EARLY FLOWERINGS AND LATE PAINTINGS

While most of nature seems to be ahead of schedule here, I am far behind where I ought to be in terms of finished works for the forthcoming Catterline exhibition.  As far as I know, I am still due to exhibit at the Creel Inn in November and December, but I am going to have to put my foot firmly on the accelerator pedal for the next few months if I'm going to meet my own set target of 25 new works to take down on the ferry with me.

The trouble is, I'm getting far too fussy nowadays.  I pick complicated scenes, I hate to be lacking in any minute detail, and it takes far too long to finish.  Tomorrow I hope to have finished my ultra-fussy painting of the back of Burnside, Fettercairn, and after that I am going to embark on a series of seascapes, which are less complicated and consequently less time-consuming.

Other things make demands on my time too.  On Thursday afternoon I took two tall ship paintings to my local printing firm Tay-CAD for scanning, with a view to extending my stock range of giclee prints to offer at my stall at the Toll Clock Centre during the visit of the Tall Ships racers in late July.  I'm looking forward with some excitement to this event, and I hope the weather conditions are more favourable to the participating windjammers than they were on their last call here in 1999. 

On that occasion the wind was dead against them on all three races, and they were forced to tack and gybe from St. Malo to Greenock, Greenock to Lerwick and Lerwick to Aalborg.  In the event-filled second stage, a Polish crew mutinied in Greenock, a Russian vessel was dismasted in the Moray Firth, and another boat went aground in the Summer Isles.  Two days after it had all finished, as far as Lerwick was concerned, the Mallaig-based converted fishing vessel "Eda Frantsen" arrived back in, having tacked for 36 hours in the south-easterly gale, and only made 30 miles.  Our own tall ship, the "Swan", had to put in to Egersund in south Norway, unable to make the necessary southerly miles to get to Aalborg in Denmark.

This year, I hope the winds are fairer.  Certainly the party at Lerwick won't let anybody down!