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The Courtyard Studios | Scottish Landscape Art - Scottish Landscape Paintings

Posts Tagged ‘The Courtyard Studios’

12 Open Doors ….

Courtyard Studios Open Weekend Saturday 5th / Sunday 6th October

With just over one week to go until our annual Open Studios Weekend, artists at the Courtyard Studios are starting to get into the swing of it. Brian Craig created the posters and invitations and these arrived back from the printers last week and have been either displayed or sent out to customers. Nita and I put together a press release and sent this along with photos of several of the artists, to all the local press and radio stations. The real job of getting the studios ready for the weekend starts next week and if everything goes as usual ….most of us will be madly cleaning, tidying and hanging pictures etc until late on the evening of Friday 4th Oct! I usually reckon it takes me two days to get my studio sorted out but I like to leave it until the latest possible moment so that I can continue painting for as long as possible.

Anyway, this year 12 artists will be opening their studio doors and I thought I’d use this week’s blog to let you know who they are and what they do.

Studio A: Chick McGeehan, painting.

Chick McGeehan

Chick McGeehan

Studio B: Sheila Kerr, jewellery.

Sheila Kerr jewellery

Sheila Kerr jewellery

Studio D: Margaret Carslaw, painting.

Margaret Carslaw, Painting

Margaret Carslaw, Painting

Studio E: Nita Groves, ceramics

Nita Groves - Ceramics

Nita Groves – Ceramics

Studio G: David Reid, painting

David Reid, Studio G, Portrait painting class

David Reid, Studio G, Portrait painting class

 

Studio H/I: Tom McEwan, hand book-binding.
Michelle Muir, painting
Ethan Foy, painting.

Tom McEwan, Hand book-binding

Tom McEwan, Hand book-binding

Studio J: Keith Salmon, painting.

Keith Salmon

Keith Salmon

Studio K: Stewart Souter, painting, stained glass.

Stewart Souter, Stained Glass & Painting

Stewart Souter, Stained Glass & Painting

Studio L: Brian Craig, painting, photography and graphics.

Studio M: Alison Thomas, painting. Alison will also be running some drop-in craft workshops for children aged between 5 and 14 years, throughout the weekend.

Alison Thomas

Alison Thomas

The Courtyard Studios are situated on Harbour St, next door to the Ship Inn and close to the Harbour Arts Centre and bar, the Magnum Sports Centre and Small Talk, a very popular and traditional café /tea room.

The studios will be open: Saturday 5th October, 11am – 5pm and Sunday 6th October, 12 noon – 5pm. Entry free.

I hope you can make it along.

Courtyard Studios, Irvine

Courtyard Studios, Irvine

Catching up

Inside my new studio (Studio J)

Inside my new studio (Studio J)

I’ve been back from Speyer for a week now…..and it was only yesterday that I started to feel like I was getting back into the swing of painting again!  Anyway, before anything else …the good news.  The paintings which were left in Speyer last week ….are now back in Irvine.  The company had insisted that the best they could offer (after failing to collect the packages on the day they were booked to) was a four hour collection slot one day this week.  I was trying to contact one of the chaps in the Künstlerbund to seek his help with this …when on Tuesday morning I had a phone call to say that the packages had been collected on the Monday and were due in Irvine on Wednesday!  I didn’t quite know what had happened until I got through to Mike Lauter a little later.  It appears that Mike having heard from Andrea about the problems we were having ….rang the companies local depot ….and had words.  What those words were I don’t know, but they gave him an exact collection time and arrived promptly’ …..a much better service and Mike didn’t have to wait around half or all the day waiting for them.  So, an even bigger thanks to Mike for fixing this.

It has as I say, been a week of catching up…..emails, letters, phone calls etc….but I seem to be getting through all that now.  The biggest thing really though has been trying to get back into the painting.  Since the end of September when the ‘rat’ forced me out of my old studio and into the new one, it’s been pretty hectic and so with the Open Weekend at the start of October, then all the preparations for the Speyer and Dundee exhibitions ……and then the two weeks in Germany ….well, I hadn’t really got much painting done.  I’ve always found in the past when we go away for our two weeks holiday in May that on returning it takes me quite a time to get back into work again.  Not doing any serious painting for the best part of five weeks has meant that it’s been a bit of a shock to the system the last few days.

My new studio building (Studio J)

My new studio building (Studio J)

I really like this new studio and once I’ve found places for everything and got into some kind of routine it should be very good.  It’ll take a bit of time though because with my sight so bad, I rely on memory as to where everything is.  When you move to a new place suddenly you have to once again rely on your sight to find things!  Suffice to say, I spend a lot of time at present wandering around peering vaguely and patting surfaces in the hope I’ll find whatever item it is I’m looking for …oh, and after five minutes of this there’s usually some choice language too!  It’s incredible how a magnifier or a certain paint brush or palette knife can simply disappear ….only to reappear in my back pocket or on the table in front of me fifteen minutes later!  Eventually though, as I get used to the space and layout of the new studio, everything will have its own place in the general mayhem that constitutes my work place …..and time wasting searches like this will become fewer.

The Courtyard Studios, Irvine

The Courtyard Studios, Irvine

The new studio is certainly in a good position, being right in the middle of the main studio building, facing into the courtyard and the main entrance way between The Ship Inn and the old courtyard studios building.  I will I’m sure miss the lovely view I had and the sounds of the birds I had in the summer …but I feel much more part of the small community of artists at the Courtyard now.  Indeed, with Gillian, David and Sheila working at the studios, the whole place has a much more lively appearance than a few years ago.  Yesterday for instance, only a couple of the doors were closed …most were open and busy …..it’s looking good for the future.  You’ll see from the photo of the building, that we still have no sign, but the last we heard was that  we’re waiting on planning permission which should be granted by end of November ….so keep your fingers crossed for us and if you live in Ayrshire don’t be afraid of calling in to see what we’re doing.