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It’s that time of year again…. Courtyard Studios Open Weekend

Posted by admin on September 27th, 2016
Art Exhibition Ayrshire

Courtyard studios, Irvine

I’ve just been sat in my rocking chair in the studio, trying to decide how to organise the space for our forthcoming Open Studios Weekend this Saturday and Sunday 1st / 2nd October.  I would normally have got everything worked out by now and it would just be a case of spending a few days painting walls, the floor and then hanging and labelling the work.  This year it’s not quite as simple as I still have work to do in the studio for the next 2 days and then it will be one mad rush!  Of course, this year I have the upstairs space too and so I’ll be able to put out quite a large selection of work.

Anyway, it should be a good weekend and there will be at least 10 of the Courtyard Studios artists and makers opening their doors this year…… so, well worth a visit if you live in or around the area.  There is plenty of parking on the Harbour side and for anyone using public transport; the train station is just 10 minutes walk down Harbour St from the studios.  We have a fantastic variety of places to eat and get refreshments close by so everything and everyone’s tastes are covered I think.  For anyone who hasn’t been to Irvine Harbour side before, we also have a fantastic beach just 10 minutes walk in the other direction from the studio…..and once on this, you can walk all the way to Troon if you want.  Of course, being on the west coast of Scotland and it being October and all that…..we can’t guarantee fine weather, although over the 14 years we’ve held this event, we’ve actually had some very fine weather on many occasions.  Fingers crossed I guess!  Other places to visit close by include the Scottish Maritime Museum and the Magnum Sports Centre.

At the same time as the Open Weekend, we are also holding our annual group exhibition in the neighbouring Harbour Arts Centre and several of the artists will also be doing demonstrations.

Right then, I had better get back to the painting.  I do hope that you can get along this weekend and I look forward to meeting you.  Please forward or pass details of this event on to anyone you know who might be interested in coming along.  Thank you.

Wasps Courtyard Studios, Open Weekend 2016

Saturday / Sunday 1st / 2nd October

Open: 12 noon – 5pm both days

Entry: Free, all welcome

Courtyard Studios, 128 Harbour St, Irvine, Ayrshire, KA12 8PZ

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A wander around town

Posted by admin on January 5th, 2016

Our first walk of this New Year did not, for once, involve a long drive up into the Highlands.  Instead it started at the front door of our house in the Girdle Toll housing estate on the edge of Irvine.   Nita just had one day off work between two lots of shifts, so to go for any kind of walk was pushing it a bit.   That said however, the weather yesterday here in Irvine, was really quite fine.  Sunny dry days have been few and far between this last year and so we decided we’d better get out and make the most of it. Hence, a local walk …a very local walk….. following the route of Irvine’s New Town Trail.

River Irvine: New Town Trail

View from the Irvine New Town Trail

I’ve walked this path a couple of times over the last fifteen years and it makes for a very pleasant wander.  The route passes within a couple of hundred metres of our house, following the line of an old railway track.   As it’s a circular route around Irvine we could go either way, but decided to save the best bit …through Eglinton Country Park, till last, and so headed left along the path, following it as it wanders through trees and grass, skirting one of the housing estates.   Beyond this, it continues, picking its way through a large built up area before reaching a small river, which it then follows closely for several kilometres. This stream joins the River Irvine on the edge of the town centre, close to a new, rather over the top road bridge.

The River Irvine on the New Town Trail

The River Irvine

The River Irvine looked very tranquil yesterday with various ducks paddling around…..such a contrast to the dreadful scenes of flooding over in Perthshire, Angus and Aberdeenshire …. for once, I guess it was a case of the sunny west.  The path follows the banks of the River Irvine and  as it goes underneath the main shopping mall, we took advantage and dropped off for coffee and a sandwich in one of the cafes and then headed on our way.   The full circuit of the New Town Trail is, I think, about 12 miles long and as we started again after lunch we suddenly realised we only had a couple of hours of daylight left …..we’d been dawdling too much!  Not wanting to walk through the country park in the dark, we picked up the pace and were soon making our way past the wonderful area of wetland that lies between the River Irvine and River Garnock. It looked beautiful in the low afternoon sun  and we just had to stop and take in the scene.  Further to the west Nita said she could just make out the Isle of Arran across the Firth of Clyde …but its hills were shrouded in mist.

The River Irvine

The River Irvine …perfect for ducks!

After crossing the River Garnock by a small road bridge, the path turns and follows the banks of the river, up stream to the edge of Kilwinning.  This is a particularly nice bit of the route and the late afternoon winter colours looked great again.  At the edge of Kilwinning the path once again turns and then enters the fabulous Eglinton Country Park.  As anyone who visits the park knows, there are numerous routes criss-crossing this large area of formal parkland, woodland and rough scrub / heath land and the New Town Trail takes a particularly good line through it. It emerges on the far side to rejoin the old railway line about a mile from our starting point.  We were back in the house on the dot of four o’clock …..five hours after setting out.

Wetlands on the River Garnock near Kilwinning

Wetlands near the River Garnock

Despite being a low level path around a new town, it makes for a really enjoyable short day and reminds you just how fine the countryside is around Irvine.  It’s sometimes very easy to forget what you have on your doorstep ……this really is well worth a try if you live in the area …..it would be very good on a bicycle too.

Eglinton Country Park Castle

The formal part of Eglinton Country Park

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An interesting week

Posted by admin on November 22nd, 2015

Finally, after almost three weeks of dark, wet and very windy weather here in Irvine, today has turned out bright and sunny and cold. It’s really beautiful here on the Harbour-side this morning and it makes for a good end to what has been a very good and interesting week.

My working week actually started with a day off!! Can’t be bad eh? That said however, I did feel like I needed one as prior to Monday I’d been in the studio every day for the previous 2 weeks. My day off did include a working lunch however! You’ll remember perhaps that back in the summer one of my paintings, “Breaking mists, on Mam na Gualainn”, won the Probus Club of Irvine Prize at the North Ayrshire Open Art Exhibition. The club, formerly the Rotary Club of Irvine, kindly invited me to join them for lunch at their weekly meeting and asked if I’d give a short talk about my work afterwards. It was a really good deal as on Monday I joined them at a local hotel and enjoyed a fine lunch with them all. I’d taken the winning painting with me, along with two other pieces and after coffee I told them all about my work. It seemed to go down well and I managed just to keep within the time limit! Nita had warned them beforehand that they might need to bop me on the head with a mallet as I tend to talk too much. Me? Talk too much?!

Tuesday included a trip down to the Waverley Gallery in Prestwick to collect nine of my prints which I’d had framed ready for a couple of pre Christmas exhibitions that I’m taking part in. One of these is at “the gallery on the corner” in Edinburgh ….details of this “Winter Print Show”, at the end of this blog.

The other show is a local “Affordable Art Fair at the Harbour Arts Centre here in Irvine which will include work from many of the Courtyard Studios Artists and which will run from December 16th . Until January 8th. Full details slightly nearer the time.

Wednesday was a full day of painting and although it started badly …I completely wrecked a small 30 x 30 cm acrylic and pastel painting that I’d spent about 20 hours on, the remainder of the day went well. After the disaster with the acrylic and pastel piece, I went to work on a couple of my larger oil pieces ….and by the end of the evening at 8pm, I had developed both pieces quite well and I left for home feeling good.

Thursday was something a bit different as Nita and I had been invited along to the Opening of John Lowrie Morrison’s new exhibition, “Jolomo at the Mitchell”. The exhibition was to be officially opened by HRH the Princess Royal and so Thursday morning found me wearing smart clothes…..and a tie! The exhibition is in the magnificent space of the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and I have to say that the work looked great in the fabulous space. We had plenty of time to see the exhibition prior to the Royal party arriving and it all made for a very interesting, enjoyable and for Nita and I, very different kind of lunchtime. I think that the show is only on for another week so do pop in to see it if you are in Glasgow over the next few days. Look out for painting No 47 ….a fabulous piece of work I think.

Friday was another day spent painting and I finally finished one of my canvases and moved another one quite close to being finished. I’m really starting to enjoy working with oil at long last and am starting to think that this will be the way forward in the future.

305 'Breaking mists on Mam na Gualainnt', Acrylic & Pastel, 2013, 80 x 80 cm

‘Breaking mists on Mam na Gualainn’

Yesterday was a good end to the week as I had some visitors to my studio who purchased the “Breaking mists, on Mam na Gualainn” painting. The lady and gentleman (Nettie and Ted) had earlier this year bought one of my small pen sketches at a charity auction in Ipswich and had then gone on to check out my website. A few weeks ago, Nettie contacted me to say they had seen the Mam na Gualainn painting on the website and really wanted to buy it ….but also wanted to visit my studio and collect it in person. As they live in Essex, it meant an almost 450 mile drive and they rather heroically made it despite their car having a major breakdown in the north of England and it having to be towed back to Essex. They however were determined to get to Ayrshire and so hired a car to complete the journey. They arrived yesterday afternoon along with their five small dogs and we had a very enjoyable couple of hours together. Nettie is a painter too and we had agreed a part exchange of work. We now have one of her beautiful wee paintings on our wall and to cap it all, Ted presented me with a copy of a book his father had written back in the late 1930’s I think. He was an established British climber and with two of his colleagues they produced this fabulous book called “British Hills and Mountains”. I’ve only had a short while to look through it, but it’s full of wonderful black and white photographs….. many of them of hills Nita and I have climbed over the years. What is really interesting is that many of these photos are of angles I’ve not seem before. Wow ….in my element or what! Sadly I can’t see print any longer but Nita has said she’ll read the book to me. So then, a big thank you to Nettie and Ted who, as I type will be driving back to Essex. As I said at the start of this blog ….it’s been a very interesting week.

Print show in irvine

Winter Print Show, Irvine

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Isle of Arran Distillery exhibition – 3 weeks to go….

Posted by admin on October 9th, 2015

It is amazing quite how fast time has flown recently, as we’re already well into the second month of the exhibition at the Isle of Arran Distillery.   Nita went over for me a few weeks ago to deliver a few more prints and gift cards for the visitor centre shop and she said that they reckoned they’d been getting a very good response to the work.  I was certainly very pleased with the way the big Glen Rosa drawing looked in the space as well as the five paintings we hung with it, so if you haven’t been to see the show and you either live in the region or are visiting on holiday ….you’ve got three weeks left to catch it.  Of course, if you can’t get over to Arran but are in Irvine at any time, you can see the full size reproduction of the Glen Rosa drawing near the Town House in the centre of Irvine.  North Ayrshire Council produced this high quality print of the drawing and has sited it in this very central part of town.

Glen Rosa at the HAC

The finished Glen Rosa drawing, Harbour Arts Centre, January 2015

The reason I’ve been so busy of late has been because we were preparing for our annual Open Studios Weekend and our “21 Years” group exhibition at the Harbour Arts Centre.  The exhibition preview was last Friday 2nd October and we had a very enjoyable and busy evening.  It was the first time for many years that the artists here at the WASPS Courtyard Studios have held an exhibition together and I’m delighted to say that it’s a “good’n”.  Do pop in to see it if you have a spare half an hour or so …there is some really excellent work included…… do check out the display cabinet containing book-binding by Tom McEwen  and ceramics by Nita Groves ….very different, very exciting.   The exhibition runs until 23rd October 2015, so plenty of time left to see it.

'On display at the Isle of Arran Distillery Visitor Centre until 31st October'

‘On display at the Isle of Arran Distillery Visitor Centre until 31st October, 2015’

The Open Studios Weekend went really well.  In fact it was the busiest event we’ve ever had…. by a long way.  During the course of last weekend we saw just under 500 visitors come into the studios!  It made for a great atmosphere and has hopefully raised our profile somewhat.  A big thanks to everyone who came to the Courtyard Studios last weekend, I hope you enjoyed the experience.  We are of course, open to the public right throughout the year so don’t be afraid to call back and see the studios in their working mode.

Arran Distillery Exhibition

‘On display at the Isle of Arran Distillery Visitor Centre until 31st October, 2015’

To get such a good turn out we had to get the event publicised really well and this year we seemed to get everything right.  Much work was done by event rep Nita, studio rep Brian, Alison and Marie in the Harbour Arts Centre and the good folk at WASPS head office in Glasgow….. So well done all.  We were also helped significantly by all the local harbour side businesses that put up posters and gave out event flyers and leaflets for us.  Our local press were great too, giving us good coverage in the run-up to the event, as was our local radio station Irvine Beat, who allowed me to tell their listeners all about the event.  We were also helped by the people at Irvine’s Big Screen in the centre of town.  They very kindly screened details of the event during the week before.    So then a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who helped make last weekend at the Courtyard Studios and Harbour Arts Centre such a success.

Arran Distillery Exhibition

‘On display at the Isle of Arran Distillery Visitor Centre until 31st October’

It’s back to normal this week and I’ve already started work on several new oil paintings and the tidy studio space of the weekend is fast becoming messy again!

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Coming soon: Open Studios Weekend – “21 Years” Courtyard Studios Group Exhibition

Posted by admin on September 16th, 2015

Not long to go now.  Just over two weeks until our annual Open Studios Weekend at the Courtyard Studios.  It’s amazing how fast it has come around again and I’m already starting to try and work out exactly what work I’m going to display …… and work out how many days I’ll need to get the studio tidy, cleaned and ready for the event.  In the past it’s taken me anything from a leisurely 5 days down to a mad rush of 2 days!  I expect with all the work I have on right now that it’ll be the latter again this year!

WASP Courtyard Studios, Irvine

Courtyard Studios, Irvine

This, I think, will be the 13th year of the Open Weekend and I’ve taken part in all but the first one.  I actually moved into my studio a couple of weeks before the event in 2003 and had the very different problem of finding enough work to fill the walls!  Now, the studio is pretty full and I’ll have the problem of where to hide all the stuff not hanging.  Oh well, it’s always a good excuse to have a clear out once a year.

This year, for almost the first time I think, everyone is taking part and so it’ll be a great chance for visitors to see inside all the studios and to see the great variety of work that is done here at the Courtyard.  There are 17 artists working here producing paintings, drawings, prints, photography, installations, ceramics, music, hand bookbinding and jewellery and although visitors are welcome to the studios all year round, this annual Open Studios Weekend is the best opportunity to catch us all open at the same time.  So then, do make a date in your diary and come down and see us:

Courtyard Studios Open Weekend
Saturday 3rd / Sunday 4th October 2015
Open: Sat 11am – 5pm, Sun 12 noon – 5pm
All welcome, entry free
Courtyard Studios, 128 Harbour St, Irvine, KA12 8PZ

WASP Open Studio Invitation

Open Studio Invitation

Also:

“21 Years”

A group exhibition by artists working at the Courtyard Studios celebrating 21 years of creative practise at the studios on Irvine’s historic harbour side.

Harbour Arts Centre
114 -116 Harbour St, Irvine, KA12 8PZ
Friday 2nd October – Friday 23rd October

Yes, that’s right, the Courtyard Studios have actually been in existence for 21 years and some of the artists have been here almost from the start.  To celebrate, we are holding a group exhibition at the neighbouring Harbour Arts Centre to coincide with the Open studios Weekend.  The exhibition will preview on the evening of Friday 2nd October 2015 and will run for three weeks.  During the Open Weekend several of the Courtyard artists will be running workshops or talks at the HAC.   So then, it should be a great weekend with lots to see and do and with plenty of great places close by to get food and refreshments, make Irvine Harbour side your place to visit on the weekend of Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th October 2015.

WASP 21 years Irvine exhibition

Courtyard Studios 21 year group exhibition poster

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“Listening to Arran”, or “Us humans are very noisy you know”

Posted by admin on February 6th, 2015
Approaching the Isle of Arran

Approaching the Isle of Arran

Yesterday Nita and I spent five hours over on the Isle of Arran.  We weren’t up in the snow covered hills, or enjoying the wilds of Glen Rosa or Sannox however, instead we simply took our time wandering along the shore-line from the ferry to Brodick Castle gardens and back.  Now then, I know I haven’t been getting out walking much this last few months, but even I’m not that unfit that it takes me five hours to walk this relatively short distance!

If you follow my Face Book page, (Keith Salmon – Scottish Landscape Artist) you’ll have seen that I’ve been pondering over how I might develop my work if the little bit of sight I currently have, deteriorates.   Apart from the obvious solution, to return to making sculpture, I have over the last couple of years been thinking about the possibilities of using sound in some way to compliment the paintings and drawings.

You’ll remember that when I created the big Glen Rosa drawing last month, I had arranged for a time lapse camera to be fitted to record each days work.  This was done by Graham Byron and his team at Model X Media and as Graham is the sound engineer at the Harbour Arts Centre, Nita suggested to me that I ask him for advice about how I might create outdoor sound recordings.  I spent some time explaining what I was thinking of trying to do and he very kindly offered to lend me some recording equipment and show me how to use it.

So then, the purpose of yesterday’s leisurely stroll around Brodick Bay to the castle and back was for me to tryout the small recorder Graham lent me.  I’d already tried it out a couple of times along the harbour side here in Irvine and so had, I thought, a rough idea of which buttons to press.  Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. When you can’t read the screen and are basically a bit of a technology dork…. even four buttons can be a bit confusing when you’re out there in the field!!  My first attempt at recording some sound, (at the point where the path crosses a wee bridge very close to the sea shore) was a bit of an epic.  Needless to say I couldn’t get the recorder to work!  Nita came to the rescue and pointed out that the batteries were flat.  After that, with a new set of batteries, I was off and running …or stumbling.  I thought it would be nice to record the twin sounds of the waves breaking on the shore to my right and the water slopping around in the stream to my left.  Simple…..only I’d forgotten that the path over the bridge was a popular one and after just a few seconds of recording, a small school party on bicycles trundled by. Not too bad you’d have thought, only that one of the children fell off their bike, (luckily no damage done) but there was much kafuffle.  It was amazing ….the wee microphone caught it all!

We continued along the shore with me stopping regularly to record some more sounds.  After two or three attempts I was fairly confident that I was pushing the right buttons and I started to think more about the sounds around me and how I might use them with my work.  The microphone was really quite sensitive and picked up a very broad range of sounds ….giving great depth to the recordings.  Of course, I found that there was a huge amount of “noise pollution”, (not all of it made by me I hasten to add).  However, at one point in the grounds of Brodick castle I thought I’d try record the sound of a very small stream of water that was trickling over some rocks.  No sooner had I started the recording than a fishing boat out in the bay, fired up its marine diesel, a vehicle came along the road behind us and a plane flew overhead on its way to Prestwick airport …..and I started swearing! We humans are very noisy!   Of course though, it didn’t matter.  I was just out to see what the machine would do and what kind of problems I might encounter ….it was all good fun.

A fuzzy Beinn Nuis ....I think!

A fuzzy Beinn Nuis ….I think!

On our return to the ferry, I’d made about 20 short recordings and the whole process had started to make me think about my work in a slightly different way.  I still haven’t a clue how I might use sound in my work, but I’m very excited after this first day out with the recorder.  I think there are a lot of possibilities.  I now have to ask Graham to show me the next step, of downloading the recordings onto my PC and how to edit them.  This blog is therefore; very silent ….but watch out, future blogs could get very noisy!

Posted in Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine, Personal, Photography, Sound Recording, Visual Disability Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment »

“In Sun, snow, mist and rain”, a final view

Posted by admin on January 4th, 2015

My current exhibition at the Harbour Arts Centre here in Irvine, ends on Friday January 9th and as you probably know, it has been an exhibition of paintings along with the creation of a new large graphite drawing.

'Passing snow shower, on the slopes of Ben Loyal'

‘Passing snow shower, on the slopes of Ben Loyal’

It has been a very enjoyable time working in the gallery amidst the exhibition and it has been great hearing people’s comments and remarks as they have watched the drawing develop from a huge blank piece of paper, through apparently random scribbled marks and slowly into a recognisable landscape.

'Harris, west coast'

‘Harris, west coast’

One of the most common questions has been ….when do you know that it is finished? This also has to be one of the most difficult questions to answer! I had done many smaller drawings prior to the exhibition, to try and work out quite what the big drawing might look like, but these were only ever going to give me a very general idea. Working on this very large scale I had to develop the composition and “feel” of the work, as I did it. Knowing then, quite when it was finished was tricky, but I think I’ve got it about right. There are plenty of things that I might do differently if I were to do it again, but I’m very a happy with this result. I’ve learnt a lot from doing this project and it’s given me a lot of confidence that I could do large scale commissions like this if I can get them……..if you happen to be part of a large organisation or commercial group looking to commission large scale contemporary work …. do give me a call.

'A damp morning, Buachaille Etive Beag, Glen Coe'

‘A damp morning, Buachaille Etive Beag, Glen Coe’

As for this particular drawing, well, I’m giving this to North Ayrshire Council for their collection. We’re still discussing how and where the drawing might be displayed, but I’ll be formally handing the piece over at the “End View” on Thursday evening, 8th January. We decided to hold an “End view” so that we could invite folk back to view the finished work and it seemed the perfect time to pass the drawing on to the council. If I haven’t already sent you an invitation, please except my apologies and accept this open invitation to come along and help celebrate the successful conclusion of the exhibition and project.

'Below Mid Hill, spring'

‘Below Mid Hill, spring’

If you don’t live in the area or haven’t been able to get in to see the exhibition, the images displayed here show a few of the works.

'A January afternoon, Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran'

‘A January afternoon, Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran’

“In sun, snow, mist and rain”, Harbour Arts Centre, 114 – 116 Harbour St, Irvine, Ayrshire, KA12 8PZ.
“End view”, Thursday 8th January 2015, 7pm – 9pm, all welcome.

Posted in abstract scottish landscape paintings, Exhibitions, Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , No Comments »

Getting ready for the: Courtyard Studios Open Weekend

Posted by admin on September 28th, 2014

Getting ready for the: Courtyard Studios Open Weekend, Saturday / Sunday 4th / 5th October 2014

I’m really busy at the moment getting everything arranged for my exhibition and drawing project starting at the end of November. As such, I decided a few days ago that instead of spending a whole week (as usual) getting the studio tidy and clean, ready for our annual Open Studios Weekend next Saturday and Sunday, I’d carry on working up until Wednesday evening and then have two mad, mad days rushing around getting everything ready.

Well, that was the plan. Yesterday however, it changed. I had a somewhat disruptive few hours and really wasn’t concentrating on the painting I was working on. This is always dangerous and it’s much better to stop working than to try and carry on ….and inevitably wreck the piece of work you’re doing. So, with several hours of the afternoon to go, I decided to start clearing all the stuff (boxes of pastels, tools, picture hanging cord, rolls of tape, boxes of nails, loose pieces of paper, old sketches……etc, etc , etc) off the top of my main table. This is always an onerous job as I only tackle it once a year…..yes; you’ve guessed it, the week before the Open Studios Weekend! Of course once I started it kind of created a chain reaction. Before I left the studio last night, my simple table-top tidying had already spread to moving paintings!

As you know, I’ve been working on three 120 x 120 cm canvases, two of which are finished and the third that still needs plenty of work. This final painting will have to be packed away in the large box the original canvas arrived in. The problem is that I was planning to do some more work on it today, leaving a surface of wet oil paint. In order to make sure that I’m not tempted to reach for the paint brush, I took the canvas off the wall yesterday and it’ll be boxed up today! So much for my plan to carry on painting until the middle of the week! That said, I do have several small acrylic and pastel paintings on the go and so may well get a day or two working on them. I’ll just have to remember not to pack away my acrylic paints.

This then is the run up to the Open Weekend. It’s always a bit crazy but thankfully this year Stephanie has taken on the job of organising the event and she is doing a great job. All I have to do is get my own space ready and myself down to the studio ready for an 11am start next Saturday morning. It should be a very good event this year with 14 out of the 17 artists taking part. This will mean a lot of very different work to see including all kinds of paintings and drawings, ceramics, jewellery, photography, hand book-binding and live music. Three of the artists will be running a workshop, talk or demonstration during the weekend…..check out the WASPS website for details. As usual the event is free to enter and everyone is welcome. We’re close to several very good bars, restaurants and cafes and the Magnum Sports Centre is just 2 minutes walk away ….so you can make a fine afternoon of it. Hopefully we’ll see some of you next weekend. Please spread the word. Thank you.

Courtyard Studios Open Weekend
Saturday 4th October, 11 am – 5 pm
Sunday 5th October, 12 noon – 5 pm

Courtyard Studios, 128 Harbour St, Irvine, Ayrshire, KA12 8PZ

Starting the pre Open Studios Weekend tidy-up!

Starting the pre Open Studios Weekend tidy-up!

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Posted in Courtyard Studios Open Weekend, Exhibitions, Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment »

…..about the Courtyard Open Studios Weekend

Posted by admin on August 21st, 2014

Courtyard Studios, Irvine

Courtyard Studios, Irvine

I’ve been awake for the last few hours trying to decide what to do about this years Courtyard Studios Open Weekend.   As you probably know if you’ve been following the last 234 blogs, every year we have an Open Studios Weekend.  This always takes place on the first weekend of October…..this year, (our 12th such event I think) will be on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th October.

The event was originally set up by WASPS back in 2002 I think, with each of their studio buildings taking part.  I’ve obviously only been involved with the Courtyard in Irvine but, over the years, we’ve slowly honed the event to meet our needs and it has generally been a very worth while thing to do, especially in terms of promoting the Courtyard as a venue for professional and quality arts in the region, and to some degree, as a means of creating opportunities and sales for the participating artists.

A successful event each year doesn’t however just happen, it takes a lot of hard work organising and promoting it. Over the years first with WASPS help and then more recently off our own backs, we’ve created something that people in the area know about and support ….in the last couple of years we’ve had close on 300 visitors through the door over each of the weekends……but as I say, it does take a lot of work.   In the past Anita and I have always taken an active part in helping to organise the event at the Courtyard and we’d said that we’d do the same again this year.  However, back in July WASPS announced that they were developing the event further  this year with plans for extra money for workshops, artists talks and promotion and that they’d be looking for an official ‘Open studios rep to co-ordinate things  this year.  This will involve a lot more work than normal for whoever does the job.

As you know, I have been busy recently getting paintings ready for The Biscuit Factory autumn exhibition and now that they’re away, I have to put most of my efforts into preparing for the big drawing event and exhibition that I’m holding at the Harbour Arts Centre starting on 27th November.  This is still three months away but there is a huge amount (both creative and organisational) to be done for it.  As such, I told those attending the Open Studios weekend meetings, that I’d not be able to take on the extra work now involved in being official rep for the event and asked that someone else volunteer to do  it this year.

Surprise, surprise however, just yesterday Anita and I received an email from WASPS asking what was happening re the Open Studios Weekend at the Courtyard and whether we were going to be co-ordinating things again this year and as such, act as reps for the event.   This is why I’ve been awake half the night!  I really can’t take on the extra work now involved this year and it would be great if one of my colleagues would pick up the reigns.  Here’s hoping…..!   Oh well, whatever happens, we’ll get there in the end and it will as usual be a great event, so make sure you put it down in your diary:

Courtyard Studios Open Weekend

Saturday 4th / Sunday 5th October 2014

Open: Saturday 11 am – 5pm, Sunday 12 noon – 5pm

Hope to see some of you there.

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Working on a larger scale

Posted by admin on April 4th, 2014
Work in progress, 120 x 120 cm

Work in progress, 120 x 120 cm

One of my colleagues at the Courtyard Studios, Margaret Carslaw, nearly always works on a large scale.  Her drawings and paintings are rarely smaller than 120 x 120 cm and usually bigger.  As someone who generally works on pieces that are less than a metre square, I’ve always found it fascinating seeing Margaret’s large paintings and watching how she approaches them.  Over the years we’ve had many discussions about our work and she’s tried to persuade me of the merits of working on a large scale while I’ve been trying to persuade her that it’s just as challenging working on something small!  I guess when it comes down to it, we’re probably both right but I’ve certainly found myself drifting towards creating larger work.

Of course, all the creative bumf aside, there is a practical side to this which if you want to exhibit and sell work, does come into it ……..the simple question of how to transport large works.  When we changed vehicles back in 2010 we had originally thought of getting a small van instead of a car.  It seemed to make sense except for the fact that we occasionally need to carry passengers…..apart from the legality or otherwise of it, we didn’t think our friend Guy would enjoy sitting on the floor bouncing around in the back of a van all the way to Glencoe and back and Nita’s parents on their annual visit certainly wouldn’t enjoy the experience either, even if it was just to go down to the Harbourside!  So then, Nita spent many hours pawing through the ‘What car’ magazines before finally coming up with a Citroen Nemo …..a boxy thing that would take a lot of paintings up to a metre wide and a vehicle that was very economic too.  It’s been a very good compromise and I can fit a lot of this smaller sized work in it when I need to and Guy and Nita’s parents can ride in it comfortably.

As I say though, I’ve gradually been moving towards doing larger work and decided last year that I had, in the exhibition / drawing project arranged for Nov / Dec at the our neighbouring Harbour Arts Centre, an excuse to do a couple of larger paintings …..it’s less than 100 metres from the Courtyard to the HAC so no vehicles needed to transport the work ….I can simply carry the paintings across.   I bought what for me is quite a large canvas ….120 x 120 cm back before Christmas and started work on it almost straight away.

It’s been a really good experience and I decided from the outset that I’d try using my father’s big old horse hair house painting brush on this painting.  I want it to be quite bold as well as quite textural.  The brush is at least six inches wide and the course hairs leave wonderful marks in the thick oil paint.   Four months on from starting it, the painting is still in progress but starting to come together now. I’ve been spending a day on it and then letting the paint dry for a few days so that I can build up overlapping layers of colour and mark.  The painting is a reworking of an idea I had back in 2008 but which at the time I did on a much smaller scale and in a landscape format.   I want the painting to be as much about the colour, composition and texture as about the landscape…..but as usual will try to create a balance between the two.

Anyway, with this piece well under way, I’ve just made a note to order another 120 x 120 cm canvas as well as something around 120 x 40 cm ……this to create something based on the wild snow covered landscape that we experienced around Corrour the other week.  Margaret may well be winning the battle of wills…..I seem to be getting hooked on doing bigger work!  And what about my transportation argument I hear you shout?  Well, just last week a lady visited my studio who is planning to set up a small business in the area transporting artwork in a large van she owns.  She’s a painter herself…..so if she gets set up, transporting the occasional large canvas may not be so problematic…..that’s my excuse anyway!

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