Woodland Critter

My mind has been taken up with a mixture of leafy issues and faeries and woodland spirit types. So I managed a quick sketch of a woodland critter, not sure if he’s one of the good critters or one of the more mischievous types, time will tell.

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The Truth About Faeries from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Lord of the Rings

10th July 2010 to 12th September 2010 – Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle

“From the Golden Age of illustration from the 1860s to 1920s up to the present day, this exhibition explores the prevailing interest amongst story tellers, artists, film makers and illustrators in the world of fairies.”

When I first heard about this exhibition my intent had been to visit on day one, real life of course has a way of putting small hurdles in our path which means plans sometimes go out of the window Anyway, today we managed to visit this exhibition, and I’m glad we did. My main reason for visiting had been to see some of Alan Lee’s originals; I’ve been looking at his work in printed form for years but this was my first chance to see an original or two.

We’ve seen quite a few exhibitions at Tullie house now, some of them I had to leave fairly quickly before I fell victim to pretentious-crap-syndrome, that horrible condition where you start to think the artist really did have something in mind when the gathered together a load of old junk and called it art. The Truth About Faeries exhibition makes up for all the bad experiences we’ve had there.

What did surprise me was how some of the paintings affected me, I was looking forward as I’ve said the the Alan Lee originals, what I wasn’t expecting was how Brian Froud’s works would hit me. Staring at Brian’s Green Man and Bluebell Fairy made me realize how far I have to go with a paintbrush, I must admit that looking at Sword by Alan Lee gave me a slight sinking feeling that I’ll never be able to paint moving water in a way that I’ll be happy with now

As much as looking at the delicate works of Brian and Alan made me want to sit down with some watercolours and paint for the rest of the week, looking at The Source of the Anduin by Paul Raymond Gregory made me want to run out and buy some huge canvas and vanish whilst I found part of Middle Earth hidden there. When you enter the gallery to view this exhibition you are greeted by a combination of faeries and green men, turn to your right and look down the length of the room and you are faced with this huge canvas by Paul, it took a fair amount of self control to visit the paintings in turn and not walk straight to this oil painting.

So, why is this a must see exhibition, well really look at the list of exhibitors to start with and then if that does not stir you to action think back to your childhood, did you ever read a Ladybird book, The Elves and the Shoemaker perhaps, well tucked away near the doorway are a small collection of original illustrations from a number of Ladybird books. They are quite simply a delightful glimpse at the art that affected so many of our childhoods.

This is an exhibition we’ll have to visit again, it’s so rare to see art like this in the far North of England that to miss it would be a shame, and once you’ve seen it once you’ll want to visit again

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A3 Watercolour.

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Clouds and Towers

I’ve been plagued by clouds this week, well not plagued as such but they have always been ‘there’ whenever I wanted to do something that did not feature clouds So it felt appropriate that my first sketch should be of clouds over the Shire.

I’ve also been trying to think of some different architecture for watch towers, how they could either blend into or be a prominent feature of the landscape. I’ll be playing with architecture quite a bit over the coming weeks I think

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Reviewing The Eleventh Plague presented me with a problem, I received the book fully intending to make copious notes and give a thorough and page by page, chapter by chapter review. So what happened to all my plans, why am I sitting here working out a fancy way of saying, stop what you are doing and go by this book. Or more accurately stop what you are doing and go buy the first two books in the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles (as the Eleventh Plague is the second of the chronicles with The Equivoque Principle being the first).

Well, I’ll tell you what happened, Cornelius happened. Cornelius has been described as a mix of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Houdini with a hint of Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure, and when you read the chronicles you can appreciate that description. He’s not your traditional action hero, but he does have an element of Holmes given the era the books are set in and his cerebral approach to problems. Not that he thinks on the situation at hand as much as Holmes, nor does he have the drug issues Cornelius is every bit the showman Houdini was, and you’ll just have to read the Eleventh Plague to pick up on the Indiana Jones element.

What does make these books a pleasant change from the norm is Cornelius’ companion, he doesn’t have the mindless dogsbody that can’t think for himself, or the vacant headed bimbo that many seem to acquire. The companion for Cornelius in the Eleventh Plague is a rather mature fortune teller called Madame Destine, it’s almost as if rather than take Dr Watson along Sherlock took his house keeper Mrs Hudson to meet the hound of the Baskervilles. While Madame Destine may sound like a strange companion for Cornelius she actually works very well in the role to the point where her character is as strong as Cornelius throughout the book and often has a story line to match – no weaker underlying story for Destine, she gets level pegging

Darren Craske writes with just enough description to immerse you in the World of Cornelius and Madame Destine without bogging you down with irrelevant details. The places he writes about in The Eleventh Plague are familiar in many ways I would imagine to most readers and so he does not need to spend pages describing every element of the landscape, but he certainly gives you enough detail to draw you into the book and keep you there.

There is one minor niggle with the book(s), each chapter has a playing card printed beneath the first few lines of text which makes it difficult to read at times. I don’t really like being dragged out of the moment to try and work out what something says. Maybe it’s just me (and perhaps it’s my ex-graphic design eye shouting in protest ) but I do like books to have a clear text to read.

Luckily there is another book in the pipeline to look forward to, and believe me you’ll be looking forward to the third instalment when you’ve read the Eleventh Plague. I would imagine that Darren has had a movie company or two knocking on his door by now as these chronicles are shouting out to be filmed.

The first book in the series is available online via Darren’s website link

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Rivendell & wandering

I have in the back of my mind an idea to paint Rivendell in oil on a huge canvas, to do this I need a few things to happen. I need to earn enough money so that we can live in Lauterbrunnen for a month or two, and of course I have to develop the confidence to tackle the painting for now I’ll keep sketching ideas…

Oh yes, I feel like a wander in some remote hills too

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Big Tree, Bigger Stone

Sitting at work I was wondering what to sketch flipping through a landscape photography magazine and I spotted a rather nice tree, being tempted to draw trees now and then I decided to use the image as reference and have a go at it

I’ve also been trying to think of landscapes incorporating monoliths of varying sizes and shapes, and so we have…

It’s actually the first scribble for a painting I have lodged in my brain, long way to go yet though

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We then went on to Armathwaite to look at the Eden, it really is looking like it could run dry almost any day, when I think back to how I’ve seen it in the past it’s quite amazing really.

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