THE "SWAN"

My latest painting shows Shetland's own tall ship heading southwards, with an easterly breeze in her sails.  This is the first time I've done a "portrait" of the old lady for a while, although she appears in some of my Lerwick harbour paintings.

The "Swan" was built at Lerwick in 1900, and spent her first few years, under Lerwick owners, rigged as a lugger, as she long-lined for white-fish in spring, and took on drift-net gear for the summer herring fishing.  She was bought by a Simpson-headed Whalsay partnership, who converted her to the fore-and-aft "smack" rig which she carries today.  The sails disappeared as her main means of propulsion when she had an engine installed, and a wheelhouse fitted,  in 1935.  She fished on in this new "rig" until around 1960, participating in the new seine-net white-fishery from the late 1940s, long after most boats of her vintage had disappeared from the commercial fishing scene.  She began a new career as a pleasure craft and houseboat south of the border, but fell into neglect, and actually sank at her moorings in W Hartlepool on several occasions.  She was finally rescued from her plight, and the Swan Trust was formed in 1990 to restore her to her former glory as a sailing vessel.  Her transformation was completed in 1996, since when she has been in regular use as a sailing boat, both running "tours" around Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles, and competing in Tall Ships Races.

Olsen's Almanack, in the 1938 and 1950 editions (and presumably the ones in between too!), has her details as 18 tons nett, engine 21hp, and owned by T H Simpson and others, Whalsay.  Manson's Shetland Almanac and Directory of 1949 lists her as 44.1 tons (presumably gross!), 60.4 keel length, and 75hp of engine.  I don't begin to understand the difference in engine rating between the two publications, but no doubt a marine engineer will tell me!  I have read somewhere else that her overall length is 68 feet.

I've painted her against a background of the Bressay lighthouse and the cliffs of the Ord and Bard on the south end of the island.  The painting is currently in for scanning at my printer's, and I have been promised giclees of this work (both A4 and A3) to be ready for next Saturday's Toll Clock Centre stall.  They'll also be available for sale online (as will the original painting) through the website.  www.tait-gallery.co.uk

Have a good week!

THE LION, THE SWAN AND THE GIFT OF YOUTH

The title of this post might sound a bit C S Lewis-ish, but it stems from a rough English translation of the names of the three ships featured in this week's featured painting.  This is the last of the new works I've managed to complete for this year's Catterline exhibition (I hope it's completed!).  I still have a bit to do on tarting up one of my old tall ship paintings, and I hope to get this done tomorrow.  If I don't manage it, this one will probably not be making the journey south, as I would like to get a new frame on it for the occasion, and it'll have to dry before going to the framer.

My able assistant-cum-driver and I will be hitting the high seas next Saturday evening, and I hope the seas are not high enough to cause similar problems to those encountered by the ferries earlier this past week.

The ships featured in the painting above are, on the left, the Dutch topsail schooner "Wylde Swan", the 3-masted Dutch topsail schooner "Gulden Leeuw" (Golden Lion) on the right, and, in between, the Polish full-rigger "Dar Mlodziezy" (Gift of Youth") receding into the gloom which attended the departure of these ships from Lerwick in late July.

Dutch ships dominated the 'A' class of vessels in this year's Tall Ships Race, and the "Wylde Swan" was  one of the most interesting of these.  She is owned by the same organisation which brought the brigantine "Swan van Makkum" to these islands for the 1999 event, and subsequently sold that vessel to Italian owners.  The "new" boat was actually built as a steamship in Germany in 1920, and she has also operated under the Norwegian flag, before being acquired by her present owners, who have converted her into the impressive two-masted topsail schooner which graced Lerwick harbour in July.

Equally interesting, and also originally a steamship, is the "Gulden Leeuw", which was built as the Danish oceanographic research ship "Dana" in 1937.  I remember admiring the sleek lines of this grey-painted ship when she called at Lerwick in this capacity during the 1960s.  However, I would never then have dreamt of seeing her return in 2011, rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner, with a fully-square-rigged foremast.

This will probably be my last post before my trip to the mainland.  My thanks must go to Cecil Hughson, who has been framing all the paintings, and to my sister Mary, who has the onerous duty of transporting them and me safely to the Creel Inn, Catterline, for next Monday's hanging.  Thanks to these old friends who have volunteered to help with the hanging of paintings and distribution of posters.  Finally, thanks to all those who have emailed me their good wishes - it is very much appreciated, I assure you.

Have a great fortnight!

FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR......CATTERLINE?

The last two paintings for the Catterline exhibition are of sailing vessels, and this is the first of these.  It features three of the windjammers which took part in this year's Tall Ships Race.  From left to right, these are the Dutch brig "Morgenster", the barque "Europa" (also Netherlands-registered) and the Norwegian gaff-rigged ketch "Liv".  The painting, on canvas, measures 30" x 20" (as you see, I've never been decimalised!).

Now ALL I have to do is finish the final painting (a 24" x 24" canvas), get these two framed, do the packing of paintings, hanging materials and personal effects, and we're off!  According to the Met Office website, the long-term weather forecast is for unsettled conditions, with gales at times and near-normal temperatures, for early November.  The near-normal temperatures should mean reasonable road conditions for driving on the mainland, but the gales I'm not so keen on, as they can disrupt ferry journeys.  Let's hope that Guy Fawkes night falls on a "day atween wadders", as that's when we're booked to catch the blue canoe for the mainland!

People say I worry too much - maybe they're right!  Have a good week - whatever the weather.

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 TALL SHIPS AND ME

I caught my first glimpse of one of the participating vessels in this year's Tall Ships Race on the gloomy, damp morning of Tuesday 19th June.  The ship was the Dutch gaff-rigged ketch "Urania", and she was at anchor in Gulberwick bay as my brother Peter and I were on our way, through the Black Gaet, to Scalloway.  At our village of destination, we found another participant, the Bremen-registered "Esprit" (another ketch, of more recent build), and a very smart little ship she was. When we returned in the afternoon, she had been joined by the Dutch three-masted schooner "Eendracht".  Meanwhile, in Lerwick, the Norwegian ketches "Auno" and "Wyvern av Aalesund" had arrived, and another couple of small ships had arrived at Cullivoe, Yell.  Shetland's role in the 2011 Tall Ships race had begun to be played, and people were looking anxiously skyward, as well as seaward, to see if the weather was going to be kind.....

It was - briefly.  Next morning dawned bright and fair, with light winds, although there was a bit of cloud cover coming and going.  I sat at my window, enjoying a cup of tea with my sister Mary, who was one of the liaison officers for the Colombian barque "Gloria", watching her ship picking up the pilot off the Bressay Light and making her elegant way in towards the harbour.  Mary went off to perform her diplomatic duties, and I was left to try concentrating on doing a day's work.  Some hope!  I kept stopping to look seaward, as more and more of these beautiful ships approached.  The almost indefinably-rigged "Pelican of London", the Polish barquentine "Pogoria" and the Dutch topsail schooner "Gulden Leeuw" arrived during the morning, followed by the "Lord Nelson", "Dar Mlodziezy" and "Alexander von Humboldt" in the afternoon.  Other smaller, less easily identifiable, ships were also making their appearance.  That was a happy day for me, with my greedy eyes almost getting their fill from what was before them.

The next day, Thursday, was the first of three consecutive ones for which I'd booked a stall to sell my arty wares.  My brother Peter had agreed to help me transport my goods and display units down to the Toll Clock Centre in a car he had hired for his holiday here.  I am very grateful to him for his help, which speeded this process up, as well as saving me a taxi fare.  The wind was freshening from the north, although otherwise the weather was still quite pleasant, dry and bright.  Most of the participating tall ships had arrived by midday, although it was early evening before the Norwegian barque "Statsraad Lehmkuhl" arrived at her allocated berth at Shearer's Pier.  The sound of rock and roll music could be heard  from the stage at Holmsgarth.  Shetland had started to boogie, and my brother caught the ferry south that evening with the sounds of the party ringing in his ears.  The view of the harbour from the ferry would have been spectacular too.

I had arranged to leave my display units at the centre for the next couple of nights (at my own risk, of course), so that I only had my bags of cards and prints to transport back and forth each day.  I was glad of this facility as, with my brother gone, lugging all that stuff up and down my stairs each day would have been a pain - literally.  I had also arranged for my friends Lynne and Malcolm to look after the stall for a few hours on Friday, while I went out to Whiteness to pay my usual visit to my mother and see that she was OK for the weekend.  By evening the wind had risen to near gale force, from a northerly direction, although it was still dry and quite bright, and it bore the sound of the Levellers all over town, from the Holmsgarth stage, that evening.

Saturday dawned dry, and still reasonably bright, but the strong winds were becoming an issue.  With no improvement forecast for Sunday, the decision was made to postpone the departure of the ships (which had been previously scheduled for Sunday) until the following day when winds were expected to ease.  My last day at the Toll Clock Centre was a busy one, and by close of business, I had far exceeded my notional target figure for the three days takings - it had certainly been a worthwhile venture for me.  I had met many old friends, including one with whom I'd done business only online, and made many new ones.  I had added Slovenia to the list of European countries in which my artwork is owned.  As Captian Gabriel Perez of the Colobian barque "Gloria" was presented with one of my prints as a souvenir of his Lerwick visit, my artwork is now in every continent of the world!

I am grateful for the help of Jim Wilson of Allied Taxis in getting my display units and remaining stock of cards and prints back upstairs to my flat after my successful three days at the Toll Clock Centre.  There, on the news, on Saturday evening, I first heard of a shocking event which had taken place near Oslo, Norway, in which a gunman had gone on a killing spree of youngsters at an island camp......

That evening, lying in bed, I was listening to the gale-borne sound of Bjorn Again on the Holmsgarth stage.  This was interrupted, at midnight, by the explosions of the firework display, after which there was a brief pause before the ships' sirens began a symphony of their own.  Lerwick was still in party mode.

I had hoped to go for a walk around the harbour with my camera next day, but this notion was soon eliminated from my plans by the weather  - driving rain borne on a north-westerly gale.  There would be no point in taking a camera out of its case in such conditions, which only eased late in the day.  Sounds of music, presumably hastily-arranged gigs by local artistes (of whom there are many!) were still to be heard on the wind, as my sister Thelma and I went out to see our mother at Whiteness in the afternoon. She was well, although missing her summer visitors (first my sister Angela and her husband Nigel, then my brother) terribly.

I hate goodbyes too, and multiple departures are hard for me to take.  In the gloom of a leaden-skied Lerwick last Monday, I watched from my window as the first of the tall ships left the harbour, led out by our own "Swan", followed by the Dutch brig "Morgenster".  Over the next few hours, these beautiful vessels put me through the torture of the Parade of Sail.  Some of the ships won't be back - ever.  I understand that the green sails of the "Alexander von Humboldt" have graced their last Tall Ships event, as shortage of funds means that an essential refurbishment cannot take place, and she will have to be either sold or scrapped.

The last farewell was to my friends Lynne and Malcolm, to whom must go my last and most deeply-felt expression of gratitude.  I had a few lagers with them on Monday evening, and they departed on the Tuesday night ferry on the first leg of their journey back to Tyneside.  They had three of my paintings with them, and they had given up some of their own holiday time to look after my stall on the Friday while I attended to other essential matters elsewhere.

Now I look at the empty Lerwick quaysides, and wonder if they will be graced by such lovely ships again in my lifetime.  Who knows?  We Shetlanders certainly know how to organise and enjoy a good party, regardless of prevailing weather conditions.  It must surely happen again.

TALL SHIPS CARDS AND GICLEES!



Take a look at www.tait-gallery.co.uk/Product-Page-1.aspx and you will find there is a new range of four A6 greeting cards featuring my oil paintings of tall ships.  These, and many other products, will be on sale at my stall at the Toll Clock Centre during the Tall Ships visit from 21st July.  There are also a couple of new giclee prints available.

The cards were produced, to the usual high standard, by Digital Colour Services of Crediton, Devon.  I'm sure that David Cole will be grateful for the website plug  http://www.dcs-print.co.uk/.

As usual, I haven't had the best of luck with my choice of subject-matter.  Three of the ships featured on the cards were here for the last Tall Ships visit in 1999, but they aren't coming this year!  These are the Danish full-riggers "Georg Stage" and "Danmark", and the German schooner "Johann Smidt".  C'est la vie, as they say around the Esplanade of Lerwick.

If you happen to be in Lerwick for the nautically-themed fun and frolics from the 21st to the 24th July, please feel free to drop by and take a look at what's currently on offer at the Tait Gallery stall. The Toll Clock Centre is close by the Morrison Dock, where many of the ships will be berthed.  Come on - you know you want to!

OCEAN-GOING TALL SHIPS

When I held my last exhibition at the Creel Inn, Catterline, in early 2008, the success of it was due, in no small measure, to the efforts of my nephew Kenneth Halcrow.  He provided the transport, he devised and executed the system for hanging the paintings, he drove all over the Mearns and beyond, distributing the posters which I'd had designed for the event, and he sought out and searched through DIY shops in Inverbervie and Montrose for more picture wire, a large amount of which turned out to be an integral part of the hanging arrangement.

He also chided and corrected me if my customer service came short of the mark.  On the first afternoon, while we were in the process of the hanging operation, a couple of local men of senior years arrived to see what was on display.  They were heard to lament the lack of sailing ships among the subject matter, and Kenneth made sure that I had taken note of this deficiency for future displays.  He also saw that I handed out business cards liberally to anyone was showing even the slightest interest in the artworks.  In short, if he had not been there supporting me (and I was still recovering from a serious knee complaint which had only been operated on a couple of months previously), I think I would have broken down and wept when I saw the magnitude of the task before me when I arrived at the exhibition venue that Monday morning!

So, mindful of the lack of sail-power evident in my last Catterline show, I have been doing a few tall ship paintings over the past year or so, and this is the latest.  It depicts the 32.9m schooner "Johann Smidt" in fresh weather and an ocean swell, with one of the large 1980s-Polish-built flush-deckers in a trough behind her, and other sailing vessels visible in the distance.  I'm quite pleased with my sea, and I hope it attracts some favourable comment (perhaps even a buyer ultimately!).  It is available, along with many other goodies, from the Gallery Shop on my website http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/Product-Page-1.aspx

The schooner "Johann Smidt" was built for Dutch owners in 1974 as the "Eendracht", but was sold to her current German owners when the new larger three-masted schooner "Eendracht" was built in 1989.  Both these ships were in Lerwick in 1999 for the Tall Ships Race, and I hope to see them here again this year.  I'm sure it will be a splendid spectacle and party, and I've booked my stall at the Toll Clock Centre for the occasion.  Arr, Jim lad!  See you there!

ARTWORK, WEBSITE WORK AND A TRIP AWAY

It's nice to be able to have new paintings to show you (above). One is a commissioned work of the tour boat "Dunter III" at one of her regular destinations, the cliffs of Noss, which is one of the largest seabird colonies in Britain. It was featured in the recent BBC production of "Simon King in Shetland". The other painting is a "stock" work which I've entitled "Tall Ships Seascape", which features, strange to relate, tall ships at sea! A second completed commission, of Lerwick's south end, slipped through the net as regards getting it photographed for representation here. My clients seemed well satisfied with my efforts - you'll have to take my word for it!

Two more commissions came my way this week, so I'll be starting on these shortly. In the meantime, I've been putting more work into another stock work featuring tall ships - I hope to have this as a feature on this blog within the next fortnight.

In view of the fact that I have no mainland exhibitions booked for this year, and, taking into account that I have concession travel vouchers to use from April onwards, I have decided to take a trip to the mainland at the end of next month. So I made the necessary bookings, including a night's stay at one of Aberdeen's Premier Inns. This is a totally unnecessary extravagance, and will be a new experience for me, as I've never stayed in one of these establishments before. Watch this space at the end of April for a Michelin Guide-style report on it! I was pleasantly surprised when I heard how much my ferry fares were costing - being over 60 definitely has its compensations!

My friend, business adviser and web designer, Igor Mournly, paid me one of his regular visits on Monday afternoon, and quickly dispelled any illusions which I may have harboured about life getting easier in the near future. The website upgrade is going to take an awful lot more work over the coming weeks and months. He was showing me how to go about creating a proper archive page to contain images of previously sold works and fulfilled commissions, and I was frantically taking notes on the procedures involved. These involve large images AND thumbnails, along with internal links between them, and I am not a little proud to say that I have since completed the "Commissions" archive, which is now "live", largely by accident - I just forgot to "hide" it. After further consultation, we decided to leave it as it was. It can be seen at

http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/Commissions.aspx

Your opinion, as always in such matters, would be valuable - let me know what you think. You can click on each image on the main page to get larger images. Now I have another archive to create, this time of other non-commissioned "sold" works - and it's bigger than than the "Commissions" one. I'm really looking forward to a time when all this - the product database, "basket" and "checkout" functions, and narrative sections, as well as the parts already described - is ready to "go public".

A north-easterly gale is sweeping the islands as I work towards getting this post done. Altogether, it has been a fairly satisfactory week from the point of view of productiveness. My family are keeping well, which is even more important to me, and I hope for more of the same in both categories during the seven days to come. I hope it's the same for you!

ADVERTISING, ARTWORK AND MARKETING

All my good intentions expressed in last week's post came to very little, in spite of much better weather and light conditions this week. I did a little work on the two tall ships paintings. One is going to be of the two Danish full-rigged ships "Georg Stage" and "Danmark", the other is going to be a composition of various distant vessels, on a sloping horizon, viewed from the deck of another tall ship, parts of the rigging of which will be foreground features. The sea will be lumpy. I still hope to have these finished by Christmas, if only as some kind of target date for completion.

I'm taking out advertising space in the RYA magazine (which should be out round about now) and in the Aberdeen-based Press & Journal in the run-up to Christmas. I have to remind people that I'm still here, although the financial benefits of such campaigns are difficult to quantify and seldom immediate. I know of people who cut out adverts for products which interest them, tuck them away somewhere, and use them to contact the suppliers months, sometimes years, afterwards.

The fact that I am able to afford such extravagances as newspaper and magazine advertising is due in no small way to a multiple painting sale which I was able to conclude earlier this past week. As well as improving my bank balance (which had a distinct reddish hue about it until the sale took place), I can now issue a cheque for the prints which my friendly downtown graphics firm has produced for me. This also meant the application of quite a few more red dots on the Gallery pages of the website http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/. (Feel free to take a look - comments, good or bad, are always welcome!).

One of the maketing gurus, whose advice I occasionally heed, persuaded me that it would be a good idea to open a Googlemail account, as this can convey certain benefits in terms of online marketing, if one goes about it in the correct manner. I duly obliged, and I now have another email address (jimtait18@googlemail.com) and a profile, although I still have other interactive things to set up, in order to reap the rewards of using this facility. I think I should connect it to this blog somehow, although I have yet to discover how.

My faithful old printer (which I paid £15 for second-hand about two years ago) died last weekend, and, realising that death in this instance was terminal, I ordered a new Epson multifunctional device from Staples last Sunday. It duly arrived on Thursday (not bad for a remote location like Shetland) and I am now in the process of learning how all the bells and whistles work! I hope that your life is campanological and insufflative this incoming week!