ARTY STUFF

Looking back over previous posts, I see that it's three weeks since I last mentioned progress on my own artwork. I apologise for this, and hope to make amends for it here, as there is quite a lot of news, although I have no new completed artworks to tell you about. I hope to have more soon.

I have been working on a commissioned landscape/seascape of Lerwick's Sooth End, and I hope to have the buildings finished by the close of play tomorrow. I then have to attend to the piers, boats, foreground sea and reflections therein, so I'm still some way off completion, for which I have a deadline of 16th June. I am still hopeful of making this. I have been working on a "stock" painting too, of Shetland-model boats drawn up near Burravoe pier, on the Shetland island of Yell. There are other landscape features in the mid-and background parts of this work, and I have completed most of these.

A British ex-pat, now resident in France, was in touch regarding the possible purchase of some of my website paintings. However, despite several phone calls between this chap and me, something definite has yet to materialise from this. I still live in hope, as it's nice to sell paintings "ex-stock" now and again.

I picked up a small but interesting commission, from an old school friend, while I was away on the mainland the other weekend. This is a painting of one of the ships on which his grandfather served as crewman, the SS "Clermiston", but there is no deadline on this work, so I will "clear my feet" of more urgent jobs before tackling this one. This also applies to a November-deadlined nautical commission, of the P & O ferry "St. Clair" (IV) coming out of Aberdeen harbour, with Girdleness lighthouse in the background.

The largest commission I have yet to undertake came my way a fortnight ago, and this has already been attended with difficulties. The size of this work is 50" x 40", so I had to order a stretched canvas for this, from one of my mainland suppliers. When it arrived last week, there was a tear, about 1.5" long, near one of the corners of the stretcher frame, which had obviously been the point of impact of a blow during transit. The canvas had been wrapped in only one layer of cardboard, which is completely inadequate for the purpose of sending by post or carrier. I well remember the exertions I had to put into claiming compensation from Royal Mail for a painting which had arrived in Anglesey with a hole through it, a few years ago. Of course, on this occasion, I had to replace the tall ships-themed painting with another similar work, adding another month's work to my bill! The lesson learned from this painful experience was to use polystyrene sheeting AND bubblewrap to protect work from damage by careless and busy delivery-men. The little bit of extra effort saves a great deal of potential time and trouble. But I digress.

The firm who sent the canvas were very good about making reparation, sending me another canvas (which has yet to arrive) and requiring only photographic evidence of the damage to support my claim for replacement. I supplied them with this immediately on request. They don't want the damaged item returned to them, which was a relief, as getting a package as large as that to a point of despatch was a logistical problem for me. Nevertheless, I'm stuck with a large, slightly damaged canvas, on premises in which space is already at a premium! Anyone want it for painting stage scenery, or something? If so, just get in touch and arrange to collect it, and it's yours - free!

I gave myself until the end of July to complete this painting, and I've already lost a fortnight of this. It is of a sailing ship heeling over in strong winds, and it is for what appears to be a potentially valuable client in Cheshire, so I hope I can still make this particular deadline. To misquote the call centre operative, and out of context too, "this job is important to me!"

There have been hints of further commissons too, so "easel-time" on stock works looks like being limited over the coming few months. It is just as well, therefore, that my next booked exhibition remains that which is scheduled for the Creel Inn, Catterline in November and December of 2011. By that time, Shetland will have had its second stint as host for the Tall Ships Race, and my 63rd birthday will be a fairly distant memory. Now and then, I wish that the passage of time had a brake attached to it somewhere!

The website upgrade is still a work in progess too. I would like to get a new look to the "moveable information" layout on the Home page, and my web designer and I will have to apply our joint best efforts on this soon. I haven't updated the information on this page for ages, and this cannot be good for my online search prospects, so I hope to have better news on this in the very near future.

And there ends the latest bulletin from the Tait Gallery. Have a nice week!

SMOOTHING OVER THE CRACKS...

Every now and then I get an idea which is so brilliantly devastating in its clarity and simplicity that I fel the best thing to do is to forget all about it and take to my bed for a fortnight, in order to spare the human race the consequences of it. However, this particular wheeze would not be denied, and it was a solution to a problem I had encountered in the course of my artwork this week.

Here's the background to the issue. I have been working on the second of two tall ships seascapes this week. This one features the Danish full-riggers "Georg Stage" (the nearer of the two vessels and already more or less finished) and the "Danmark"(further away, and creating my problem). I have been carefully delineating her masts, sails and rigging in pencil, sometimes rather too heavily, in pencil, and this has been leaving scores in the canvas, which didn't matter much until I wanted to change the angle of the set of the ship's sails. This made them much more visible, and they couldn't simply be painted out.

The solution, which presented itself to me in a blinding flash of inspiration, was - why don't I press the marks out? I put my iron on to moderate heat, got my ironing board out, placed a cloth-protected phone book on it, as support to the lower, painted side of the canvas, and proceeded to give the canvas the same treatment as I would to a stubbornly-creased shirt-front. And, much to my surprise, it worked - to a large extent.

This has been another successful experiment from the Tait Gallery - but not under laboratory conditions. Please don't try this at home, children! No animals were injured during the course of this experiment, although the neighbour's cat swapped ends on the shed roof when I leant out the window to sneeze.

Blah!

NO PEEKING...NOT YET!

This week I finished one of the two commissioned paintings which have been taking up most of my easel-time for the last month or so. I hope to complete the other one tomorrow. I'm sorry that I can't put them on display yet, as their prospective owners will have to get first peek!

There are no further commissions in the immediate offing, so I plan to get back to my stock/exhibition works this week. I received new ready-to-use canvases from Jackson's yesterday, with this in mind - I hope to transform them into attractive works of art soon. My supply of off-the-wall paintings is getting rather low, as sales have been surprisingly good in the last few months, considering the financial climate. There are no exhibition dates to tell you about yet - I tried to get in touch with someone about this yesterday, but he was off to Edinburgh for the Scotland-England rugby match. I hope he wasn't disappointed with what he witnessed - maybe I'm biased, but I thought Scotland should have won that game.

I have completed the product database for the website e-commerce upgrade, which should be evident on http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/ soon. My web designer is now going to help me with the presentation of this. Meanwhile, I have a couple of archive pages to construct, one of past commissioned works and one of other "sold" paintings. These pages might be subdivided, and what format they take will soon become clear, I hope, as I start producing it. The Octeportal system, which supports my website, has its idiosyncracies which can ensnare inexperienced users like me. I've made some dreadful mistakes in the past - fortunately I can contact my web host or designer to dig me out of it whenever that happens. It's a steep learning curve for a 61-year-old online newbie!

Spring is in the air - the crocuses are out here, having emerged heroically from under the retreating snow, and the daffodils will soon follow. The snow has nearly all gone - just a few patches left in the deeper hill-hollows. I celebrated my vernal mood by getting a much-needed haircut on Wednesday, and it's nice to be able to get out for walks again.

I hope there's a spring in your step this week!