..And Finally....

Today is the last big push for the consignment of paintings for London.

The right canvasses have to go in the right frames, and all checked over, and then the right labels with the right titles have to go on the right paintings and be parcelled up with the right address labels and the right paperwork.  

Once everything is double triple checked and accounted for,  it's off in the van to London.

Of course, as usual, it's the iciest, most wintry day of the year...

Patrick Moore v Damien Hirst

Look up into the sky tonight, and you'll probably see a new constellation, one which forms a rather grumpy looking but familiar face with a monacle.  Because Patrick Moore died yesterday.

(c) BBC

The irreplaceably eccentric astronomer, who presented The Sky at Night for 55 years (it would have been 60 years, but he spoke very fast), always had a sharp sentence on pretty much any topic.

Back in May 2003 for example, Damien Hirst had one of his spot artworks jettisoned into space on the Mars lander craft Beagle 2 (which went on to stray off into the cosmos - bad dog).  

Here it is.

(c) BBC

"If they've got eyes, they'll love it!", said Hirst of the Martians, confident that they'd be absolutely  thrilled by the sight of 16 coloured spots representing the pinnacle of another civilisation's cultural achievement.

"It won't interest the Martians," snapped an unimpressed Moore.

The Martians have yet to comment.

"To the Sea" Solo Show Preview Date

The date for my 2013 solo Show has been confirmed.

"TO THE SEA" will open on Thursday 14th February at Duncan R Miller Fine Arts, St James's, London.

Montbretia in Sea Breeze, Portrush (Oil on linen, 32 x 48)

This is the year's major collection of work, and only solo show, with the chance to see brand new paintings from a variety of locations both familiar and new. 

The exhibition will include paintings of Morar, Fife, Northern Ireland, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Wales, and scenes of Hampstead Heath and the Thames. 

There will be full colour catalogues available in the New Year, so if you'd like one sent out to you, or an invite to the show, then just drop me a line with your postal address.

If the preview is anything like last year's sell-out, then it promises to be quite an event!

Christmas Doesn't Get Much More Traditional Than This...

Thought you might like to see our Christmas Advent Calendar.

Yup, gets you in the mood, doesn't it?

Name That Painting...

Here's Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny in Skyfall.

You'll notice that there's a rather nice landscape painting on the wall behind her.

 

There seems to be a great deal of significance to the paintings in this film, so has anyone got any ideas what it is and who it's by?  

Here's a rather blurry close-up...

 

This is only half of it, unfortunately, as the delightful Miss M inconveniently has her head over the right hand part.  (However,  I had a look at another still in a book of Skyfall in a bookshop yesterday, and the right hand side just shows a dark, round tree and a bit more of the river.)

So - calling all you Art History buffs - any ideas?  Or has anyone got any better stills of this?

Those look like rather Italianate cypress trees and a little temple.  It's a very flat 19th century-looking landscape with nice Constable-like clouds, but it doesn't look very English. What place has a flat meandering river like that?  It is a foreign scene, or an English country estate in the Italian style?

Constable has been suggested to me, so have a look for comparison at this view of Weymouth by Constable in the Louvre.  This is the nearest I could find in terms of the clouds and the colouring (though not the subject) by Constable to Miss M's painting - I was looking especially at that peachy-orangey section. However, you'll see Constable has a more rugged, impressionistic handling of the paint.

So, any ideas?

I look forward to your suggestions!

UPDATE:  Thanks to an alert reader, here's the ANSWER.

To Glaze or Not to Glaze...

I am often asked why my paintings are framed using glass.

If you own one of my pictures, you'll see that I have glass over the top of the painting, with a spacer in between (called a slip) so that the paint does not touch the glass. The reverse has a backing board covering the canvas, so that the painting is presented as a 'sealed unit'.  

Now, I have a friend who is a painting conservator, and he says that most of his work comes from paintings which have been ripped or damaged by the edges of chairs or tables.  Hence a backing board on a painting is a no-brainer.

However, the argument I often hear is that 'oils shouldn't be covered by glass', as you can't see the texture of the paint.  I would say that if you go into any major art gallery or museum, you'll see that all the paintings have glass over them.

The reason for this is conservation.  Glass provides the best environment for the long-term preservation of the painting, and protection of both the canvas and paint surfaces.

Pigments can be faded and the paint made brittle by the action of UV light upon the painting. Ordinary glass cuts down UV light by around 40%.  The more expensive museum quality glass is 2-3mm thick glass with a UV coating, sandwiched between two layers of  anti-glare optical coating, and cuts down 98-99% of harmful UV light.

Glass also protects the textured paint surface from dust and dirt.  Oil paint never fully 'cures' or dries.  If it did, it would come away from the canvas.  

I was told a story about a conservator who, many years ago (before Van Gogh was so famous) took a Van Gogh into his lecture to show his students.  Although the painting was at that point about 70 years old, when he stuck a pin into a textured part of the paint, it came out with wet paint residue on it.  (You wouldn't be allowed to do that nowadays with a priceless masterpiece, but obviously art lectures in the 60s were much more relaxed, cavalier affairs...)

I take a huge amount of care and put a great deal of thought into all my work, and I want it to leave my studio and go out into the world in absolutely the best condition that it can.  Painters are always aware that their work will outlive them as their legacy, so my paintings are quality products made with quality materials, to the best of my ability.  Therefore I choose the best bespoke Belgian linen canvasses, and bespoke hand-crafted, hand-gessoed and gilded frames, with glazing and backing. 

However, I am also aware that the trend is now for people to enjoy my work without the barrier of glass between themselves and the texture of the paint.  And that's fine - the paintings won't fade in my lifetime or yours, so please choose to enjoy them and live with them as you wish now. Homes are not museums.

(Top tip for getting rid of dust on the impasto - use a hairdryer on a cool setting to gently blow the dust away.)

Hopefully, my paintings will last for hundreds of years, give a lot of pleasure over generations, and still look as good as the day I painted them.

Latest paintings...

Pier at Evening (Oil on linen, 32 x 32)