Something for nothing.

 

I got a request today which had a familiar tone. They are not uncommon:

“I found a picture of your painting on the internet and wondered how much you charge for one of your paintings? I think it would look nice framed on one of the walls in the pub”. (The Bell Inn Nottingham).

I know the establishment well, it being a one time favoured haunt of mine. I asked which painting it was they were enquiring about, there being several studies of that building in my portfolio. The one they wanted (above) is a sketchbook piece, probably destined to obscurity in my studio drawer. So, I tell them they can have the painting itself for free, but I will get it framed (not wanting it just pinned on the wall). To this end I got a reasonable quote from a framer of just £28, and inform the Inn that if they are willing to pay that, I will personally deliver the finished item it to them.

That is, of course, the point where silence always descends.


 All text & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

All in good time. Thoresby Hall.

 I usually plan on a painting taking two or three weeks to complete; a time scale born of necessity during the years I was a full-time teacher relying on the school holidays in which to concentrate on my own art. Started in the late 90s, Thoresby Hall was probably one canvas too many of my Thoresby Estate themed paintings, obviously inspired by my childhood there. As the painting progressed my enthusiasm diminished and, never sure of what to do with the bottom right-hand corner, it was soon abandoned.

The rectangles in the composition were a probable result of my video making with a group of students in the 90's. It was all about what was in the viewfinder. Those rectangles also provided a way of putting a sense of time-lapse into the picture, something I’d been doing years previous when depicting the Primary School on Thoresby Estate.

During these recent weeks of January 2018, strolling around Thoresby Park, I noticed for the very first time how profuse the growth of mistletoe is on the uppermost branches of those trees nearest the Hall and the River Meden. There was my solution as to how to fill that right-hand corner! After c.18 years I finished the painting.

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Clockwork Mary & the Stone Circle 5.

 In December 2017 I had thought this painting finished, but I returned to it this month, repainted much of the lower section, and now consider it a 2018 piece. My original intention (as seen in the drawing) was to have much more white space, and so this amended version is much more successful.

It may seem like a big departure from the forest paintings of recent years, but several features can be found throughout my portfolio: The collage approach of assembling images with no regard for perspectives; the origami objects; the Nine Ladies Stone Circle, Matlock, which I painted in 2006; not to mention a girl in a polka dot mini-dress...

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.