CHOPPY SEAS

I know I promised to display this painting here three weeks ago, and this only serves to demonstrate the fragile nature of such undertakings.  My excuses seem feeble in the extreme now, as I reflect on what has happened over the period - family matters, a "chest cold" which has been doing the rounds of my native islands and made my life a misery for a fortnight, and, at the same time, trying to keep some kind of painting workrate going, as the Catterline exhibition is being hung five weeks tomorrow.  I still have so much to do in connection with this that it's scaring me practically witless.

I have seen the sample of the exhibition poster which Tay-CAD are producing for me, and it is excellent.  These will be going up in shops, hotels, pubs and eateries around the north-east of Scotland prior to the event.  My framer is busy with my paintings at the moment, fares and accommodation have been booked, and my first grant claim form has been submitted to the SIC's economic development unit for payment.  All extraneous factors seem to be going well, and only the artwork remains to be completed!

While I am struggling to get the last three new artworks finished (and alterations done to some older ones) in time for the Catterline display, the orders are building up too.  I have been promising these potential clients that I'll start work on their artworks before the end of October, and I hope that they keep faith with me meantime.  As someone pointed out to me recently, it's better than having an empty order book, and I suppose there are many artists who would dearly love to have my "problem"!

The painting which illustrates this post is of the Aberdeen trawler "Leswood" heading south-east from Lerwick in choppy weather conditions, with the Bressay lighthouse bearing silent witness to her departure.  I hope to have my portrayal of the Arbroath-registered seiner/trawler "Random Harvest II" ready to illustrate another blog posting this time next week, but, given the broken promises of my last post, I am reluctant to make such a rash definite undertaking!  The last two new works for the Catterline exhibition are of tall ship compositions, and I just hope to have them both ready for the event.  This is dependent on metaphorical fair winds between now and then.  May only gentle zephyrs fill your sails this week!

THE "PARAMOUNT"

Here is my portrayal of the Aberdeen trawler "Paramount" (A309) ploughing through a moderate North Sea swell in fine weather as she searches for the white fish shoals.  She was one of a pair of sister ships, built for Peter & J Johnstone Ltd by the Mitchison yard at Gateshead on the Tyne, in 1959.  The other boat was the "Partisan" (A310).  They fished out of Aberdeen until the mid-1970s, when most of this class of side-trawler had become obsolete.  I don't know the fate of the "Paramount" - whether she was scrapped at this time, or sold abroad, as some were.  Perhaps someone will be good enough to enlighten me.

This painting represents my strategy to turn out some simpler and less detailed seascapes, which are  less time-consuming to complete than the more complicated landscape scenes I had been doing up to then.  Time is a very finite resource for me, as I try to get a reasonable-sized body of work together for the Catterline exhibition at the end of this year.  However, being something of a martyr to my own cause, I've now embarked on another complicated work of Stonehaven harbour.  The only way I'm going to keep the momentum going is to do a couple more seascapes concurrently with this.  Work, work, work!

Talking of seascapes, the Tall Ships are making their way towards Shetland as I write this post.  This evening, I was amazed to discover, from my Ship AIS, that our own "Swan" has taken less than 36 hours to make North Uist from Greenock.  Now that's going some - and this stage of the event (the Cruise in Company) isn't even a race! 

THE ABERDEEN TRAWLER "VIGILANCE"

The latest oil painting from my curmudgeonly artistic brush is this portrayal of the Aberdeen trawler "Vigilance" (reg. no. A204) approaching her home port in choppy weather.  Part of the long stretch of sandy beach, which extends northwards from the harbour, is visible in the background.

The "Vigilance" was one of several Aberdeen trawlers built of wood at various shipyards in the north-east of Scotland in the late 1950s, in this case at Peterhead in 1958.  She was 90-odd feet long and 149 grt.  She appears with the Aberdeen registration in Olsen's Almanack until the early 1980s, and I don't really know her fate thereafter.  Maybe someone will enlighten me.

I'm currently working on another Aberdeen trawler, the steel Tyne-built "Paramount", which I hope to have completed this incoming week.  I've also started a painting of the inner harbour at Stonehaven.  This will take longer, and I plan to do other seascapes concurrently.  All this work is intended for the Catterline exhibition which I am still hoping to hang in early November of this year.

Wish me luck, and have a nice week!

ABERDEEN TRAWLER "BURWOOD"

I turned 13 years of age in 1961, when the Aberdeen trawler "Burwood" was completed by Mitchison's yard at Gateshead. Here she is heading north-east out of her home port, with Girdleness lighthouse on her starboard quarter.

This is the first "stock" work I have completed for some months, and its intended destination is the next exhibition at Catterline at the end of 2011 - unless someone buys her online first, from http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/

It's not been a great 9 days chez the Tait Gallery, since my last posting here, and the prospects for the rest of this week aren't good either. It's a beautiful sunny day in Shetland, and the snow has all but disappeared from the hillsides, where it had formed deep drifts last Wednesday evening and night. But the forecasters are all predicting a blizzard on Thursday, which is my next (and last for this year) scheduled stall day at the Toll Clock centre. If the weather is bad, I won't even bother to turn up. Last Thursday's non-event was also badly snow-affected, the roads having been blocked by snow the night before, and the thaw set in that evening, too late to do me any good. And now the snow is arriving just in time to write off my last chance to make a few bob with my cards and prints this year. One has to be philosophical about these things. I guess I was just unlucky. You win some, you lose some, and all the rest of the appropriate homespun truisms.

In view of the fact that most of you don't like to see grown men crying, I will spare you any more moans on this occasion. Have a nice week, as you prepare the bird for Christmas, and a merry festive season to all you single men too. LOL!

I hope to be in a better frame of mind (and humour) for my next post, hopefully on Sunday. Byee!