Darwin Day Celebration Exhibition - Shrewsbury 2013

The Birthplace of Charles Darwin - 'The Mount', Shrewsbury 2013

I was asked to return to Shrewsbury to produce a body of work retracing the steps of Charles Darwin and his connection with the town in time for the Darwin Day celebrations and exhibition at Millard and Lancaster, starting 12th February 2013.

Darwin's Birthplace is in Shrewsbury in a Georgian property called 'The Mount' which you can reach heading out of town over the Welsh bridge.

Now the building houses the District Valuer and Valuation Office for Shrewsbury. This meant, as can be expected for a functioning office, there was plenty of cars in front of building throughout the midweek whilst I was there painting somewhat killing the nostalgia and appeal of the image. Fortunately I was able to return to finish at the weekend and the low winter sun was casting harsh long shadows across the drive and providing some necessary foreground interest.

I guess I couldn't have expected anything other for late January, but the weather was proving challenging, mainly wind and rain, and so an indoor option was required, which led to the discovery of the spectacular interior of St Mary's.  'Spectacular' mainly for its collection of stained glass, it is said that "no other church in the country has a collection to equal it". The main treasure being the Jesse Window, the main subject of my painting.

The Jesse Window, St Mary's, Shrewsbury 2013

A church interior is not an obvious choice to link to Charles Darwin - whose seems to be the figurehead of scientific discovery ahead of religion, but the building does hold some interesting connections. As part of his education at the nearby Shrewsbury School, Charles Darwin would have been taught in the Trinity School section of this church seen just through the arches on the right of my painting. Also when the top of the spire of St Mary's collapsed in 1894 (the third highest spire in England) a local vicar suggested that the collapse was divine retribution for the decision to erect a statue to Charles Darwin in the town!

Mountford's Charles Darwin Sculpture sat in front of the former Shrewsbury School (painting incomplete when photographed)

The statue the vicar was describing was my next and probably the most obvious subject for the trip, the image of Charles Darwin sat in front of the Shrewsbury boarding school where he was taught, now the Library for the town.

Drizzle and wind made this piece difficult but I am pleased with the image, the drama of looking past his head to the clock tower and the two balancing passages to the left and up the stairs to the castle on the right.

My last painting of the week was a quick study of the church where Darwin was christened - St Chad's in Shrewsbury, again strong winds were playing there part and there was a point where it left the easel and I was chasing it around The Quarry.

Despite this I am pleased with the direction of this piece. Extremely loose and iconic with some bold colour use. The composition is quite interesting, a photographic approach with harsh cropping and a dramatic vantage of the balustrade.

All of the paintings are now on display at Millard and Lancaster, they were complete in time for The Darwin Day celebrations and were featured in a wonderful piece by the Shropshire Star that took comparative photographs of each of the locations ...

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/02/13/shrewsbury-oil-paintings-celebrate-darwins-birthday/

Before this body of work I have encountered Charles Darwin once before in my painting career when painting a triptych for The Upper House Hotel in Barlaston, the connection to Darwin is explained in my rather lengthy explanation video ...

Autumn Painting trip to Shrewsbury

Part of the challenge of this project has been how to fund the national tour of 'Year of the Boat' and our wages whilst holding back the work produced, in order to have full impact exhibitions of the journey throughout 2013 (see details of the exhibitions here).

Our voyage has only been possible because of a superb year of gallery sales, from long-term stockists in Staffordshire, Barewall, and a remarkable first year with the new Shrewsbury based gallery Millard and Lancaster.

The success of working with Millard and Lancaster (M and L) has meant the luxury of developing a deeper knowledge of Shropshire. After returning back from Oxford to Staffordshire with the boat, Shrewsbury was the first port of call to build up a stock of local subject matter for M and L. The gallery had arranged for me to have use of a town centre flat in Shrewsbury which  allowed me immediate access to the subject matter (much the same as travelling to a town on the boat) and the precious daylight hours this time of the year were not being lost commuting. The set working hours in the town allowed me to develop a flow over the week working across 4 canvases in a day over the five days, each having a daytime slot -

8.00am - 11.00am The morning painting was entitled 'Kingsland Bridge'

I have used the span of the bridge and it's reflection to form a loop that tunnels us into the painting our eyes naturally leading down the park's tree lined riverside path. The river is the River Severn that horseshoes right the way around Shrewsbury and with the Quarry park gives a relaxing green space within easy reach of any part of the town centre. The morning slot for this piece meant I was mixing with the hoards of early morning dog walkers and joggers.

The painting captures some of the autumnal colour in the bed of leaves formed on the grass. The buildings on the opposite back are Shrewsbury School and the boathouse. The school has quite a commanding presence on top of the steep sloping bank, overlooking the river.

11.30am - 2pm The War Memorial

This one was a bit of battle with tackling the statue and the pillared housing literally head-on, almost perfectly symmetrical on the canvas. This meant it was an exercise in expressively painting accurate perspective.

Quite a sinister subject matter, a striking statue of St Michael that captivated me enough to warrant a painting. He seems to have a dark side silhouetting against the light portland stone, one schoolboy on his way to the nearby swimming baths told me not to stop looking at the statue, because he thought it was a 'Weeping Angel' from Doctor Who, and would attack if you turned your back.

St Michael is there, also in The Quarry Park by the river, to commemorate those from Shropshire who lost their lives in the two World Wars.

I was photographed by the friendly Ian Sheppard of The Shropshire Star whilst painting this piece.

2pm - 4.30pm Wyle Cop

Although this was mainly an afternoon piece I spent a full day on this one at the beginning of the trip. This was the subject matter in Shrewsbury I knew I wanted to tackle before arriving here. I had walked up and down the Wyle Cop on previous trips searching for an angle that summed up the whole street. This main old thoroughfare into town steeply snaking from the English bridge over the river up to the spires of town at the top of the street is packed with character and sums up Shrewsbury as a whole. This was the best composition I could find, flipping the composition to a portrait and a slight abstraction on the buildings to accommodate them on that plane, really worked to communicate the steep angle of the street, giving an instant fun almost a cartoon feel to the painting. It is a concept that immediately communicated to the passing audience and was in turn very popular making often making people smile with a shared communicated statement about an experience. I am pleased with this piece although I had initially set out to 'move' vantage point as you scan up and down the street so it is possible to see the bridge and river at the bottom as well as the spires at the top. David Hockney's journey photomontages and paintings are an influence as is Tim Hyman's studies of whole streets.

David Hockney - Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio

Tim Hyman

6pm - 9pm The Monklands

A quick interior study for residents about to leave their flat in The Monklands, Shrewsbury for a new home but wished for a record of their living room in particular. Apart from the human sitters we have a Jack Russell called 'Gio' and a whippet called 'Pencil' in rather relaxed poses on the sofas. The whippet painting brings to mind Lucien Freuds wonderful studies

Private Commission - Crowleasow Farm

Crowleasow Farm is a Jacobean property near to Ludlow, part of the Downton Estate. It is surrounded by magnificent rolling hills and farmland. I spent the first day watercolour sketching the various possibilities of composition trying to marry the commissioner's wish to have the property represented in the vast landscape whilst also getting a sense of a home, being close enough to enjoy the oddities and character of the building but also really enjoy the vast oak that is stood in the garden of the property.

One of four initial watercolour sketches that indicates where some of the trees had to be omitted to get a sense of the landscape surrounding the property

This mighty Oak has become one of the key features to the property, it is mentioned in the Doomsday book and is over 1000 years old. The trunk has a girth of over 11 metres. It is largely hollow but is a real object of gnarled beauty.

The solution to getting this combination of wishes was to move and omit some trees and screens that surround the property in order to unlock the surrounding landscape from this close vantage point. This meant walking the easel round the garden taking extracts from different vistas. I even stood amongst a thorny rose bush to bring in the rose in the foreground, which along with Pearl the dog and the trees dappled shadow helps to break up the dangerously large area of lawn in the composition.

3 days painting the final piece plus one day sketching and preparation.

Oil Painting 26 - Shrewsbury

The final results after the second , very rainy day of painting

Our stay in Market Drayton coincided with Millard and Lancaster's Summer Show in Shrewsbury and a commute into town was relatively easy from here. I have had great success working with this fabulous gallery earlier in the year and was glad to be able to set up on the streets of Shrewsbury and raise awareness of this group show. You can see the solo show I had at Millard and Lancaster in February 2012 here

I had set up in the town centre in the run up to the solo show and generated a great deal of interest with potential customers and local press working on location. The general public are not used to seeing this manner of work and respond really positively. I painted the Old Market Hall and the iconic Railway Station



I chose this composition for Oil Painting 26 because I was interested in the swing of the street wrapping around the 2 churches. One passer by described the road in my painting as a helter skelter. I felt I hadn't yet conveyed the intriguing geography of Shrewsbury and its formation across quite steep slopes and wanted to illustrate varying heights of interesting architecture within this piece.

A snap of the foundation started one a sunny first day, compare with final result

After a good first day, a went back to add a few touches and the the scene had been transformed by rain. This year's weather has been difficult so far with the wettest June on record. I wasn't going to be deterred and set up hoping the rain would let off, it didn't, and the result was a wet scene with unusual reflections off the cobbles and roads. I have painted a few rainy scenes in the past, the flotilla one of the most memorable, and they often release some unusual colours and different treatment of the landscape.

This piece was purchased by a law firm in Shrewsbury who are based round the corner and saw the painting coming together.

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