Birmingham - Year of the Boat preview evening

Birmingham Exhibition

26th April - 18th May 2013

Some more wonderful photography by Page Seven Photography...

Portrait at Gas Street Basin, at the spot where I painted Oil Painting 38, the photographers were keen to test a comparison of the photograph vs the actual painting (see below)

The painting in the window at Number Nine the Gallery, Brindley Place

Clive Henderson, former Chairman of IWA and influential in the establishment of the Canal and River Trust, alongside his now completed portrait

Tony Hales, Chairman of Canal and River Trust opening the Birmingham show

The presentation of Clive Henderson's portrait. Left to right; Rob Pointon, Clive Henderson, Tony Hales

Well attended launch party

Manchester - Year of the Boat Launch

The April Year of the Boat launch in Manchester was a great success, below are some images taken by the superb photographers Page Seven Photography

Poet Laurette for the Canals - Jo Bell, chatting with Andrew Denny at the launch

The Year of the Boat team - Karen Sayle, Rob Pointon and Carolyn Powell

Look at all that space! The wonderful Artzu Gallery in Spinningfields, Manchester

The launch

Oil Painting 64 - Sunlit Castlefield

This painting was begun in harsh wind and cold when I was still limited to the boat. I lashed the painting to the stern and weighted the easel down to combat the wind. The painting transformed completely when I finally get to revisit it over a week later. No wind and glorious sunshine made the process easier and more enjoyable. I couldn't get the boat to the same spot though; so I had to readjust the painting to a new vantage point. I really enjoyed this adjustment and the movement within the piece's history.

Oil Painting 63 - Castlefield Reflection

A view from the back of the boat chosen because it was a stunning view of the famous mixed arches and bridges of Castlefield and also because the wispy snow and bitterly cold and strong wind meant I was not straying too far from the warmth of the wood burner. The wind meant the water was not as still as previous reflection studies I have attempted in this project, and it is this distortion of the reflection by the undulating water surface that is the main subject of the piece.

This photograph was taken by the superb Page Seven Photography. Image use can be arranged by emailing contact@pagesevenphotography.co.uk

Oil Painting 62 - Above Deansgate Locks

The breach on the Trent and Mersey by Middlewich meant our return to Manchester was via the Macclesfield, Peak Forest and Ashton canals.

After a winter of animations and harsh weather I was eager to get the paints flying again in Manchester, and on the home stretch into Castlefield, I was already spying possible subject matter and left the boat dropping in a lock to run up these stairs to check the view from this metro station.

The shear drop down to the bar terraces and the canal even further below, in contrast to straining your neck to catch the full height of the Beetham Tower was an interesting spacial challenge. I also wanted to depict the dog-legging staircase up to where I was standing as a device to describe the different levels and the banister railings to help reiterate the vertical. It got to the interesting stage where I was having to look through myself to describe the platform.

Oil Painting 61 - Portrait of Clive Henderson

I am delighted to have had the support of the Canal and River Trust throughout this project. A percentage of all proceeds from the Year of the Boat exhibitions (see exhibitions page) and the supporting merchandise shall be donated to the trust.

http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/art-and-the-canal-and-river-trust/the-year-of-the-boat

When I was asked to paint the portrait of former IWA Chairman Clive Henderson as a thank you from the Trust for playing an instrumental role in its establishment, I jumped at the opportunity.

I have spent a few days with Clive sat on the lock gate outside his house producing the oil-painted portrait. The painting shall be presented to him by Canal and River Trust at the launch of the Birmingham Year of the Boat Exhibition, and as I don't want to spoil the surprise you only get to see the pencil sketch at this stage!

Oil Painting 60 - Winter Scene on the Trent and Mersey

The unusual tan colour of the Trent and Mersey at this point is heightened by the pure white of the fresh snow which is enough to make even the regal resident swans look dirty against this backdrop. The 'tan' of the canal is caused by it passing through a geological area of iron ore which I am guessing occurs somewhere in the Harecastle tunnel as it flows in a murky green and comes out almost a golden brown. There is a strange point with the Macclesfield Canal aqueduct over the Trent and Mersey just after the tunnel where you have a green canal flowing over a tan brown.

I have had a few snow painting experiences in the past, some have been white outs where the snow landing thickly on the palette has meant I've given up, but although it was snowing whilst producing this piece it was thin enough not to obstruct the process.

Snow and canal boats! Not too many outdoor paintings over the winter you may have noticed, we have been producing animations to help fund the Year of the Boat, but I assure you we didn't shy away from fully experiencing the freeze from the boat.

Edgmond House Commission

A private commission produced this winter as a surprise 50th birthday present for the owner of this wonderful property near Newport, Shropshire. He had previously seen and expressed interest in the Weston Park interior paintings, so his wife knew it would be something of interest.

I wanted a composition that would combine a view out to the garden, in particular capturing the height of the tall tree, with an unusual depiction of the lounge. The enormous windows flood this room with natural light and give an enjoyable comparison to the artificial wall lights and chandelier which is sending out shafts of colour across the white ceiling.

I enjoyed depicting the mass of the material of the large curtains in the foreground, trying to really reflect their weight. This reminded me of one of Lucian Freud's earlier paintings which is primarily a study of gravity with a dense coat hanging alongside a gravity defying plant delicately meandering upwards.

Large Interior, Paddington, Lucian Freud

Source: wikipaintings.org via Rob Pointon on Pinterest

The painting was presented on the birthday with the room still empty on the understanding I could return to paint in family figures if required.

After some deliberation this was agreed and I painted in three of the family's children. We were all keen to keep the depiction of the family informal and almost incidental. I am pleased with the results.

Altogether this piece was 6 days work spread over a few weeks.

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 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 54 - The Divinity School, The Bodleian Library

I was getting the impression whilst producing the painting of the Radcliffe Camera and the view from the tower that I was still missing an important feature of the Oxford experience. A lot of the fascination of Oxford University is that it seems to be going on behind closed doors that the city just allows you glimpses of from the street. I wanted to get inside some of these majestic buildings I was staring at and the obvious place to start seemed to be the famous Bodleian Library.

After signing wavers stating I would pay for any damages caused (not stupid these Oxford University people) I was granted access to paint in the Divinity School section of the library.

Wikipedia can give you a more reliable account of the buildings historical importance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinity_School,_Oxford

Although I do know quite a bit since standing in there for two days and listening to numerous tours. This is a gothic masterpiece, and unusual because the plans were changed dramatically half way through the 15th century build. It was never intended to be a 'school' as such, more a room for examination of a students knowledge through aural debate, with students addressing their professor, fellow students and the general public from pulpits in the room. The subject being 'Divinity' which was the core subject in the 15th century with so much of education being linked to the church. 

So it was really a presentation room, all 'study' was happening in the neighbouring colleges and the university just stood as an examination body in the centre. Wealth came to the colleges from former students but not really to the university itself and so the build of this school was delayed over the course of the century due to lack of funds. The university were presented with a collection of some 245 manuscripts by the Duke Humphrey half way through and this is where the dramatic change to the design arrives. In order to house the manuscripts (extremely rare and valuable, often bejewelled) the university divided this space into two storeys instead of a single tall room. This has pushed an elaborate gothic ceiling down really close to the naked eye and gives the opportunity to really study the remarkable amount of decorative bosses.

It has also survived remarkable well, looking as though the 15th century stone masons could have left yesterday, The Reformation left a serious toll on religious architecture in the country with saint carvings and crucifixes being defaced, but only a handful of such vandalism occurred in this room. Upstairs, the now named Duke Humphrey's Library, suffered a different fate with only 4 of the 245 manuscripts surviving with piles of books being burnt in bonfires outside the library.

The library is still being used today and so is the Divinity School as a graduation ceremony location for Oxford University students along with the neighbouring Sheldonian theatre.

The other key point the tour guides would bring up when they could see heads dipping in the tour groups was ...

Harry Potter was filmed in here! *heads look up*

and in the Duke Humphrey's Library upstairs! I was painting the the actual Hogwarts.

How was it used?

Ron Weasley learned how to Waltz in this room, it was also the Infirmary in one of the first films. I was standing pretty close to Harry's hospital bed

I dont even like Harry Potter. I was more a Lord of the Rings fan, I think that is the Beatles vs The Stones of our generation.

Anyway, hope you like the painting, I am pleased with the injected colour into the naked stone, similar to what happened in Worcester Cathedral although this has a much warmer quality due mainly to two dull days outside that allowed the artificial light inside to light up the fluted stonework like fire. These gothic subjects are really linking well with my work at the moment and I am please with this discovered tangent to year of the boat.

Detail of Oil Painting 44 - Worcester Cathedral