Hyacinth - Watercolour

I did this painting of a hyacinth in 2006. It's a watercolour on paper. If I had to choose only one medium it would be watercolour. It's such a delicate yet powerful medium. I love the translucency of the light and the vibrant energy from moving the washes.

Watercolour is a friendly medium in that anyone can quickly learn how to use it but it's also a challenging medium as it is difficult to produce really good results. So I get wonderful satisfaction from completing a good watercolour and feel a closer bond to the painting too.

I was very pleased with the hyacinth. It's such a beautiful flower and I love the way I've worked the blues and greens in the painting. It's a simple picture really, just a flower, but the final result still gives me enjoyment every time I look at it.

I Wish I Was Back On The Farm - George Formby

This is a pencil work I completed recently. It shows George Formby playing 'I Wish I Was Back On The Farm' from the 1941 movie, 'Spare A Copper'. This is one of my favourite George songs; the lyrics always make me laugh with their unlikely tales of naughty ladies, cups of tea and pigeons! (You can read the lyrics on the George Formby Society website.)

I'm very pleased with this one in the way I've caught the hands of George strumming and picking out the chords. When I look at the picture I can hear him playing the song in my mind!

As with my other George portraits, I've done it with soft graphite and charcoal sketch art pencils on  Daler Rowney 220g/m2 (135lbs) art paper, which is very nice paper to work with. Different makes and hardness of pencil produce different effects on different makes and types of paper, so it's important to get the 'tools' that you are comfortable with. You can, of course, produce good works with any mix of pencils and paper, but it's a more pleasurable experience when you're working with your favourites.

Triton

This is a painting from about three years ago of a Triton motorcycle. As with most Tritons, it's a Norton Featherbed frame with a Triumph engine, in this case a 3-cylinder Trident engine, which of course is a BSA engine really! Rather than the usual bare alloy tank, which can be somewhat brash, this one is attractive in having a classy black tank with gold pin striping.

The older motorcycles are a treat to work in paint. Modern bikes tend to be a mass of plastic but go back about thirty years and you have all the tones of the different metals and all the engineering details on display. I like painting in a loose style and it's a challenge to do that with a motorcycle whilst retaining the details that the enthusiast likes to pour over, such as the finning on the engine.

I feel I've got the balance right in this work. 

Beryl Formby

This is a pencil work I've just finished of George Formby's wife, Beryl. It's of a young Beryl when she had those movie star looks. She was certainly a beautiful young woman.

I'm a bit of a fan of Beryl. Most of the stuff written about her is the same old, one-dimensional nonsense. But few of those writers consider the stress of a husband and wife living and working closely together year after year after year. Okay, their relationship may have faded in later years, but I believe there was a mutual devotion between the two of them, and she had a loving and caring side to her nature.

I'm pleased with the detail and technique that I've put into this painting. To be honest though, I didn't really enjoy doing it. I don't generally find women's faces particularly interesting, particularly young women's; they don't seem to have the character and peculiarities of a male face. I think I'll have another attempt at Beryl later, but next time I'll try an older Beryl where you can read her life and humanity through the aging lines on her face.

 

Autumn

This is a painting I did back in 1990. It's gouache on art paper especially designed for gouache paint.

1990 seems a long time ago now but I still vividly remember painting this picture. I used to try to go outside every morning or early evening before or after college or work, and have a walk around, looking for scenes to capture in my sketch book. When time permitted, I would take with me a small easel and my paints and complete a painting outdoors.

This one is an urban landscape in autumn, in the early morning. Autumn is such a wonderful month. The summer in my old home town is quite hot, so I always looked forward to autumn with its cool breezes and later pre-winter chills. And the autumnal colours are an artist's dream. The deciduous reds and yellows seem to possess a sumptuous gamut of hues. It's a season of dramatic light with sophisticated shadows and enhanced highlights.

Despite signalling the coming of winter, autumn is a month full of life, and I feel this picture captures that spirit.

1954 Rolls Royce Silver Dawn

I like painting older cars and motorcycles. The older cars have lovely lines and shapes and the motorcycles have wonderful mechanical details. There's tremendous light and colour to play with, copper pipes bathed in sunlight for example, and age gives them a distinguished patina.

This is a painting I've just completed of George Formby's 1954 Rolls Royce Silver Dawn. It's acrylic paint on art card, A3 size. Actually, I've been working with acrylics for a while now but, to be honest, I'm not sure I like them. The end result is appealing but the paint dries awfully quickly which I find somewhat restrictive. I love mediums where you can move the colours around and work the paint, as you can with watercolour, or even gouache. I may move back to gouache in the future, a paint I love to work with.

George bought the Silver Dawn in September 1954, new of course, and sold it a few months later. He certainly got through his cars (and bikes) did George! Unlike the second owner who kept the car for over 50 years. The wonderful thing about this Silver Dawn is that it's still around, has its original registration, PGY 324, its original paintwork, and lots of other details like its original radio. Perhaps it needs a CD player so that one may sing along to 'I'm the Emperor of Lancashire' whilst motoring through Wigan?

The car's colours are wonderful, aren't they? A 'shell grey' that enchantingly changes with the ambient light, and a 'midnight blue' that is sumptuously dark.

I hope you like the picture, I certainly do. I planning a picture of George's Norton International in the near future - the two pictures would complement each other perfectly.

You Don't Need a Licence For That

I thought I'd try and show how I do my pictures.

I start off with an idea. In this case, I wanted to do a picture of one of my favourite George Formby songs, 'You Don't Need a Licence For That'. Actually, the movie in which it was performed, 'George in Civvy Street' is also one of my favourites. I like his later movies as they seem to have a bit more about them plot-wise, and have nicer production qualities, maybe because they had bigger budgets.

Once I've got the idea, I look at various photographs and film stills to think about my composition. To produce a good picture you also need to understand the subject, so I spend some time thinking about how George performs, his posture and mannerisms, how he holds his uke, his eyes and smile, and so on. A lot of this may seem fine detail but it's necessary to get it right at the initial composition and outline sketching stage.

Now I can start working with my pencils (see the attached pictures).

(1) I start by loosely sketching the main image - George's body - to get the physical proportions and the stance correct. This is a quick and light sketch, but it is important for the line to be right. I start with a 4B pencil for a soft bold line.

(2) Next I add some rough shading, mainly to the outlines, to give the loose sketch more substance. I'm working from dark to light - getting the dark areas in place first. Notice how George's face is now easily recognisable after only a little pencil work.

(3) Then I put in more accurate shading and layer up the darker areas. This puts greater detail into the face and hands. I also begin to lightly sketch in the background composition.

(4) It's not just pencils of course. I'm also blending and blurring using a special artist kneaded eraser or my finger, maybe to subdue areas or visually recede them. I also build up the background detail now whilst ensuring it doesn't distract from the main image of George. Some of the background is very abstract or hardly discernable. Other parts however are more detailed, like the pub sign which I feel is an important part of the picture's narrative. I had to give a lot of consideration to its positioning as whilst it is important, it is there to complement George and not to take the eye away from him.

(5) Nearly finished, and I tidy up the final light and shading effects, and think about the shadowing, in the pockets of his jacket for example. I'm using harder pencils now but rarely harder than a 2B. This is a difficult time really as I need to know when to stop - there's always the temptation to do just one more little thing and before you know it the picture becomes overworked and looses its natural energy.

(6) Finally the finished picture can be signed!

Banjolele

This is a picture I did of one of George Formby's banjoleles; it's the Gibson UB4 'Concert' that he used on the television show, 'The Friday Show'. That was his final T.V. performance, back in 1960.

It has the script 'Low Lampost' because that was written on the vellum to indicate the tuning.

Like a lot of old musical instruments, it's beautifully finished and was delightful to paint, endeavouring to capture the polished burl walnut, the rich rosewood, the soft ivoroid inlays, and the nickel plating.

I've done some similar paintings of both banjoleles and ukuleles for people, personalising the picture appropriately for their instrument. If you have a charming old instrument, like a Gibson or a Keech, or even a modern one with sentimental value, it's wonderful to have a picture of the instrument, your instrument, in a favourite place in your home.