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 ...

Oil Painting 59 - Still life with oil lamp

A gift from mother this oil lamp has proved surprisingly useful when abandoning the world of mains electricity. It can also be mesmerising to watch, although writing this makes me question our decision to live without a television.

Trying to sum up this years experience in a series of paintings has guided me towards wanting to paint some of the few objects that occupied our limited space and have made the journey with us, and in turn have me tackle a few still life paintings which I haven't explored much at all in the last few years. 

The ceramic piece behind the lamp is a hand thrown faceted bottle vase with a celadon blue glaze by a talented potter and good friend Alex Shimwell. http://www.theridgewaygallery.co.uk/ArtList.aspx?artistid=149&artworkid=3008

As this is my first venture into still life for some time I do not feel I can talk with any real authority. I spent a lot of time at college looking at Paul Cezanne's still lifes ...

Still life with bottles and apples - Paul Cezanne

... and the obvious Van Gogh is never far away...


Still Life Glass with Wild Flowers - Vincent Van Gogh

Source: wikipaintings.org via Rob Pointon on Pinterest

Outside of brushwork and colour use I have not really abstracted the subject a great deal. I have enjoyed the dark band of the edge of the table mat the lamp is sat on bouncing around the frame forming strong diagonals but in honesty this was not premeditated and just something I began to exaggerate as the painting developed. What is interesting for me is that when you 'zoom in' to a relatively small scale inanimate subject and leave the composition quite sparse it exposes / lays bare your treatment of the paint, your handwriting, or 'style' for want of a better word.

I often liken an artists gesture to that of a singer's voice, Van Gogh's mark-making is so very individual and distinctive. I can only hope through work and love of the craft that a similar iconic visual language comes through in my work.

Source: wikipaintings.org via Rob Pointon on Pinterest

Oil Painting 57 - Narrowboat Interior

Living inside a narrow floating tube and being interested in dramatic perspectives I had to try and sum up this unusual space that has occupied so much of my time and thought. I say 'thought' because of the year we spent designing and fitting out this interior after buying it as a shell and being so limited on space every decision needs thought and has consequences.

This space of our design has now moved with us around the country, and now coming to the end of the project it will soon be time to put it on the market for the next owner to enjoy, a difficult decision and all the more reason to get it recorded in paint.

As a painting this piece was really enjoyable to produce, the natural light in abundance coming in from all angles and reflecting of all the varnished wood was releasing all sorts of unusual colour combinations, and cast and reflected light patches. Karen is featured working on the laptop. Hopefully the angle I have given the composition isn't too much to be distracting, especially in a floating subject you would wish to be level. I seem to be introducing an angle into a large percentage of my works which seems a natural process and true to how I see or experience the spaces as I am painting.

Somebody on social media likened this piece to Pierre Bonnard's work who is an influence, I shall attach an example -

The Dining Room in the Country, Pierre Bonnard, 1913

Source: wikipaintings.org via Rob Pointon on Pinterest

Oil Painting 56 - The German Market, Birmingham

A big thank you is due to Birmingham City Council for granting permission for me to paint amongst the action during the visit of the German Market to the city centre. If you haven't been it is quite an experience, the large public spaces are taken over by wooden lodges each selling winter food, beer or Christmas trinkets. The permitted outdoor drinking gives a relaxed atmosphere and attracts hoards of the city's workers after a day in the office. Smells of garlic mushrooms and sizzling sausages permeate the air.

These German markets really come to life when the light dulls and the strings of lights that adorn each building make the whole market glow invitingly. I wanted an image that captured some of this bright artificial light in cold dull winter days. I positioned myself alongside the large carousel that dominates Victoria Square. I had clocked this an an interesting subject when I visited the market the previous winter. It proved a really interesting challenge, mainly moving, but even in the intervals where it stopped it never seemed to stop in the same position twice.



Masses of moving intense colours filling a composition. The painting was mainly completed in dull daylight although there was a golden hour everyday at twilight when there was still enough light to see the palette and painting but little enough so that the bright lights of the carousel made it scream out in the landscape.

I enjoy how recognisable but not complete horse shapes appear out of the puzzle of moving colour. The vertical railings looping around the ride cast really interesting moving patterns of light when the daylight had gone completely.

What wasn't so enjoyable was the barrage of fairground organ music you get if you stand for days alongside a carousel trying to attract custom. The tunes this one was playing even made the news when passers by realised that 'Dambusters' and 'Dad's Army' might not be appropriate in a German Wonderland!

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

Oil Painting 48 - Tewkesbury Reflection

An easy and enjoyable piece to produce on the River Avon at Tewkesbury, just to be immersed in a large study of water reflection from the back of the boat, skitting, flamboyant brush strokes across the surface of the canvas, playing with the gesture, and the meeting of high contrast lights and darks. Very loose piece that just flowed in it's production. The weather darkened slightly with the second visit which was a bit of a shame, but has resulted in some subtle greys.

A more colourful beginning after a sunset on the first session

Oil Painting 46 - Inside the Copper Beech

I think realisation that i had not ticked all boxes with the previous painting of the Copper Beech led me to produce this quick study, literally 10 metres from the previous vantage point, stepping inside the Copper Beech's canopy and painting just the trees' internal area. This subject could have taken an enormous canvas and invited more comparison with the inside of a Cathedral, however, time and available canvases were against, so it remains quite a loose small work of the trunk.

The brushwork and approach seems different from my usual so it intrigues as a piece, although not completely sure why, I think it was enjoying fracturing some of the light into straight angled brush-strokes which is against the initial anticipated dappled treatment but does convey something of the experience of looking through all those branches. Knowing a piece is not going to be something you would ideally like from the offset, and working on it whilst flipping between another painting, does give a lack of expectation to the painting and in turn a feeling of freedom and 'anything goes'.

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 44 - Worcester Cathedral Interior

I am especially grateful to the management at Worcester Cathedral for allowing the benefits of my work to overrule the hazards and to grant me access to paint inside the Cathedral.

This interior space is beyond breathtaking, the height, space and unquestionable beauty surround you. Whereas I was struggling to find an angle that satisfied with Oil Painting 43 of the exterior, there was absolutely no problem in locating a vantage point inside the building. This for me, sits alongside some of the best Cathedral Interiors in the North of France. I can now, for the next four days at least, walk to this incredible subject from where I wake, and spend full days responding. The colours change fabulously throughout the day as the sun comes and goes throughout the different stained glass, highlighting the green and golds of the naked cotswold stone. 

I knew instantly this subject would lend itself to my approach and I could produce an individual take with challenging perspectives, gestural brushstrokes whipping the eye around to reflect the enormity and strength of the pillars, and draw out and exaggerate some of the colour subtleties within the stonework in the changing light.

Because there was just so much to go at visually I ended up attempting to contain as much as possible by standing in the central cross of the building in a position where by swinging around I could view down the Nave, both transepts and down towards the Lady Chapel, basically a panorama just short of 360 degrees catching the north, east, south and western stained glass windows in one image. Panning round so far enables you to convincingly wave the horizon and bring in a sense of height. 

This was the main struggle with this painting, wanting to spin right the way round but also knowing the overriding sensation of being in this space, and therefore the main subject, is the gravity defying height. Spinning too much and creating a thin panorama that loses that feeling of looking up would be a failure. The easiest way for me to communicate the height would be flip the panorama on its side, so you simply pan from the floor to the ceiling, which is exactly what I did Oil Painting 42 - Pugin's Gem. This piece is the straight forward symmetrical depiction of the interior of a gothic space and I wasn't surprised to find a photo with nearly the same composition in The Pugin Centre in Cheadle after starting the piece. No, I had got the appeal of the symmetry out of my system with that painting and now wanted to play games with recording right the way around me, looking up and down, even skewing and distorting some aspects to sneak the transept organ in on the right.

It was a compositional struggle that stretched me to the point of not knowing, even after a full days work, if it would read clearly as a representation of space or not. There was a eureka moment when i painted the pattern of the tiles in the central space that helped describe the entire space. All of a sudden the piece then seemed to click with the average viewer, and I gained the approval of the general public which until then had obviously been unsure! This happens a lot with the painting process in public and I often rush to get to the stage where people can read where I am going with the painting, as the activity becomes more enjoyable after that and you do not feel the end to constantly explain yourself. Believe me, a full day of rushed work and doubt, with confused glances from passers by, is a long time!

Gradually though the piece developed and the community of the Cathedral became warmer and warmer to having a painter in with them. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Cathedral, met some wonderful people, and would love the opportunity to spend more time there. A residency either with the Cathedral or the local school would be ideal where I could have more time  to explore spacial representations in this the most breathtaking of interiors. This is something I shall certainly be pursuing once I have finished dragging this 16 tonne tub around the country.

Oil Painting 43 - Worcester Cathedral

Our entrance into Birmingham was quite stressful, however the stay in the centre as I have mentioned already, and the exit we took were anything but. The canal passage past the mailbox continues, accompanied by a railway line, tree lined, surrounded by leafy Edgbaston, the Botanical Gardens and the attractive campus of Birmingham University. By the end of this stretch and then with the interest of Cadbury World, the canal was entering the first of the big three tunnels on the Birmingham and Worcester Canal and urban living is once again left behind replaced by rural Worcestershire. 

Leaving Brum means The Great Divide has now been crossed, we have left the Northern Monkeys behind and are now Southern Softies. I can feel the increased temperatures, wealth and arrogance washing over me but before I can get too comfortable in my new role snubbing the north, I am brought down to earth with a real bummer of a stretch of locks. The longest flight in the country it turns out, 50 something to Worcester in total and a particularly nasty stretch of 37 in just 4 miles at Tardebigge. Thats over 9 a mile. Luckily Stoke City holding Arsenal to a draw on BBC5Live got me through it (I have not completely abandoned my roots).

 

Eventually we pull up in Worcester, a small city dominated by an almighty Cathedral. My home city of Stoke on Trent has a much bigger population although it is a relatively new city (a federation of six squabbling towns 100 years ago) and thus doesn't have one of these enormous religious buildings dominating the skyline. It has plenty of impressive church spires and towers and even a new domed mosque but nothing on the scale of Worcester Cathedral. Nearly 1000 years old it still has the intimidating, awe-inspiring affect it's architects would have wished, and there is something utterly timeless about mooring up our floating home within ear shot of the bells tolling each hour.

Right then, where to paint it from? The iconic view of Worcester contains the Cathedral, and there seems to be one main vantage point, which is across the other side of the River Severn with a bit of cricket pitch and the arched river bridge in shot. *yawn*

I am paranoid enough about my paintings on this project becoming picture-postcard-like without consciously painting THE view of Worcester, that seems to be everywhere in the towns promotion. So out of stubbornness as much as anything, I defiantly stick to the high street side and try to get a view between the trees, this pushes me closer to the entrance and the visitors to the Cathedral so I feel I am having more of a conversation with the building, the close proximity allowing a more dramatic perspective and sense of scale, with the stonework filling the composition. The obvious influence here is the Rouen Cathedral frontage work of Claude Monet, although Dennis Creffield's expressive Cathedral representations have had a lasting impact after seeing him talk at The Princes Drawing School. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Creffield

Claude Monet's various representations of the portal of Rouen Cathedral

Dennis Creffield - Gloucester Cathedral I

We were having some rare and much appreciated sunshine and the tracking light source picking out the decorative stonework was unveiling some glorious unexpected colour combinations. Thoughts of Monet's Rouen Cathedral work and having the time to spend long periods of time with a constant subject is having appeal at this point in the midst of this stop start journey around the country, seeing so much but having limited time and feeling the pressure to keep moving.

Whilst working I was approached by a artist called Conrad (never gave surname) and we had a good constructive chat through where I was going with the piece. I think he approved. He voiced some great past artists who had similar areas of interest, particularally with the fracturing of this composition into a diamond format. The artists he named -

Lionel Feineger

Lionel Feinenger

Robert Delaunay

On the 2nd out of 3 days painting this piece there was a Graduation Ceremony

This piece, and producing it alongside the Entrance was also consciously a demonstration piece to the management team of the Cathedral to try and gain access to paint the spectacular interior...

Oil Painting 42 - Pugin's Gem

This is a painting of the interior of St Gile's in Cheadle, Staffordshire. Not really related to this trip, although we did have the boat within a couple of miles of this church on the Cauldon Canal this last winter, this painting was produced as part of an animated documentary we are working on to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the architect, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812 - 1852), the most renowned architect and designer of the nineteenth century Gothic Revival. 

The creator of the stunning interiors of the Houses of Parliament, Pugin was the architect of over one hundred buildings, and the author of several books on Gothic Art and Design. St Giles' is the most splendid of all churches designed by Pugin and expresses in every detail his idea of what a parish church should be.'Perfect Cheadle,' he said of it, 'my consolation in all afflictions.'

Source Michael Fisher AWN Pugin Guides

I have numbered it as one of the Year of the Boat project as this work seems to have ignited a greater interest in the Gothic, had an influence on the following paintings in the project. 

Oil Paintings 39, 40 and 41 - V Festival 2012

Oil Painting 39 - V festival 2012 - Arriving on the Friday

The 3 days of painting at V Festival 2011, Weston Park, last year http://www.robpointon.co.uk/tag/v-festival/ was some of the most intense and productive experiences of my career and one I was keen to revisit and build on with this year's festival. I thought this blog post would be a good opportunity to compare the work from the 2 years.

I was always against the odds this year as I only had 2 days to produce the works rather than the full 3 day weekend, the weather wasn't as good (a running theme in 2012) plus the G4S security team did not allow me access into the arena with the easel and paints despite wavers being signed, Roseclaim the V festival organising body being aware of the work and requesting a piece for their office in exchange for access. 

So I was left to get what I could from panting the crowds as they circulated around the outside of the arena and campsites. The painting I put the most work into was Oil Painting 39 - V festival 2012 - Arriving on the Friday, I tucked the easel behind an ice cream van which was going to be static for the weekend which gave me shelter from, but also a really close vantage point to the tens of thousands of festival campers who were making their way to and from the campsites. This close proximity to the moving crowd gives a more intense result to the similar subject last year (see below). 

V Festival 2011 - Outside the Arena

Oil Painting 39 - V festival 2012 - Arriving on the Friday

The composition is more dramatic, the path and side of the ice cream van giving a strong pull to a vanishing point just above the girls sunglasses. Being this close to the ice cream van gave me constant foreground material with people queuing to buy their Calypos and bottled water.

The two recognisable figures were made up from hundreds of different people queuing. It is the contrast between the definition on these figures and the blur of the abstract paintwork representing the throng behind them that is main subject in this piece - static alongside kinetic. There is also a sexual tension between the two figures and I think the amount of activity behind the male makes us feel slightly on edge and helps to relate the barrage on the senses that these festivals can bring.

I could see that this spot behind the van was as good as any, so began work on another small crowd study Oil Painting 40 - V Festival 2012 - Looking through the crowd . This painting is a little more challenging without any notable definition or description of distance. It is split very obviously, into thirds, only the recognisable signage in the upper third taking us away from a completely abstract painting. I am excited that the process of traditional on location painting is leading me to results like this, abstraction that is not forced or a one-off statement.

Oil Painting 40 - V Festival 2012 - Looking through the crowd

Painting The Main Stage 2011, not to be this year

V Festival 2011 - The Main Stage

Oil Painting 41 - V Festival 2012 - Sunday Carvery

The last piece I managed to produce this year, was on the Sunday of people getting food late afternoon and invites an interesting comparison with the Last Sun on the Sunday painting from last year (see below). Again positioning myself alongside a vendor allows shelter, some dramatic perspective and foreground figures. The splashes of colour from the sauce table work well.

V Festival 2011 - Last Sun on the Sunday