You know what makes me grumpy? All the Grumpy Old Men who appeared on the BBC TV series were younger than me, that's what makes me grumpy. Mutter, mutter....

The Grumpy Old Artist

The Grumpy Old Artist
Would YOU pose for this man???

Exhibition Poster

Exhibition Poster
Catterline Event, 2011

Oil Painting by Jim Tait

Oil Painting by Jim Tait
Helford River, Cornwall

Oil Painting by Jim Tait

Oil Painting by Jim Tait
Full-riggers "Georg Stage" and "Danmark"

Other Recent Works

Other Recent Works
Fordyce Castle and Village

Hay's Dock, Lerwick

Shetland-model Boats at Burravoe, Yell

Tall Ships Seascape

The Tour Boat "Dunter III", with Gannets, off Noss

The "Karen Ann II" entering Fraserburgh harbour

Summer Evening, Boyndie Bay

1930s Lerwick Harbour

Johnshaven Harbour

"Seabourn Legend"

Greeting Cards!

Greeting Cards!
Now Available in Packs of Five or in Assorted Sets of Four

Tuesday 5 June 2012

LOWER VOE

The latest creation to appear in the Tait Gallery is a landscape depicting the area around Voe Pier in Shetland.  The picture incorporates a fair number of features, but I hope it doesn't look too crowded with detail.  In the back of my mind is the notion that I might enter this into an art competition, run by the Oldie magazine, which, it is proposed, will provide an antidote to the kind of charlatan-produced ordure sponsored by Charles Saatchi and his ilk.  I have no expectations of winning, but at least I will have entered something which reflects the spirit of the contest.

The trouble with the competition is that I'm only allowed to enter one work for it, otherwise I might have hedged my bets with a seascape (which best reflects my normal artistic output) and perhaps a harbour scene.  There would probably be far fewer seascape entries (we nautical painters are much fewer in number than workers in other genre), but the chances are that the judges will have had unfortunate experiences (if any at all) with lumpy seas. This may well cloud their judgement as to depictions of it, leading them to a bias in favour of landscapes, portraiture and still life.  I've only got one shot at this, and I'm thinking of entering the painting shown above.

The painting is of Lower Voe, viewed from the pier, looking roughly north-eastwards .  I used one of my own digital images of the scene, and I've added a couple of children playing in "da ebb" and a few lobster creels, "burrups" and netting to replace the stack of yellow fish-boxes which was in my original photograph of the scene.  I thought that the bright gold would be too much of an eye-pull from the rest of the picture.  I've taken a small amount of artistic licence, therefore, but it is still far from having Saatchi inclusion potential - it doesn't smell!  I'll leave that element of ambience to your own sensual memories and fertile imaginations!

Whatever happens to the original painting, it's going to be available shortly as a giclee print.  Come along to my Saturday stalls at the Toll Clock centre here in Lerwick (starting on 23rd June).  They'll be for sale there in A3 and A4 size, along with many other good things.  See you there!

22 comments:

Unknown said...

Loving your work. Looking forward to getting my easel out when, hopefully, I get to Shetland. Peter

Randell said...

This is gorgeous!

Anonymous said...

I should never have got up on Friday. By remaining in bed, I would have avoided personal injury, bad news and another defeat at the hands of modern technology. Mind you, I would have missed the more pleasant events of the afternoon.

Anonymous said...


I don't recall exactly what business I was about, early that morning, when my feet got "wittered" in an old jumper which had fallen off the back of the armchair into a dark place between it and the storage heater. I fell forwards and landed in a stupefied heap in front of my computer desk. I rolled over onto my rear end, and began to survey my bits for damage.

Anonymous said...

Remarkably, my knees had escaped with only a small skin-burst low on the left one. The worst injury seemed to be to the middle toe of my right foot,

Anonymous said...

which is now a rich colour combination of crimson and purple.

Anonymous said...

The last time I saw that colour was on my rump, after I'd done an involuntary bum-luge down a slush-covered flight of stairs in Captain Flints pub on a winter's night some years ago.

Anonymous said...

I sported a full-colour portrait of Armageddon on my backside for weeks afterwards.

Anonymous said...

I managed to get to my feet, and found I could still walk without much difficulty, although my right foot was painful. I slapped a band-aid on the graze to my left knee,

Anonymous said...

had a bath, and decided to check my physical faculties with a walk down to Bolt's shop for my Shetland Times and other essentials.

Anonymous said...

My progress was a bit slower and more cautious than usual, but I got back safely.

Anonymous said...

After reading the news and some of the views in our local newspaper over a cup of coffee and a hobnob (a practice repeated in homes,

Anonymous said...

offices and workshops all over the islands every Friday morning), I got down to some work. I have two commissions and two "stock" works" under way at present,

Anonymous said...

and I hope to have at least one of these finished during the incoming week.

Anonymous said...

I had made up my mind to visit my mother in Overtonlea Care Centre, where she is now a permanent resident, in the afternoon, so, after lunch, I made my way to "da Street", where I drew Mum's pension from the main post office, and £100 from my own bank account, and caught a taxi down to Levenwick (an expensive business, I know, but I won't be using that mode of transport very often!).

Anonymous said...

I had completely forgotten that the residents of the home have their church service on a Friday afternoon, so I ended up providing some unrehearsed bass vocals to the hymns there.

Anonymous said...

I stayed to chat with my mother for another hour or so afterwards, coming away with some administrative work to do for her, and a feeling of how strange the day was turning out to be. The misty conditions added to the feeling of strangeness.

Anonymous said...

Back in Lerwick, more bad news awaited me in the form of an email from my Swedish client, whose package had arrived damaged. The painting (shown in the last post to this blog), which was on good quality canvas stretched over a deep-profile frame, had not been holed or torn (photographs of the damage to painting and packaging had been attached to the email), but ridging had occurred due to compression onto the frame-edges. I suggested that he pack damp cloth between the stretcher bars and the back of the canvas at the places where the ridging had happened, and leave it for a while. Fortunately this seems to have worked, and I have another satisfied customer. This, however, is no thanks to the carrier, into whose hands I had placed the sum of £210 for safe delivery of the package. No insurance was available to me from the shipping company, and I'm surprised that anyone wants to send anything of value by this means of transportation. I had used polystyrene sheeting and bubble wrap for the interior protection, and this was inside thick cardboard secured with copious amounts of parcel tape. The item was clearly marked "Fragile".

Anonymous said...

In the evening, further fragility was exposed in my temperament and technological capabilities when I attempted to copy some of the documents I had been given earlier by my mother. No matter what I tried, the machine seemed to want to enlarge the documents and print only the middle section of each of them. I went to bed that night in a poor state of mind and health.

But are we down-hearted? On Saturday, the fog lifted, I corrected the error in my copier operation, my Swedish client emailed to say my plan had worked, and I put in an excellent day's work at the easel. Even my toe was hurting a bit less. Fortunately, black Fridays don't come around very often. And, when I think of how dark are all the days of some people in the world, it puts my minor misfortunes into a more healthy perspective.

I hope to have an illustrated post here within the next few days. Have a nice week.

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