Hampshire Open Studios

Today was the first day of Hampshire Open Studios! I have lots of new work, especially on paper, so if you are thinking of visiting, don't forget to have a look through the browser and the rack of "4x4"s.

Sunday 19 August:	open 10am - 5pm
Monday 20 August:	open 10am - 5pm
Tuesday 21 August:	closed, but the Artikinesis Exhibition, Traces of Prehistory is still open in Andover (10am to 5pm)
Wednesday 22 August:	closed, but the Artikinesis Exhibition, Traces of Prehistory is still open in Andover in the morning (10 am to 12 noon)
Thursday 23 August:	open 10am - 5pm
Friday 24 August:	closed
Saturday 25 August:	open 10am - 5pm
Sunday 26 August:	open 10am - 5pm
Bank Holiday Monday 27 August:	open 10am - 5pm

Full details on my Open Studios page here.

Red Wine and Apricots: a series of three oil paintings

These three paintings were made on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday of the long weekend just gone. I had my studio open as part of Open Studios West Berkshire and North Hampshire on all three days, and it seemed like a useful sort of thing to be doing in between visitors.

I was attracted to the glassy reflections and to the subtly varying colours of the bottle and its dark contents. I also enjoyed the contrast with the duller texture of the apricots and the book, which toned so seredipitously with the fruit.

Each painting is 33 x 41 cm and is executed on clear-gessoed natural linen in oil paint with a knife (more accurately, a selection of knives). Together, they tell a sort of story - a very ordinary story, of things being consumed - but they aren't necessarily intended to be a set. Despite that, I can't help but think of them as being the beginning, middle and end...

Read Wine and Apricots 1 (Beginning), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Red Wine and Apricots 2 (Middle), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Red Wine and Apricots (End), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Just in case you were wondering, the wine was a smooth but unremarkable Bordeaux, the book is Leonardo by Martin Kemp, and the apricots were - well, they were apricots, and they were very nice.

Sentinel: Danebury Hillfort

Sentinel, oil on linen, 70 x 50 cm

I've painted this beech tree before, but this time it is in leaf, and more of the lumps and bumps of the hillfort's earthworks are visible.

The tree stands, tall, proud and solitary, by the entrance to the fort (here, we are looking out of the fort). It made me think of a guardian or sentinel.

Sentinel

oil on linen, 70 x 50 cm

£260

Painted 19 May 2018 in Open Studio

Cover 2 Cover 2017

The local Open Studios sketchbook exchange scheme is well underway and I don't seem to have posted about it at all. This year, we are working in second hand books, chosen to refect our themes. It's a strange feeling, delibeately defacing a printed book, but it's easier if you're not the first...

Here is a small selection from the work I have done so far.

My own theme was Classical Mechanics, which is about macroscopic movement and physical forces. The book I was given was A Child's A-Z of Technology, whose slippery A4 pages were difficult to work with; I ended up obliterating much of the content with acrylic gesso, although there were a few entries that seemed apt enough to retain:

Clocks and Cogs: original content, graphite pencil, Molotow marker and watch parts.

Up Swan Street

This is the companion piece to Down Swan Street and was painted just outside of the studio door on Sunday, the final day of Open Studios West Berkshire and North Hampshire, with a few minor adjustments made today.

The sky was ominous for most of Sunday, and, by the time I took the decision to stop, thunder was rolling through the valley. The red kite had been calling most of the afternoon, and made an appearance in the sky at just the right time for it to also appear in the painting.

Oil on canvas, 40 x 60 cm

Down Swan Street

This was painted outside of my Open Studio, yesterday. Just outside the open door of my Open Studio, to be precise.

Oil on box canvas, 40 x 60 cm

Danebury - SOLD

Hill forts are rather difficult to depict as a whole, and sometimes rather unsatisfying or unrepresentantive as little bits. Dannebury hill fort, near Andover in Hampshire, is a large and fairly complex hillfort, but it does have some satisfyingly significant ramparts, and some very lovely trees.

Here s one of the latter upon one of the former.

From a photograph, painted in the Open Studio last week.

Oil on linen canvas, 50 x 70 cm
SOLD

Fun with Whiteboards

This year's first whiteboard featuring whiteboard drawings of a selection of my own paintings

A sketch of the street outside the studio

It was raining.
This one stayed inside, got wiped, and redrawn on a piece of A4 paper...

Most recent, inspired by woodcut and several other things lying around the studio.

Day off

The church and the foreground gravestone kept me busy yesterday, and I'm still not finished...

... but I am closed today. For part of the day, I'll be stewarding at the INSIGHT exhibition (note that the pictures in that link are last year's). Back in the studio tomorrow...

Looking forward to tomorrow's Bank Holiday...

... when I might finish this local church. If you're in the area, why don't you pop in to ssee how far I've got? I'm open 11am to 5pm.

Gold and Grey - SOLD

Yesterday's in-studio painting, a local landscape. The trees on the ridge may be familiar if you recall Ridge or any of the Skyline paintings.

Oil on canvas, 100 x 65 cm
SOLD

Open Studios West Berkshire and North Hampshire 2016

My home-made sign

Swan House aka 24 Swan Street

View through the door to my studio at 10:30 am.
I had just finished tidying up.

South Central Article

This is the text for the article published in South Central.

Artists Open Studios in West Berkshire and North Hampshire

by Amanda Bates

The Open Studios in West Berkshire and North Hampshire has run annually in May since 1988. Though its primary purpose is to provide a platform for the public to meet artists in their own work spaces, and perhaps buy some of the artists' work, OS WBNH extends beyond that with several “outreach” activities, including a schools education program and free public workshops, not to mention the various exhibitions held throughout the year.

It takes a lot of work to make this all happen, and it's all done by volunteers.

I spoke to the chair of the committee, John Brazendale. This is John's first year as chair , but he's been involved with the scheme for many years. John himself is a ceramicist, a graduate of St Martin's College, London, and a former teacher.

I joined the scheme last year, not long after its founder Pat Eastop died. I never met her. Knowing that she was key to understanding OS WBNH, I asked John about Pat, who was also a school teacher.

I knew Pat for over 40 years. I joined her committee soon after I retired and we worked together, developing the scheme. She worked 24/7 on Open Studios, it was 'her baby', she knew every artist and she wanted to help each and every one of them to produce their best work and give them the opportunity to show it.

But it didn't end there...

What strikes me more and more this year is the range of activities we offer the community. This is a major part of [Pat's] legacy, which we intend to continue. Over the past year I've researched how other schemes work. I don't know of any other that offers what OS WBNH does.

One of the factors that sets WB&NHOS apart is its reputation for quality. This starts with the artists, who have all been accredited by the committee. I asked, “How do the committee make those difficult selection decisions?”

The OS WBNH Accreditation Process is a long process which most schemes don't use. Pat felt very strongly that the standards of OS must be maintained.

The artist submits three pieces of work, wich are displayed at New Greenham Arts.

Five or six committee members who have gone through the Art School system scrutinise the art works and the supporting documentation. They use the criteria agreed by the committee and work independently in their decisions before casting their votes. Borderline candidates will be discussed in detail.

19 new artists were accredited last year. One artist was asked to reapply for 2017. When this happens, I offer a meeting with the artist to explain our decision.

People have said to me, how can they do that? It's so subjective!

I'm afraid they don't understand how we judge the quality of art works. They're probably not aware of the criteria we use to make decisions. Everyone can say 'I like that'. What everybody can't do is decide if it's a good piece of art work, whether they like it or not.

It's easy to allow every artist into a scheme, far less work, far less effort.

This is where some people get confused, 'I like it' doesn't mean it's good art.

There are a lot of very talented artists involved in the scheme. It is a vibrant, sociable and diverse organisation that enthuses and inspires its members, helping them produce art to the best of their abilities, art that is worth seeing and owning. It's no wonder that OS WBNH is held in high regard.

I'm proud to be part of it.

What's on in West Berkshire and North Hampshire

Open Studios 2016 runs 30 April to 22 May.

The 2016 Web site and directory will be published on 2 April 2016. The directory can be downloaded from the Web site or picked up in hard copy from libraries and other public places in the West Berkshire and North Hampshire area.

http://www.open-studios.org.uk/

The key event is INSIGHT, the central showcase exhibition at New Greenham Arts, where you can see work by every participating artist. The show is usually eclectic but well presented in the dedicated gallery space. INSIGHT attracts over 1100 visitors each year.

There will also be several Satellite Exhibitions around the area. Venues include the Watermill Theatre, Arlington Arts, Newbury Library and Open Hand Open Space in Reading. Exhibitions may be solo or group shows, including work done by local schools as well as Open Studio artists. New this year is the North Hampshire Artists exhibition at Sherfield Park near Basingstoke.

(Organised by Anne Jones and by independent groups of Open Studios artists)

West Berkshire Museum in Newbury will once again be hosting the Cover 2 Cover exhibition, now in its fourth year. This will be the culmination of several months' work using themed sketchbooks, exchanged between artists, and the results are usually astounding as the artists push their imagination and abilities to keep up with the challenge.

(Organised by Isabel Carmona)

Free Open Studio Workshops will be held across the area during May and June. They are fully subscribed every year. Details are announced with the publication of the directory on 2 April.

(Organised by Jane Vaidya)

Additional links:

North Hampshire Artists: https://nhantsart.wordpress.com/

Amanda Bates: http://amandabatesart.co.uk/

John Brazendale: http://www.thecloudstudio.org/

Sketchbook Exchange 2016 (part 2)

This was a tricky one. The theme is still texture; the sub-theme is meaning.

I started off by thinking about how we read texture - primarily through our hands.
So I drew my hands. Note that it's mostly my left hand...

This was the last page that I drew, but the second page in sequence.
It occurred to me that texture is often used in simile,
so I had a bit of fun with some common phrases.

My husband suggested this one to me. Sometime during my lifetime (and his), these textured paving slabs have started to appear on the footpaths. There are ridged ones (whose main purpose seems to be to redirect the wheel of your road bike; quite why they are used on cycle paths I do not know), and there are these bumpy ones (the bumps are "truncated domes") that indicate the best place to cross the road; the texture, of course, is primarily intended for people with impaired sight.
This image is based on a crossing place close to my home. I used heavy body white acrylic to give the page some bumps (not very convincing truncated domes) and drew over the textured page with Molotow marker pens and Uniballs, including some explanatory text.  

The last of my pages in this book is an extension of the "tactile paving" idea.
This time, one hope that the primary users of the textured surface are able to see, because it is a road and the cobbled rumble strip / road hump / sleeping policeman is supposed to be for the benefit of the motorist. The macro-texture is intended to be felt through the vehicles wheels and should encourage the driver to slow down. Again, I used heavy body acrylic for the texture - spreading it thickly to make the road hump and incising it with the knife. There's a cheeky hint of a song drawing that refers to the 59th Street Bridge Song. "Slow down, you're going too fast... "

Sketchbook Exchange 2016 (part 1)

Artists from West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios have started their 2016 sketchbook project. This time, we made our own sketchbooks, concertina-style.

I wasn't enamoured of the floppy card cover. Having been assigned the theme/subtheme Textures/Grain, I decided to use some things with grain to replace the card...

3mm beech-faced plywood, carved, with leather. Held together with nuts and bolts from an I-can't-believe-it's-not-Meccano toy and annotated with Molotow marker pens

There are only four pages per artist in these books, so I crammed several grainy things onto my first page:

Pine grain (Derwent Drawing), grains of rice and salt (Molotow), wheat (pen and ink, acrylic); sand (Molotow)

(It being a concertina, I thought I'd use the back of another page and put some grains there, to be seen through the knot holes. There are a few that can't be seen easily, too).

... and the next page was also home to several thoughts:

Wooden handle of hand chisel (Molotow), alabaster grain (watercolour and watercolour pencil); pointillist landscape, imaginary (Molotow)

But the last two pages were home to one idea. A fairly off-topic idea, inspired by the "grain" more than by the the "texture".

John Barleycorn, folk song, as sung by Traffic. Molotow and acrylic inks

It's a song drawing. They started in last year's sketchbook exchange project, and they've come back in this year's.

Wayside Wheel

Wayside Wheel, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm

This (above) is the painting that I did on Sunday, the second day of Hampshire Open Studios 2015.

And this (below) is my source. Along with a bit of memory and imagination...

First weekend of Hampshire Open Studios 2015

This is how my studio looked just before I flung the doors open on Saturday morning.

Solo Exhibition: Images of Cornwall

 

The exhibition space at the New Greenham Tandoori, run by the West Berkshire and North Hampshire Open Studios team, is roughly nine metres long. Ten of my Cornish knife-painted oils are on display there; the very widest view that I could manage only encompasses nine, so I've included two photographs.

The exhibition is on now and will run until October. The restaurant is open daily between 12 noon - 2pm and 5.30 - 11.30pm, closed Friday lunchtime. I gather that it is perfectly acceptable to wander in just to look at the art as long as they aren't very busy.

Spectrum

Spectrum, oil on canvas, 30 x 90 cm

This is another painting made during my Open Studio hours. I revisited an image that I have used before, a photograph taken in Micheldever Woods. The older painting is shown below.

Micheldever, oil on canvas, 20 x 50 cm, SOLD
[October 2013]

Obviously, the new painting is larger, but it also seems to be a lot brighter. I don't think that it is merely a difference in lighting when taking the photograph; I do seem to be gravitating towards brighter colours lately.

I have two more days of being 'Open' before the scheme finishes on Monday 25 May. 

One-off Posters

Three of these wonkily lettered posters are on village notice boards. One remains to go up...