Willow Pattern ~

This is the next still life so far. I started the plate and blocked in the sugar shaker and knife today. It is actually a scalloped plate, that is it has little bits nibbled out of the edge. I will actually ignore the scalloped edge. There is probably about 2 days painting left to finish it. I may do some tomorrow I’ll see.


When I was young we had plenty of willow pattern crockery at home its odd to think that it is collected now. Good plates are particularly expensive as I suppose people hang them on the wall.

The story attached to Willow Pattern is about a Mandarin’s daughter Koong-se who fell in love with a servant Chang who. The couple eloped and it is they being chased across the bridge by the Mandarin.

Eventually the lovers settled in distant lands, but this is no happy ending story. The Mandarins men found them, put Chang to the sword and burnt down the house with Koong-se in it.

The gods were touched by the story and immortalised the lovers as two doves and stuck them on a plate.

Well it goes something like that anyway. It’s quite a nice story and as I said before I like to know the story behind things.

Chicken tonight!

The painting above is of Laugharne Castle and was sold at the end of last year. I am something of a romantic in that I have an attachment to old places, churches, castles and am interested in the history of places. When I was young one of my ambitions was to be an archaeologist. To be fair at other times wanted to be a train driver, a scientist, a sailor, an artist and a stonemason.


I did go on a few archaeological digs which were interesting at times but there was a lot of scraping and digging. As I have a low boredom threshold I soon fell out of the idea of being an archaeologist. I had a good education but didn’t work at school leaving at 16yrs. I tried to get a job as a stonemason but failed at the time as no one was taking on apprentices.

I have done a lot of sailing and I am a full time artist so in the end I didn’t do badly.

I like history because I like to know the story behind things. Why is a place called that? How old is that? I am interested in my family history which I can trace back to 1500's on my mother's side.

I talked about my father yesterday. I have researched into his side of the family without much success. My father said his side of the family were Romanies from North Africa. I never really believed him but there again he was very dark skinned. I am quite dark and also have a propensity to keloidal scarring which is I understand genetic to persons of African or Asian descent. So who knows.


His mother’s family were easy to trace, they were  from Pembroke Dock, and were  mostly Dockyard workers.
Anyway today I started another still life. I am using the willow pattern coffee pot I bought on ebay and a willow pattern plate. It is quite involved and because of the detail it can be quite tiring on the eyes. I have made good progress though.

Alex is still at her mother’s so I am considering how to cook chicken thighs now.

Broadhaven

I did the painting above today from the sketch in yesterday’s post. You will note I did make a couple of changes. I ended up with one dog although I did paint two initially and I also added a couple of sea birds. I am quite happy with the composition now.


It is a nice history picture of a boy with his father and a dog. A history picture lets the viewer read what is happening or has happened in the painting.

It reminds me of my father who was an extremely clever man. I would spend many happy hours watching him work in his workshop. Although I was too young to remember we were the only people in our street to have a television when Broadcasts started in our area. This would be 1955 I believe. The local doctor and all the neighbours came around for the first program.

We weren’t rich but my father had made the television from bits he had collected. It was apparently a green and black picture as it was an old cathode ray tube from some defunct radar equipment. It all worked perfectly except the picture was upside down. This was quickly rectified by turning the case on its head.

The term thinking outside the box must have been invented for him. If he wanted something he would think about how to make it irrespective of the complexities.

To my knowledge he made an electronic organ, many radio’s, stereo player, lathe’s, metal working machines, a large electric saw you had to start by slipping the pulley with a counter weight. His whole workshop had many strange machines running on old flat canvas belts held together with metal pins that made a “clacking ”sound as they ran over the pulleys.

Sadly all those machines are gone now but the memories are alive in my head.

Today Alex took her mother home so I am left with Jac and my mother to look after.

Where to start

No, I know its not pretty but in the interest of art I thought I would show you a sketch I did for the next painting. It is a rough sketch on cheap printer paper. The blob in the sky is not the sun. It is a blob of olive oil picked up off the kitchen table. I have resolved the composition of the painting here, well almost I am not 100% certain. I may move the second dog. I will probably paint the dog with the ball first and see.

Today I did a few household chores unblocking a drain and re-hanging a door... Then I watched highlights of the Ashes. I then spent some time with pencil and paper to come up with the next painting. I will make this a small painting as I think it will suit it well. I have also decided to slightly change the foreground of the painting I did yesterday. I want a touch more yellow ochre in it. Now I am going for provisions as Alex is off for a few days taking her Mom home.
I should get a bit done while she is away and have plenty of excercise as she has the car.

Nansen

Yesterday when I went to Llandielo I stopped on the way back to do a quick sketch of the Towy Valley from Whitemill. Today I did the painting shown with the sketch above. The sky was not that clear either yesterday or today more a dirty grey but I wanted a clear sharp sky so there it is.



During Christmas we played a number of games of Trivial Pursuit and one of the questions was about Fridtjof Nansen. I was particularly interested as my Junior School was named after him.

Nansen was a Norwegian Scientist and Explorer. Born in1861 died May 13, 1930.

He explored the Arctic using dogs and sledges. Nansen and one companion, with thirty days' rations for twenty-eight dogs, three sledges, two kayaks, and a hundred days' rations for themselves, set out in March 1895 to the North Pole. In twenty-three days they travelled 140 miles over oceans of tumbled ice, getting closer to the Pole than anyone had previously been.

Alex and I are fortunate to have travelled in the Arctic Circle and sailed on a sloop around the Lofoten Islands and the West Coast of Norway (yes, I know there is no East Coast). The scenery was spectacular but strangely there was little to be seen in the way of wildlife. There were very few birds and not much evidence of anything else except for dried and salted cod which to be honest must be an acquired taste.

On my second walk today I saw a fox about 50ft away he was in superb condition and had obviously not suffered from the recent cold spell. His coat was all the earth colours and more than spectacular.

Now its time for a cup of tea.

House

When I talked about my mother walking home it reminded me of our old house. So I did a watercolour sketch ommitting a large Dutch Elm tree in the garden. Now normally a house is just a house. This house however has had quite a few interesting events in its history. Here are a few I know of.




Eastville was built I believe in the last quarter of the 19th century. At some stage it was lived in by the local vicar. My mother’s friend used to live there until she tragically died. The parents could no longer bear to live there so put they house up for sale and my grandfather bought it in the 1920’s.

It was a large three-story building with a cellar and gardens, including a well and water pump.

One night during the Second World War my mother came home from driving an ambulance to find a land mine had been dropped nearby. Many houses had disappeared, as had the roof of our house. Fortunately neither my grandfather nor grandmother was hurt.The roof was eventually replaced although when it snowed and blew hard the snow would get in under the tiles and lie in the loft and you had to climb in and shovel it up.

We moved into the house to look after my grandparents when I was about 11years old and lived there until my mother and father sold it in the 1970’s. The house then was pretty much as it would have been pre-war. It was full of Edwardian and Victorian furniture and paintings. The only heating was a coal fire in the Lounge. In my bedroom ice formed on the inside of the windows throughout the winter. I loved that house and the many paintings that were hung there. The paintings have long gone being either sold or passed on to family members. They weren’t hugely valuable but they were good original paintings by listed artists many being former members of the R.A. It is difficult not to believe they had a major influence upon me.

Having just sold it within a month the rear chimneystack fell through the roof. It was a huge stack and must have caused major damage. I don’t believe there were any injuries.

Later the house was used as the location for the Grand Hotel in a television series called “Boon” with Michael Elphick and Neil Morrisey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5XWmU-lv3Q

The house became a Care Home for a while.

Now the house stands empty, windows boarded up and waiting for demolition and development. It is sad to see it when I think of all the interesting and happy memories locked inside it.

Today I went to an antique shop in Llandeilo and bought a couple of props for painting
a couple of Victorian wine glasses £5 each and a Spode  willow pattern plate with excellent definition £7.

Ghost

Here is the sugar shaker pretty well finished. I had a fresh look at it today and there are a couple of details to finalise including the rim of the bowl. I used a good warm background made up from Burnt Umber and French Ultramarine adding Titanium white and Yellow Ochre when bringing it into the foregound.
Anyway we had a good New Years Eve.

Yesterday I went to see my mother and was greeted with,
 “I thought you were dead, dear.” I didn't think I was so I replied with the quote by Mark Twain,
 “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

It went over my mother’s head and into the ether!
“Have you come to make my sandwiches?”

I thought about her comments and those she made before she became confused. Her view was that the young generation ie.mine (although I am grey and have six grandchildren) is very weak and becomes upset by death too easily. She had lived through the War and seen many friends die and had seen the huge amount of suffering caused by the Luftwaffe.
She drove an ambulance in the war and often referred to the large numbers of dead that were the daily toll. She and many others would walk back home in the early hours with bombs still going off and the fires burning having little choice but to accept whatever hand fate played for them. She is now at an age now when there are only a handful of her friends left alive.

So from her perspective maybe I can see why death is treated in a fairly matter of fact manner.
 I have to take the dogs out now.
Then I will watch the rugby on the television. Scarlets v Dragons. Alex is hoping to start framing again tomorrow as we have some work to finish.