New Year, New Blog

The start of a new year is all about both looking back and looking forward.  So this is a sort of 'Janus' post, looking back to the events of 2011, and ahead to all the exciting new possibilties of 2012.

To introduce myself, I am an artist living and working in Scotland.  I paint landscapes like this:

Distant Yacht on Blustery Day, Rinagree (Oil 32 x 48)

big, bold, textural, meaty, vibrant oils on canvas.  And I have a website at www.jibridgland.com where you can read about forthcoming exhibitions and so on.

So over the past year, I have had a very very busy time, with lots of work on show in London, Glasgow, Bristol, the Cotswolds - I had a painting accepted for the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, and I have been up and down the country doing preparatory work for shows which will come to fruition in the first half of 2012. 

I have a loyal band of people who support my work and who are very enthusiastic about my paintings (hullo!), which is wonderful, and I wanted to start a blog to keep you all a bit more in touch with what I'm doing, and also for me to hear from you.  

So I hope to use these posts to tell you a bit more about the paintings that I'm working on in the studio and how they come about - the places that I'm going to in order to paint, the exhibitions I've seen, the books I've read (not that I get much chance for that, but here's hoping...) and generally all the things that go together in a big patchwork to make the paintings what they are. And perhaps you'll tell me about all the places/exhibitions/books etc that inspire you too.

Hopefully these posts will start to paint a picture for you of what life's like for one painter in Scotland....