also thinking about the finished painting. Another was to use the rags to dab more greens of the foliage. These to steps went on simultaneously, as branches and foliage overlap. Then there was the bracken.I have often found this a problem; I knew I did not want to get involved in detail of fronds. After a couple of strokes of a palette knife I realised that rags were my best weapon. By thinking about how you fold and bunch them you can make marks of different shapes. I mixed a colour for the bracken-in-shade, using more red and blue in proportion to the Raw Siena. Then for the fronds on top, catching more light I added a tiny amount of yellow to the Siena. When it came to the dark green patches - moss and bilberry mostly - and the paler grass, the great advantage of plein air painting is that you have it there in front of you to look at.

This is what my palette looked like at this point. You will observe the rags (old pyjama I think) and the two round brushes. Once this photo was taken I changed the water.

Of one traditional hazard - midges - I was mercifully free. There was enough breeze. But at this point the sun moved so it was straight in my eye; I could neither see the subject nor the board. Fortunately the painting had reached a stage where there was no problem shifting my stance; I was long past copying the scene in front. The main worry at this point, when a picture has gone all right so far, is to wreck all. But I worked away with the small round brush, adding detail to the bark of the biggest trees, and used the rag to add more foliage. By now the build-up of paint was such that there was a sense of looking through leaves to more leaves beyond. Finally I reverted to the small round to paint some more precise, and lighter, foreground leaves.

So the picture was finished after about two and a half hours. A pleasant memory of a lovely spot.

Landscape painting sale

                   Exhibition and Silent Auction of Paintings - George Harris





Three things seem to be happening at once:
I have been painting landscapes now for three decades. As a result I have far too many pictures in the house.
We are in the process of moving to a smaller house. Finding a good home for as many paintings as possible is something I am very keen to do.
The church we go to, St John’s, Princes Street, has just embarked on a big building programme. This involves offices, toilets, the Terrace shops, access, and a rebuilt Hall. We are confident this will make St John’s one of the best community centres and venues in the West End. It is expensive. The magnificent church building itself will not be altered.

So, taking these three things together, I have decided to organise a silent auction of about 50 of my paintings. Each painting will have a sheet on which you can write your bid – and re-bid later in the evening if you find someone else has come in above you. It should be an opportunity to buy an original painting at a bargain price.


This will happen at Harry’s, 7 Randolph Place EH3 7TB on Monday 10th of October.
The exhibition will open at 4.00pm.
Bidding will close at 8.30pm
My hand-painted cards will also be on sale.

If you want to buy a painting outright, before 8.30, you will be welcome to do so. It will, of course, cost more.


All moneys taken (after expenses are paid) will go to St John’s
Please be ready to pay on the night (cash or cheque). People who are known to me personally can hope for credit.
Please be ready to take away with you any paintings you buy. If this is a problem, do ask and we can sort something out.

Feel no obligation to spend any money. Think of the evening as a party. The first drinks will be free (until the kitty runs out. Moral: don’t be late). Harry’s will be delighted if you buy food and drink. Do let family and friends know too; all welcome.


I do hope we will see you there.

Best wishes


George