Project - St. Paul's Port Talbot

I decided that it's time that I did my first larger painting of Port Talbot. It's a lovely building, relatively simple, and built in what I would say is a romanesque style.

The original photo was taken some time ago. Now, I've been listening to and reading advice, and I think that I may well be guilty of skimping on my preparation. As it was, the edge of my canvas is some way away from where the original photograph ended. So I got in the car, and drove down to the chair this morning. Alright, I haven't quite got the confidence to stand there making a lightning sketch yet, but there we go, one step at a time.

Here's one of the photos I took: -

It isn't exactly the same position as the original was taken from, but that's fine. what it did do was to show me the way that the wall continues, and the buildings adjacent to the side of the church. Also, you might just notice on the left that there's a new building been built since the original picture was made. Here's a slightly different view: -

You can see it slightly better on this one. This is a new build, and to my mind it does obscure the view of the church. Here's the sketch onto canvas: -

 As part of the process I took a photo from a completely different angle, the other side of the apse, looking down the road : -

I think that I may well make this the basis for a small painting as well. Today was very grey and overcast, and so the stone looks much darker. I also like the way that the bare branches of the tree overhang in the foreground.

Challenge: Portrait

I'm only the 2nd newest member of the Afan Nedd Artists' group. Lola, the newest member, and I were sitting together when we had the Christmas meal, and while we were chatting we both challenged each other to have a go at something we would not normally have done. In Lola's case I challenged her to have a go at a landscape. In turn, she challenged me to have a go at a portrait.

To be fair, I have sort of just let it go - as you can see with the number of posts in January, it's not as if I've been idle. Since the meal I've made 3 or 4 larger paintings, and 7 or so smaller ones. But every time I see Lola on a Wednesday evening in Art Group she reminds me about it, and rightly so.

The question, then, was that if I'm going to paint a portrait, then who? I specifically didn't want to go with family, so I trawled around Google images for a bit until I found a face the really interested me, and that's what I based this sketch on: -

This is on a medium canvas - size 12x10 in. I don't know that I'll be able to start painting it before Wednesday, but that's fine. It's already posing me some questions about how I'm going to paint it, so a little bit of time to think about the answers won't go amiss.

Small Paintings of Port Talbot

I sketched out another small canvas last night. This is the Customs House - another venerable building which is no longer with us. As the name suggests, this used to be home to the Customs Office for the port. By the time I moved to Port Talbot in the mid 80s it housed offices for Social Services, and indeed I attended meetings there concerning some of my pupils at work. Here's the sketch: -

Port Talbot Customs House

I don't know if you can quite see the curved roof on the far right of the picture, but that's actually the Plaza cinema, which I painted a few weeks ago.

Sadly it seems that the place was either no longer needed by the council, or no longer fit for purpose, and it was sold a few years ago. In the last couple of years a new block has been built - as a gesture the block is called Customs House, and it's perfectly fine - but lacks the impressive qualities of its predecessor.

Small Paintings of Port Talbot Project: Grand Hotel

The nGrand Hotel is the only hotel in the Twon Centre. I'd guess that it was built in the late Victorian/Edwardianb period, hence the mish-mash of styles. Personally I like it, but I know that this sort of architecture has as many detractors as admirers. Here's the original sketch: -

- and here's the finished painting: -

Grand Hotel: Station Road Port Talbot

The Grand is the last remnant of what I'm told was an embarrassment of riches in terms of hotels and hostelries. At the other end of station road a significant number were demolished to make way for the Afan Centre (Shopping Centre) and then later, the Civic Centre.

If you'd like to see the whole gallery of paintings of Port Talbot and District, then click on this link: -
http://artdaveclark.blogspot.co.uk/p/painting-port-talbot-and-district.html

Small Paintings of Port Talbot: Beulah Chapel

This is actually one rare example of Port Talbot getting it at least partly right. It's one of my favourite buildings in Port Talbot, and it was preserved and moved to its present location in the mid 70s when the village of Groes, where it was originally situated, was demolished. At least they saved this octagonal chapel. Here's the original sketch : -

- and here's the finished painting: -

Once again, using yellow does mean that the photos make the painting look far yellower than it actially is. But I won't lie, it's a nice little addition to the collection.

Project Update: Lisbon Tram

I'm coming towards the end of the tram painting now. You can see how far I am now after a two hour Wednesday evening Art Group session.

I added more details to the buildings on the right hand side. I've started painting in the end of the street, and also finished painting the land on the far side of the bay. I've darkened the shadows on the road, and added some highlights to the paving in the foreground.

I plan to finish it at the weekend, and then leave well alone.

Small Paintings of Port Talbot Project

Juts time this evening to sketch out a small canvas of another of Port Talbot's loveliest buildings, the Beulah Chapel - colloquially, the 'Round Chapel' in Margam. Here's the sketch

The Beulah Chapel

More Small Paintings of Port Talbot

This is the Grand Hotel in Station Road: -

Grand Hotel Port Talbot Station Road

and this second photo is the library in Taibach: -

Taibach Library  Port Talbot Commercial Road

I'm really pleased with this second one, because it's based on a reference photo that I took myself about 9 am this morning. Taibach Library was cut by Neath Port Talbot Council a couple of years ago, but is currently manned and staffed by a group of wonderful volunteers. The building was one of over 600 created through the behest of the famous Scots American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie - this was a later one, having been built in the second decade of the 20th century.

Small Painting : Margam Castle

Here's the sketch I did earlier in the week of Margam Castle. Margam Castle is the name given to the mansion built by the Talbot family, after whom Port Talbot is named. It's Port Talbot's grandest building, and belongs now to the good people of Port Talbot.

Margam Castle

I painted it this morning, and here's the finished painting: -

Finished painting

I think that this and the Vivian Park painting are quite nice companion pieces to the Plaza painting I made last week.

If you'd like to look at all the paintings and sketches I've made of Port Talbot and the local area, then click this link
http://artdaveclark.blogspot.co.uk/p/painting-port-talbot-and-district.html

Small Painting: Port Talbot: Vivian Park Hotel

After seeing some wonderful paintings of past and present Port Talbot by a terrific Port Talbot artist, I've been inspired to start painting some myself. I painted the cinema last week, on a small board, and earlier this week I sketched out a couple more. Here's the Vivian Park Hotel sketch: -

Vivian Park Hotel in its last days

I painted it last night, and here's the finished picture: - 

Finished Painting

I'm not going to say that it was a work of outstanding architectural beauty, but it had a certain air of faded grandeur about it, and grandeur, at least on a human scale, is something Port Talbot is conspicuously short of. Here you can see it boarded up and forlorn in its last years, before an arson attack - which allegedly didn't do much damage at all - gave the pretext for demolishing it. It's a great shame. 

If you'd like to check on how my collection of Port Talbot pictures is progressing, click on this link to go to my gallery: -

http://artdaveclark.blogspot.co.uk/p/painting-port-talbot-and-district.html

Project Update: Lisbon Tram

I spent most of yesterday evening's session painting the Vivian Park Hotel on a small canvas board, but managed to put in another hours into the tram. Here's where we are: -

So - a very little bit of work done to the buildings on  the left. I've painted in more of the tramlines, and darkened the furthest shadows. I've started painting in details of some of the buildings at the end of the street, and done a little more work on the buildings on the right.

Project Update - Lisbon Tram

I haven't kept count before, so I don't know what is the highest number of sessions that I've had to put into one painting. I think I probably used 5 sessions to do the second commission. Well, I've just completed what I think is my 4th session on the Lisbon tram, and I'm nowhere near finished with it. Here's the latest photo: -

Lisbon Tram project - after 4 sessions

I've darkened the front of the tram a little bit more, although it isn't necessarily that obvious from this photo. I've painted in quite a bit more of the street on the left side, I've put the shadow onto the steps, although there's still some bits and pieces I want to do with them. I've darkened the closest buildings on the right side of the street. Put like that it sounds like a decent two hours' work - here's the comparison between the photo I took at the end of Saturday's session, and the photo I took at the end of tonight's: -

Comparison - before tonight and after the session

How long will it take to finish this? At least two sessions. If I work on it this weekend, I won't finish it, because this is one I'd like the Artists Group to look at and tell me their opinions.

Small Paintings - Port Talbot

I enjoyed painting the Plaza so much that I did an online search for Port Talbot artists to see if anyone else had tried to paint it. I didn't find any paintings of the Plaza, but I did find some wonderful work on the website of the Port Talbot Historical Society. This is the work of the late Ray Davies, and I think it's absolutely wonderful. You can view his paintings by clicking on this link

http://www.historicalporttalbot.com/ray-davies.html

I could never copy his work, and I wouldn't try, but looking at them I've been inspired to try to paint more of my adopted home town.

So I sketched out a couple of small canvas boards this evening - here's the first: -

Port Talbot's own stately home - Margam Castle

Alright, if I'm honest painting Margam Castle is maybe a little bit obvious, but it's a really stunning example of Victorian High Gothic Architecture, and a lovely place for a day out as well.

This second one is less obvious

The Vivian Park Hotel - Gone now

It is a fact of modern life that buildings go. The Vivian Park Hotel - in which members of my family have actually stayed - lay derelict, as it is in the photo, for quite some time before being finally demolished in 2009. It's not as if Port Talbot is actually blessed with enough stately and impressive buildings that it can afford to let ones of this quality go.

Small Painting: Cinema

My third completed small painting of the weekend is one of the cinema about 500 yards down the road from where I live. The Plaza is an old cinema, first built in 1939. I was delighted to discover a good old fashioned one screen cinema when I first moved here in 1986, and sad when it closed in 1999. Neath and Port Talbot Council bought the cinema, and two years ago they announced plans to refurbish it, and reopen it. I have yet to see any signs of work being done on the site - still, we live in hope. Here's the sketch I began with: -

Port Talbot plaza cinema - original sketch onto 5 x 7in canvas

Actually I quite like the sketch as it was, although I say it as shouldn't. Well, that's the sketch - let's say about 15 minutes needed for that. Here, let's say about 2 and a half hours later, is the finished painting: -

Port Talbot Plaza Cinema finished painting

Many of the paintings I've made are paintings of places or things I have only seen in photographs. SO this is why I'm pleased with this one, since I do know the Plaza, and colourwise I think I'm pretty much there.

Project Update Lisbon Tram

So this is where are with the tram: -

So, you can see that I've done a lot of work on the side of the tram, and also some work on darkening the front as well. I've darkened the ground in front of the tram, and I think the tram is starting to look the way I'd like it to look. I've started painting in both sides of the street. I've also started painting the paving as well. Here's a comparison - the picture on the left is how the painting is now, while the picture on the right is the way it was after I left off on Wednesday

Small Paintings

I carried on with the Lisbon Tram project for a couple of hours this morning - I'll be posting about that shortly. Now, here's the thing. With the Artist's Group we've been offered some exhibition space, and what with a spate of sales over the last fortnight I came up with the idea of bumping up my stock by painting my first small pictures. Normally I paint on boards which are either 12x10 inch or 20x16inch, but a couple of weeks ago I bought 6 small canvases - 7x5inch.

Last night I sketched out three of them: -

I haven't painted out the bubble car yet, but the Soulful Spaniel was a very quick paint - about 30 mins in total: -

For a very quick painting I'm not unhappy with this.

The tram took quite a bit longer. Background and foreground were a doddle, and very quick, but the tram itself was very fiddly. Here it is

I honestly didn't notice the problems with this painting until I finished it, when it was too late. It's such a shame the draughtsmanship isn't up to scratch, because I love everything else about it. Oh well.

This painting has since been sold

Project Update: Lisbon Tram

After finishing the Glasgow Tram tonight, I carried on working on the Lisbon Tram. This is as far as I've got now: -

Apart from one blue window on the top right I've been just working on the tram car itself. I lightened the orange of the front end, and started painting the interior of the car and the windows. There's hours and hours of work ahead, but that's fine, as it's the only project I have at the moment. That will change though . . .

You can see the difference in this comparison photo. Lightening the orange and painting in shadows, in particular inside the tram life it a little more off the canvas, and it should look even less flat when I start to paint in the side of the tram. The plan is to get the tram to a state where I'm satisfied with it before working seriously on the background. 

Glasgow Tram - Finished Painting

Here's a scan of the finished Glasgow Tram painting. I spent perhaps half an hour on the cobbles in the artists' group this evening, and then felt that I'd done as much as I can or should with it. Here's the comparison between the last three stages of painting it.

It's probably never a good idea to like your own work too much, since you'll only be hurt when people make perfectly reasonable criticisms of it, But I do like this one. I've been offered the chance to display a few paintings, and I think that this will be one of them. If you're interested in it, contact me at londinius@yahoo.co.uk

Update 31/1/16 - This painting has now been sold

Project update - Lisbon Tram

I took two photos, one about halfway through this morning's session, and the other at the end. Here's the original sketch on the canvas: -

Actually I forgot how hard it is to see the sketch on this photo. Sorry. Here's the photo after an hour or so: -

Here's what has been achieved so far. The sky, the other shore and the sea are all pretty hazy, so I painted them in first. Then I applied a creamy yellow base to the street and the buildings. Hopefully this will come through and give warmth to the buildings and street. I painted the tram a deeper yellow, which I hope will give it more substance than the rather ethereal quality of the buildings which I will be trying to achieve.

Here's the painting when I finished the session this morning: -

It doesn't look like I've done a great deal in the interim. I've finished the figure of the girl, and I'm very pleased with her, and the hair effect. I've begin trying out shade variations for some of the buildings. I painted the window frames of the end of the tram, and have started painting what we see inside it. The orange of the end of the tram is fairly even, but it's too far to the red end of the spectrum, and in the next session - maybe tomorrow, but otherwise Wednesday evening - I will try to rectify this. This is still at that early,early stage where everything looks wrong to me, but I know that if I have faith, and keep going, then, sometimes, it all will come good. 

Project Update: Glasgow Tram

I did start painting the moment I got up this morning. I haven't got a huge amount to do ont he tram now. What I decided was to leave the cobbles in the foreground to finish. I'll do this in the artists' group on Wednesday. That way I'll be able to see what the other artists in the group think about it. Here's the painting: -

Now here's a comparison between the painting as I left it last night, and the stage I've got to now: -

Project update: Old Glasgow Tram

I took my sketch of the Glasgow tram along to Wednesday evening's meeting of the Artists' Group, along with my reference photographs. I decided that as an acrylic painting this might work better with a blue sky, rather than the overcast sky of my reference photograph. I quickly painted in the foliage at the background, the grey of the pathway, and the lighter grey base colour I wanted to use for the cobbled roadway. I worked for a couple of hours, but hadn't managed much of the tram details by the time I left.

This evening I worked for another three hours. I hadn't been happy with the foliage in the background, so I did some more work on that. Then I started laying down some colour on the cobbles in the foreground, and although I'm nowhere near finished with them, I'm quite pleased with how that's all developing. Then after that I started working on the details of the tram. I'm not finished yet, not be some distance, but I'm really pretty pleased with the way that the colours I've chosen to use are combining. Here's the painting when I finished for the evening, and then below there's a comparison with the original sketch on the canvas: -

Now the really sensible thing to do would be to leave it alone for now and take it back to work on on Wednesday. Knowing me though, I'll get up tomorrow morning and won't be able to resist working on it.

Project: Lisbon Tram

You know how it is. You make plans to spend a whole day painting, and then life gets in the way. My wife was late getting up to go to a car boot sale this morning, and then while we're there, she takes forever in the supermarket while I'm waiting, and then my son rings up out of the blue and we all decide to go out for lunch. Good food, terrible service, and by the time we got home the best part of the day had gone. I don't want to rush the tram painting, and so I decided to sketch out a larger canvas, which I'm probably going to start on Wednesday in the Artists' Group.

It's not very clear on this scan I'm afraid, but if you click on it then it should become slightly clearer and larger.

Project: Old Glasgow Tram

I had a choice this morning between getting on with painting the Messerschmidt Bubble Car, or posting some paintings I've just sold. Decency prevailed and I went packaged then went out and posted the paintings.

As regards the Messerschmidt, I've found over this last couple of weeks that I've started taking on two or three projects at the same time. I sketched the drawing onto the canvas before I sketched either the Hawk or the Heinkel Trojan, but for some reason it just hasn't demanded me to paint it, and since it's not a commission, then there hasn't been an imperative to get on with it.

Going back to the paintings I posted this morning, one of them was a painting of a tram. Something occurred to me as I was posting it. Every picture I've made of a tram - a couple of paintings and a charcoal sketch - have been bought. So . . . well, to cut a long story short it occurred to me that since I don't have another tram painting to sell at the moment, then perhaps it might be an idea to start. I haven't put any paint on the canvas yet, but I've sketched the design down, and here it is: -

Glasgow Tram - sketch onto canvas

I don't often put a lot of shading into a sketch on canvas. For one thing, the graphite can mix with the paint with rather unpleasant results if you're not careful. For another, the pencil lines really don't need to be that much more than outlines for guidance.  However, I have shaded in the cobbles in this picture, simply because I find that making any kind of textured road surface is difficult and painstaking work - my hope is that the shading will give more of an idea of how to do it.

2016 Calendars

Happy New Year!

Over the last week or two I've put together some original calendars, one for my classroom, and a couple for friends and family.

This one is just charcoal and pencil sketches - the other two are one which has just my non-transport themed paintings, and another which has paintings and sketches of cars, trains, buses and trams. 

Making your own calendar is easy. My printer/scanner has software which enables you to make your own, and that's fine, but frankly you don't even need it. You can easily download an image which has each of the months and dates on it, which you can cut up and paste onto 12 Word pages, and then it's just a matter of inserting scans of your pictures. For example: -