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Scotsman review: Blue Moon … among highlights of the Pittenweem Arts Festival!

Blue Moon, etching & aquating 57.5 x 47 cm (22.5 x 18.5 inches)

I was over the moon to read a lovely review of my work in Monday’s Scotsman by Susan Mansfield in her review of Pittenweem Arts Festival. Here’s a link to the whole article (which also mentions several of my fellow Dunfermline Print Workshop members) and the relevant part relating to my work in particular is below:

“The theme of the sea also comes up again and again in the work of Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop in the Lesser Hall in James Street. Also part of the invited programme, this artist-run cooperative brings together a range of artists working in different styles and media. Particular highlights include Clive Ramage’s striking etching of the moon and Catherine King’s large monotype landscape, capturing weather, clouds and water in saturated shades of blue and grey.”

And I am also delighted to report that 3 of my Blue Moon prints sold on the very first day! That means there’s only 2 left to buy from the very limited edition of just 20 numbered prints!

One of 3 Blue Moons sold at Pittenweem on opening day. I wish this framed one had been left there for the whole show! I’ll have another framed for my NEOS event in September though, where I’ll also have some artist’s proofs for sale. Some lovely work also on show here by my Dunfermline printmaking colleagues Catherine King (left), Olga Krasanova (bottom right) and Peter Kirley (top right).

This moon etching really does seem to glow as brightly as the real thing and it makes a beautiful and bold statement on any wall. It comes from an extremely limited numbered edition of 20 and they have consistently sold at the few shows I’ve entered them.

Here’s a video of me pulling a print from the copper plate just last week …

There are now only 2 numbered prints left, plus a few artists proofs (which I’ll be holding on to for my North East Open Studios (NEOS) event 10-19 Sept 2022 – more details to come!).

Me with my moon print at the preview on Friday night

So if you want your very own Blue Moon to gaze at whenever you like then get in touch with me now or follow the link to my shop and bag yours before they’re all gone!

My Dunnottar Castle print at Pittenweem alongside work bt Peter Kirley (left) and Bethany Snaddon (right)

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Original, hand-made etching printed on 310gsm Hanhmuhle etching paper.

Limited to an extremely small edition of only 20 prints.

Image size: 57.5 x 47 cm (22.5 x 18.5 inches)
Paper Size 71 x 53.5 cm / (28 x 22 inches)

Shipping: The print is sold unframed, but lovingly wrapped and rolled in tissue and packaged in a tough cardboard tube for protection. UK p&p is £20 and shipping time is around 2 weeks. International delivery is £25 but allow up to 3 weeks.

Pittenweem Arts Festival

Tomorrow marks the start of the Pittenweem Arts Festival (6-13th August) and I’m very happy to be taking part alongside fellow members of Fife Dunfermline Printmakers Workshop. I’m looking forward to seeing all the work we have on show at the preview this evening.

All are welcome to come along tonight for an early viewing between 6.30-9pm at Lesser Church Hall, James St, Pittenweem.

Above are 2 of the large framed prints I have in the show, St Monans and Dunnottar Castle. Both etchings were produced in July especially for this event.

I’ll also be showing my Blue Moon etching (below). There are only a few left from this very limited edition of 20 numbered prints, so if you want to own one you best hurry to bag yours!

I have a few other mounted prints available from the venue including the following, all of which are fairly local to the area:

If you can get to Pittenweem during the festival you will find art filling the streets and almost every home above the beautiful harbour and beyond. It’s a fantastic event and well worth the trip for a great day out!

More details about the festival and invited guest artists can be found here!

arTay 2022 – Part of Perth Festival Of The Arts

*Where There Is Light*, oil on wood panel – 78cm x 78cm (framed)

After 2 year’s absence from the art show calendar, I really can’t wait for arTay 2022, which opens at 10am in Perth this coming Thursday 19th May and runs until 7.30pm on Sunday 22nd.

Every May, and as if by magic, a large marquee appears next to Perth’s Concert Hall and is filled to the brim with a great assortment of fantastic artworks.

Dubh Artach, oil on wood panel – 75x75cm (framed)

But all the real magic is what’s on show inside the marquee!

With more than 70 artists taking part and a few hundred pictures to hang and label, it’s a challenge to get it all done and looking great in just a few hours. It’s not all hard work though and there’s always a great atmosphere, with Hugh and his team making it all the more fun by providing lots of coffee and cakes to keep us all going until the show is hung. Remarkably – considering the often competative nature of a typical ‘hang’, and with so many artistic egos to be found in one relatively small compass – I have yet to witness a punch up!

*Rattray Head*, oil on canvas – 57cm x 57cm (framed)

As well as helping to hang the show on Wednesday, I’m also very much looking forward to catching up with lots of artist friends and maybe matching some new faces to familiar pictures and names too.

So these are the four paintings I’ll have in the show. Three fairly large atmospheric lighthouse oils and my latest dreamscape (or ‘longing’) painting of Edinburgh, as seen at night from across the Firth of Forth.

[Contact Hugh at Frames Gallery, Perth for more details, or if you would like to reserve one of these paintings. Tel: 01738 631085]

Edinburgh Nocturne, oil on canvas – 95x95cm (framed)=

If you happen to be in or near Perth then do come along and see a huge variety of great work by some of the country’s best artists. Along with many of the other artists, I’ll be at the ‘arTay Party’ preview on Friday 20th from 6pm.
Hope to see some of you there too!

Frames Gallery

10 Victoria Street, Perth, Scotland, PH2 8LW
01738 631085
info@framesgallery.co.uk

House Music, a new album by Tom Baird

I’m delighted to have one of my pieces used as the cover art for a fantastic new album by Scottish musician Tom Baird.

Tom got in touch with me last November, having spotted some of my work in a Facebook post by Braemar Gallery. At that point he was just finishing off the recordings and was looking for something different for the cover that would help illustrate the overall feel of his collection of new songs.

He particularly liked my Little Cottage series and East Neuk pictures and thought one of them would make a good cover. The album’s working title at this point was This Old Town, the name of one of the tunes, and he initially considered the East Neuk (Shooting Star) picture below for that.

But in the end it became House Music (Tom has a home recording studio and did all the work on the album there) and so it seemed a perfect fit to have one of my Little Cottage pictures to illustrate that. He felt Autumn Bothy By The Sea stood out because the yellow roof against the blue sky was particularly striking and, I have to say, I’m delighted with the final result!

The album has 12 great songs, all brilliantly written, performed and produced by Tom. It won’t be out until 10th June, but he kindly gave me a few copies and I’ve had it on repeat since getting it. I’ve been very impressed by the diversity and quality of all the album tracks, but my current favourite is the new single Peace Pipe. It’s short and snappy and a real belter of a tune, with a few surprising twists and turns in the music and also the philosophical (with a large dose of irony!) lyrics too. Several of Tom’s songs have been played regularly by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music and on Radio Scotland and you can hear Peace Pipe and lots of his other excellent releases right now on Spotify.

I always fancied doing a book or an album cover so what an absolute privilege to have one of my pictures on the front of this great album by a very talanted songwriter!

Find out more about Tom and have a listen to his great music yourself by clicking the links below:

Tom Baird Bandcamp

Rutland Square, Edinburgh – A Commission

Commissions are not something I’ve done a lot of in the past. It’s not that I haven’t been asked, but more that I’ve felt the burden of meeting a client’s expectations a little overwhelming. I think I really just convinced myself over the years that I prefer to do my own thing, which really translates as wishing to remain steadfastly in my comfort zone of doing what I like for myself because … well, there’s no good reason at all!

So when I was asked if I’d be interested in producing a painting of a rather nice block of flats in Edinburgh’s Rutland Square I deliberated for a moment, before deciding it was time to bite the bullet and take up the challenge.

Stage 1.

Initial pencil drawing on Saunders Waterford 425 gsm rough watercolour paper.

It’s always great to hear how new clients come to find my work and it transpired that this time it came down to a good old Google search for “Edinburgh art”. Quite a few of my paintings came up and that was enough to persuade the client to get in touch.

Stage 2.

I then drew over the main pencil lines in permanent ink.

Of course, I do like to draw and paint subjects that interest me and, happily, I liked the building in question and was delighted to have been asked. It’s a lovely compliment, after all, to be commissioned to provide a present for a very special person who will hopefully be able to cherish it for years to come! And it goes without saying that the payment is always most welcome too!

So here are the rest of the stages towards completion …

Stage 3.

Initial watercolour washes. The paper was still wet when I took this photo, hence the slightly wobbly look. 425 gsm paper is very thick and doesn’t really need to be stretched. It will ruckle up a little bit with the application of water, but then dry perfectly flat again.

Stage 4.

More washes added to the building and the window panes blocked in. It’s starting to take shape.

Stage 5

Feeling quite happy with the results so far, but knowing there’s still a lot of work to be done on the details front. I’m not sure why there’s a large puddle of bright orange in my palette as it’s not a colour I used in this picture.

Stage 6.

The finished piece. I have to admit that I really enjoyed working on this over the past few days and, having overcome my reluctance to take on commissions, I very much look forward to doing more of them.

If you like what you see here and wish to commission something personal for yourself (or someone very special) then please feel free to get in touch and we can hopefully make it happen!

New Work at Ballater Gallery

These three paintings went off to the wonderful Ballater Gallery this weekend. Between them I think they give a fair representation of the kind of work I’ve been doing lately.

Bennachie, oil on canvas (24×12” unframed) – buzzard or seagull?

Bennachie is possibly Aberdeenshire’s most prominent and, among the locals, favourite hill. It’s a fairly easy walk through a seemingly enchanted woodland, before steepening significantly towards the top. With it’s very distinctive torr (known as Mither Tap) it’s a hill that can be easily spotted from just about every other hilltop in the Grampians.

I’ve never seen such an abundance and variety of mushrooms and toadstools as I found under its lower slopes last autumn, and I can’t wait to get back up there on a hot summer’s day. It’s a magical place and I hope to have captured a little of that in this newly finished oil painting of the view as seen from across fields ripe and ready for harvest near Inverurie.

Bell Rock (Nocturne) oil on wood panel (24×24” unframed) – Arbroath’s flickering lights far right – SOLD 🔴

The Bell Rock lighthouse is one of my favourite subjects for so many reasons. I grew up in Arbroath, from where Robert Stevenson and his team planned then carved the dovetailed stones to build this 36m high wonder of the industrial world. They then shipped them 11 miles across often very dangerous seas to the reef and, when complete, it became the very first rock-based lighthouse in the world. It took the full 3 years between 1807-10 to build and that was no mean feat, considering the base is fully submerged every high tide and also for much of the remainder of each day.

While this very spot has set the stage for many a tragedy (including scores of shipwrecks and even a helicopter crash in 1955; the rotars hit the anaeometer on top of the tower) I have tried to capture it at a more serene, benevolent moment. The brilliant beam flashes out across 18 nautical miles every 5 seconds to warn passing ships of the very real dangers that lie just a few inches beneath those calm, dark waters.

Dean Village (Twilight), mixed media over etching (26×20” unframed) – over 500 individual window panes, I’ve counted!

Dean Village in Edinburgh is another favourite place of mine, as I’m sure it must be for many. It’s a view that will be very familiar to anyone walking or driving across the Dean Bridge as they enter the city centre from the north. Looking over the bridge at the myriad jumble of buildings your eyes are met with seemingly countless windows. I like to imagine the lives of all those others who might be gazing dreamily back out from each and every one of them.

I’ve painted this scene several times, each version capturing the same place, but at a different time of day and giving the same composition a completely different feel or atmosphere.

My partner Pam providing a little scale …

The Printmakers 2022 at Frames Gallery, Perth

I currently have several of my etchings in a fantastic new printmaking show at Frames Gallery in Perth.

I was very happy to see some red dots below some of my pieces at the private view, including the ones below, and also to be showing alongside some of my favourite Scottish printmakers.

It really is an excellent and varied exhibition, showcasing some of the best in contemporary printmaking techinques and styles and I’m delighted to be taking part. Click here to see the works on show and do drop by if you are in Perth.

As these are editioned prints there are several of each still available, so get in touch with Frames Gallery if you are interested in anything you see here (or there!).

Here are a few more of the framed etchings I have on show at the gallery, and click here if you’d like to see the whole show online.

Heriot Gallery Show – Last Few Days

The Urban, Land and Sea show at Heriot Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh, closes this Saturday. I have several pieces in it inlucing these two large and colourful scenes of Dean Village, Edinburgh and North Berwick.

If you are in town the whole show is well worth a visit!

Click here for details and to see what’s in the show.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to wish you a very Happy New Year and also to say a huge !!THANK YOU!! to everyone who bought my paintings and, therefore, supported me greatly in my work throughout 2021.

Lots of very good things happened this past year, including my move to Aberdeen and settling into a great new studio here. I’ve also recently begun working with some local galleries (including Ballater and Braemar) and have lots of energy and inspiration for new pictures to paint and send to them, as well as to my regular galleries in the coming months.

Keep an eye out here for news of my latest works in progress and exhibitions, including Land & Sea which opens later this month at Heriot Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh.

In the meantime, I wish you a safe, prosperous and very happy 2022!

Heriot Gallery Winter Show

Just a quick update to say I am very excited to be working with Heriot Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh. They recently got in touch to say they admired my work and requested some for their current Winter Show.

The Old Town, Edinburgh (Twilight), Mixed media 65×50 (image size)

So I delivered these paintings yesterday and very much looking forward to continuing to work with owners Angela and Lorna. I haven’t shown any work in Edinburgh since moving to Aberdeen earlier this year, so it’s great to have some of my locally-inspired pieces available in the Capital once again.

Ramsay Garden (ii), Mixed media 60x18cm (image size)

The show runs until 29th Jan 2022, after which I’ll also be including new work in their follow-up exhibition Land & Sea in February 2022.

Dean Village, Edinburgh, Mixed media 65×50 (image size)

I’m currently working on some new Edinburgh-based oil paintings for that, so watch this space for further details … !