A quick post here, as I’m currently sitting in a library in Melbourne, Australia! But here are a couple of new paintings which I first showed at my recent Open Studio. I’ll be painting out here in Oz over the next few weeks, well months actually, so I will post some of those works here, when I’ve actually had the chance to pick up a brush!
Category Archives: New Paintings
I Painted Out – in Norwich
My last post was about the upcoming Paint Out Norwich painting competition in which I was taking part. So it was that on a very wild and windy day last Tuesday, Margaret and I travelled to Norwich where I was to paint against the clock and against twenty-seven other artists.
The event was organised by the Hostry at Norwich Cathedral, as part of the autumn Hostry Festival. We met the other artists there and saw this superb building where the exhibition of completed works was to be staged. The Paint Out Norwich team were very welcoming and, considering that this was the first running of the event, pretty efficient most of the time. Our base during the event was the Maddermarket Theatre where we had room to store some of our gear and get a bit of lunch at their cafe between the morning and afternoon sessions. Mercifully this was only a few hundred yards from our hotel, because my efforts to slim down my en plein air painting kit were only partially successful!
As for the painting, on Wednesday and Thursday, it was actually great fun to be out in this beautiful city and have three hours to ‘do a view’. Yes, it was cold but at least it didn’t rain! There were four sessions, one morning 9 – 12 and one afternoon 1.30 – 4.30 and we were sent to a different location for each one. Once at the location you were free to paint any view, which meant that there was never any difficulty finding a good composition.
I resisted the temptation just to do pen and wash sketching, and set up an easel with a half-imperial sheet of 140lb weight Arches rough paper for each session. It meant carrying the easel and quite a bit of other stuff, but I enjoyed tackling a full scale watercolour painting. Of the four I completed, I enjoyed doing them all, but there are always things that you can see when you look at a painting that you might have done better, or at least differently. But at the end of the three hours, that’s it, the paintings are taken from you and no more fiddling is allowed!
Here are the two that I consider the most successful. One where I was looking down on the city from the ramparts of Norwich Castle, and one where I set up my easel by the library which is inside The Forum, a fantastic building buzzing with people, cafes, lots going on. It was also a bit warmer than the street outside.
I didn’t win any prizes, but I enjoyed the experience and will be doing more plein air painting in the future. It’s very different to working in the comfort of the studio and cityscapes are different to my usual landscapes. But I like ’em!
You can see all the paintings done by the twenty-eight artists at the Paint Out Norwich exhibition, on now until the 2nd November, at the Hostry, Norwich Cathedral, Tombland, Norwich.
Paint Out Norwich
It’s always nice to have an excuse to get out with the painting gear and actually do some work on location. So often, pressures of time or weather mean that I end up working from photographs not actually in front of the subject. Not that I mind working from photos, there’s a lot to be said for starting with one and then creating an artwork out of it that bears only a passing resemblance to the original photograph. The photo just becomes the kickstarter of your inspiration. However, I digress.
On the 22nd and 23rd October I shall be in Norwich, a fine city, to take part in Paint Out Norwich. An open air painting competition which is part of the autumn Hostry Festival at Norwich Cathedral. Sixty artists applied to take part, and thirty were selected. We shall step up to our easels at 9am on the morning of Wednesday 22nd and there will be four three hour sessions over the two days. Each session will see the artist working at a different location, so I will get round four of the seven that are on offer. The sessions will be 9am to noon and 2pm to 5pm each day. At the end of the competition all work will be judged and there are some nice cash prizes up for grabs. Following on from that there will be an exhibition of the work for the remainder of the Hostry Festival, until the 2nd November I think.
Having recklessly accepted this challenge, I thought that I’d better brush up, so to speak, on my cityscapes. Here is one that I did recently. No, not Norwich, Agra in India. And no, I didn’t paint en plein air, that would risk being mobbed. But if you saw my photo you would find it very different in mood and lighting to the painting. Wish me luck and do come to Norwich to cheer all the artists on. The public, and the media, are encouraged to look over all the artists’ shoulders. No pressure then!
You can find out all about the event, the artists, and the locations at the website paintoutnorwich.org
The Skies of Lindisfarne
I’ve been away from the computer for a couple of weeks, as we have been off hiking in the Welsh borders. Offa’s Dyke National Trail is about 180 miles long, and stretches from Chepstow in the South to Prestatyn in the North. And yes, Margaret and I have trodden every inch of it!
Quite a strenuous walk, over sixteen days, and not much time to sit with a sketchbook, although I carried one all the way. I did take lots of photos though, so there might be an Offa’s Dyke painting in due course.
Meanwhile, you can get a flavour of the landscape we encountered from this watercolour which I recently completed as a commission. The island of Lindisfarne lies just off the Northumberland coast and can be reached by a causeway at low tide. The island is topped by the distinctive Lindisfarne Castle, which I made sure to leave as light against the dark of the brooding sky above. Note that the clouds in the sky and the patterns on the land both lead the eye to the focal point of the composition, the castle.
When walking in Wales we crossed many a high place and saw many a castle. Fortunately, the skies were rather more benign than the one I painted for Lindisfarne, as we only had a few minutes of rain during the whole trip. Can you believe that!
From the exhibition – Sunday 8th June 2014
Well, here I am in the Shakespeare Barn, king’s Lynn Arts Centre. surrounded by eighty-two of my paintings, and there are still just a few left at home! This is the start of my celebratory exhibition, Stephen Martyn at 21, which opened on Friday evening and runs now until Saturday 21st June.
Already we’ve had quite a crowd of visitors. The Private view was a great evening, buzzy, with warm summer sunshine and some excellent jazz music from my friend Mike Smith and his trio. Lots of familiar faces but plenty of new ones too and yes, paintings were sold. The first full day, Saturday was also busy with a constant stream of visitors doing the rounds of the four galleries here. I’ll feature the other exhibitions in a future post, but they are all very varied and all well worth a visit.
Today Sunday, it’s quieter, perhaps because the weather is so good that people are out in their gardens or on the coast, but nonetheless we have had people in and there have been some nice comments.
Over the run of the exhibition I will endeavour to post on this blog most days, and to feature two or three pictures from the exhibition in each post. Do try and get along to see them for yourself! Margaret and I will be here most of the time, from around 10.15am until close at 5pm. The galleries are in the courtyard behind the Guildhall in King St. King’s Lynn, and you’ll spot my banners at the entrance to the complex. There’s lots of information about the Arts Centre on its website kingslynnarts.co.uk including maps and directions.
More on the Great Wall
A couple of posts ago I showed a sketch that I made while walking on the Great Wall of China, during our trip there in April. Now, I have been busy in the studio and have been tackling a watercolour of the Great Wall, based on my sketches and photographs.
It’s quite a big painting, on a half-imperial (22ins. x 15ins.) sheet of Waterford 300lb rough paper. I completed it in one session, which is unusual for me, but this was one of those works that seemed to want to be painted, so it was a relatively easy couple of hours work. Great Wall of China near Jinshaling will be shown at my solo exhibition at King’s Lynn Arts Centre, starting on Saturday 7th June and continuing until the 21st June. I hope you can find the opportunity to call in and have a look at what I’ve been doing.
This weekend is Dersingham Open Gardens and the studio is open as part of the Dersingham Art Trail. Not a good day for the weather today, wet and very few visitors braving the elements, but that has given me the chance to do some painting. I’ve been working on some oil paintings today, and I will let you have a look at the results soon. Meanwhile you are very welcome at the studio during the remainder of the Bank Holiday weekend – see my contact page for the location.
Off the Page
A new exhibition by the West Norfolk Artists Association opened today in the Red Barn gallery, King’s Lynn Arts Centre. The theme for the exhibition was works inspired by a piece of poetry or prose, and what a popular theme that tuned out to be. Nearly forty artist members submitted nearly seventy works.
The exhibition continues all week, until Saturday 29th March, although unfortunately not on Sunday. Otherwise it is open every day 11am – 4pm.
The verse that inspired the work is:
A land that is thirstier than ruin;
A sea that is hungrier than death;
Heaped hills that a tree never grew in;
Wide sands where the wave draws breath.
The Salt Marsh – Algernon Swinburne
More Thinking Ink
From time to time I’ve shown paintings here that use ink in addition to or as a substitute for watercolour. Last weekend I ran a workshop at West Norfolk Arts Centre, Castle Rising which was devoted to these techniques, which can just add another dimension to your work. I had a good time with a group of nice people, and I got paid too – what more can an art tutor want!
Part of the weekend was spent looking at traditional pen and wash, but with the added twist of using acrylic inks rather than watercolour. The inks were kindly sponsored by Daler-Rowney and you can see them in the two paintings here, which I did as demonstrations. The inks are Rowney FW acrylic inks and they are available in a wide range of colours. They have a very high tinting strength and are waterproof when dry, so that you can paint over the top without disturbing the initial wash. The inks look very garish when straight from the bottle, but well watered down and carefully mixed the results can be more subtle. Rowney supplied a boxed set of six inks, called the Primary Colours set, which consisted of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, which are the colours typically used in inkjet printers, plus three additional colours of Scarlet, Emerald Green and Sepia. It was quite a challenge to generate traditional watercolour hues from these but it was fun and good colour mixing practice. The underlying drawing in both paintings was done with a Faber Castell Pitt artist’s pen, containing black waterproof ink.
By the way, spot the flying boat in the painting of Burnham Overy Staithe. A quick “how to draw a boat” sketch that I did while working on the main painting!
Over the weekend we also explored using Indian ink from a bottle and water soluble pens, so there was quite a variety of techniques. My thanks to all the course participants for being so pleasant and fun to work with, to Daler-Rowney for supplying the materials, and to Richard and Ros Cartwright of the Art Centre who were as welcoming as ever. They do a great lunch too!
I will be back at West Norfolk Arts Centre in August for an outdoor sketching weekend, so why not join me working in pen and wash and other sketching media in the picturesque village of Castle Rising, Norfolk. You can find full details, including how to book, on the Arts Centre website westnorfolkarts.co.uk
Steam & spray
Here’s a strange coincidence. I was recently commissioned to paint a view of a steam train travelling along the old Great Western line at Dawlish, where the line runs right along the sea wall. Imagine my surprise when, just a few days after completing the work, the line was washed away in the recent floods. It will be repaired of course, but for the moment there will be no trains at Dawlish, steam or otherwise!
Paintings of this type require a lot of care in the research and in the actual work. I was fortunate to know someone with a large collection of railway books, and from them I found several examples of King class locomotives which used to haul the Cornish Riviera Express in the days of steam. I selected a photo of a train in full steam, but of course it wasn’t at Dawlish but elsewhere. So, I turned to the internet, and found some video on YouTube of a steam train at Dawlish, with a rough sea crashing over the tracks. But, it was completely the wrong type of locomotive. With careful drawing and a decent knowledge of perspective I managed to combine the two images, but there was a fair bit of artist’s license needed to make the scene into an effective composition. I had to think carefully about the tonal values of the work, to give prominence to the train but also convey a feeling of a dark, stormy day.
It took several sessions of work in my studio before I was happy with the end result, but I enjoyed doing it. It’s always good to be taken a little bit out of your comfort zone with an unusual subject. The lady who commissioned the painting as a gift for her steam enthusiast husband seemed to be delighted and that made it all worth while. An old artist once said to me “you can never be sure how a commission is going to go down when the client sees it for the first time. But, if they say they like it and they pay, you’ve done a good job!”
Across the Wash
The Wash, our local piece of water, has been in the news lately with extensive flooding in some areas. Luckily, the Stephen Martyn Studio remained high and dry, although in 1953 the water reached to within a few yards of where our house now stands. A disturbing thought as the tidal surge was supposed to be bigger than ’53! However, the sea remained well over a mile away, thankfully.
Thinking of the Wash reminded me of this painting, which was actually the last one to be framed before my Christmas Open Studio. It shows a view of which I am very fond, with Holme-next-the-sea church and the Wash beyond. It has a high point of view, which can be obtained from the eastern end of Green Bank Road, which runs from the top end of Ringstead village east towards Thornham. It’s a green road and overlooks the fields leading to the sea. Maybe 100 feet or so above sea level, it counts as a big hill in this part of the world!