Oil Painting 55 - Camden Town

The end of our canals - Red warning on the Thames

Getting the boat to London was becoming more and more unrealistic this year, and in Oxford we wrote it off completely due to a few factors -

• underestimating the distances and times on the whole route so far, 
• getting carried away with unexpectedly good subject matter in places we weren't expecting to stop
• being delayed working on other jobs that have helped support the year
• the height and strong current conditions on the Thames (genuinely dangerous for a tall narrowboat)
• lock maintenance happening on our route home in early November (meaning we have to get a move on)

It is a shame, but we could have not given more to this project, and have no regrets with how it has gone and with what we have seen.

Also it is far from over, we are turning around and heading back up north for the winter but have until March to complete our 'Year of the Boat', we have decided to risk this winter outside of a marina and I am looking forward to getting some winter scenes and more internal boat scenarios into paint.

To make up for the boat not physically going there I shall be visiting a few times independently instead to try and explore visually some of the capital's canals and rivers. 

I have been down already this year producing the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the Thames. Whilst down for that painting I had a walk around the canals around Camden, locating where Banksy had his graffiti war with 'Robbo', you can read more about that here -  http://www.banksy.co.uk/QA/camden/camden4.html#. There was bits that attracted but not so much on the actual canal, more the markets and bits and pieces just off the canal.

I returned again this autumn to visit friends, armed with a blank canvas to Camden Lock and produced Oil Painting 55 - Camden Town.

Camden Town is another world - the throng of weird and wonderful hedonistic people making their way over the canal bridge was an exciting subject to be amongst, I was stood on one side of the canal/road bridge, and there was a supremely talented one woman band on the other side, singing and playing all afternoon, the music easing the atmosphere of the crowd. I was looking down towards the tube station at all the strange fairground-esque sculptures coming off the buildings. Giant tacky shoes, swirls, dragons and monsters taking over the georgian buildings.

The fashion of the general passerby is bizarre, neon hair styles tattoos and piercings, quite an intimidating place to be, and one linked to some of other worldly experiences I had whilst studying in London, intimidating but certainly exciting, an excitement I have tried to translate into the brushwork. I have used the spiral motif in the tree and shop on the left to try and communicate the more hedonistic culture of the place. The strong afternoon sun means this piece has become an unexpected study of sunlight and shade. I might yet return to work into this piece more, although that could mean losing some of the bounce to the brushwork and the drama if the sunlight isn't as strong. It is an unusual painting that challenges me so it is probably best to leave it.

Oil Painting 35 - Birmingham watches the Olympics

One of the downsides of trying to live without a television on board a narrowboat is when a once in a lifetime event comes along, like the Olympics in your home country, everyone begins talking about it, and you do not have the means to participate.

Imagine our delight then, when we moored up in central Birmingham to find within strolling distance, an epic television bigger than those in even our richest friend's lounges, seating, and even a ready made atmospheric crowd of spectators. Couple that with relaxed 14 day moorings in a secure marina with good facilities and you have an unforgettable few weeks in Britain's second city.

This painting started out life as a quick watercolour sketch from the other side of the floozy in the gacuzzi.

I quickly realised this square had enormous potential in subject matter - iconically Birmingham, colourful flags, beautiful buildings, sweeping curves of the cascading steps and fountain, crowds that were going to be there day in day out for over a fortnight, a pretty complicated multi-leveled space to depict and a ready made plinth to stand upon and be admired producing a painting.

My 'plinth' was the base to the sphnix statue - the statue is a great compositinal device itself relaxedly watching the BBC Big Screen 

Cue purchasing as big a canvas as I could fit through the hatch of the boat, and spending days watching the London 2012 Olympics unfold, whilst chatting with hundreds of people and building up as fine a painting as I have produced.

I like how the 'Year of the Boat' has stumbled across the Olympics, after the nightmare of getting to the capital to paint the flotilla I had written off the Olympics but was over the moon when this project naturally crossed paths. I was able to relax into the Olympics, watch event after event and still be able to do my work.

What is interesting with these crowd paintings is picking out the colour differences between them, my V Festival paintings have a quite a orangey fake tan feel to them, with lots of legs, hot-pants and pink wellies on show, the Stoke football paintings I have done have the iconic red and white striped shirts and the flotilla had the raincoats, umbrellas and union jacks.

Crowd painting at the flotilla - rain macs, brollies and union jacks

This crowd was different once again and actually changed halfway through; it began with a summery coloured crowd sitting amongst the bright colours of the 2012 Olympic branding but then took on another dimension when the event 'Jamaica in the Square' was set up and took place during the course of me producing the painting.

The star of the painting - this lad takes centre stage looking at us from the bottom of the painting

At its peak, there was the Jamaica flag raised in the square in front of thousands of people dressed in or waving the green yellow and black flags. The event was celebrating the 50 years of Jamaican Independence and was another fascinating experience to add to the trip. You can imagine the crowds reaction when Usain Bolt and Blake thanked Birmingham for being such good hosts to their athletic team after Jamaica blew away any competition in the 200m final! Birmingham was Buzzing. We were really lucky to arrive when we did.

As well as the flashes of green, yellow and black the Jamaican Independence Event also changed the scene in another way- the blue smoke from the food stalls cooking up Jerk Chicken and Curried Goat added real atmosphere and distance to the City Hall building at the back. Aerial perspective I think is the technical term.

Our friend Gemma pointing to her little self watching the Olympics

Oil Painting 23 - Nantwich Town Centre

After the spectacular aqueducts at the end of the Llangollen canal, and the excitement of painting the Jubilee pageant, it was time to return to the boat, and make our way back along the Llangollen canal back into Shropshire and Cheshire, getting a good soaking from the weather on route. It is amazing the difference a bit of sunshine can have on how you remember a canal! Once Hurlestone Junction was reached we took the turn right onto The Shroppie, with the destination 'Birmingham'!

First stop was the town of Nantwich. After walking from the canal around town it was the central high street seating area, with the flowers and jubilee bunting, that had the most appeal subject matter wise. It was a good spot to chat with shoppers and I was pleased to be getting a painting of a canal community rather than purely water based subject matter. I also wanted to get the town in relation to it's church, which dominates the skyline with the unusual octagonal tower.

Oil Painting 22 - The Diamond Jubilee River Pageant

DETAIL - Oil Painting 22 - Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant 2012

When I heard 6 months ago that a flotilla of 1000 craft was due to sail down the Thames to mark The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, I knew one way or another I would have to get there and paint this historic occaision as a centre piece for the 'Year of the Boat' project.

This en plein air oil painting of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee River Thames Pageant was probably the most difficult of my career; the logistics of researching a good spot, accommodation in London, physically walking all the set up around the capital, 2 days of preparing the background, securing the spot at 5am on the day, intense painting in the middle of a crowd, downpours of rain and a 7 hour journey home at the end, including squeezing through funneling crowd controls, on tubes and trains trying not to smudge the end result left me exhausted and suffering with ill health, but it was more than worth it!

A drizzly morning shot on the morning of the pageant 

I was fortunate to find a location where I could complete the piece elevated on a brick platform in front of a crowd in a similar position to the vantage point of Canaletto's painting The River Thames with St Paul's Cathedral on Lord Mayors Day.

Canaletto recorded with this staggering piece, the last time 1000 boats were on a pageant on the Thames in 1756. The National Maritime Museum are using this piece as the lead image for their exhibition celebrating the diamond jubilee 'Royal River' 

The crowds grew and grew

I was based at the Founders Arms by Blackfriars bridge near Tate Modern and Bankside gallery

God Save Our Queen!

The Royal Barge passing St Paul's

A great vantage point for a memorable show

The below photograph taken by @rachel_duk was picked up by ITV and used on their newspage on the day of the pageant - http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-06-03/oil-painter-up-against-the-elements-by-the-river/