Ahead of the storm

We've just returned from four days dodging 'mini' storms on the beautiful Isle of Mull, before narrowly missing being stranded by the current hurricane force winds (also known as Hurricane Bawbag). I had many opportunities to paint my favourite colour. Blae is a Scots word, sorely lacking in English (well, for an art teacher it would be useful!), and it means slate blue/grey. The colour of storm clouds or a heavy sea.
I don't think I could ever tire of Scotland's west coast,* I'm spellbound by the colours, light and wildlife. On this trip I managed to paint outside once in a rare spell of calm, the rest of the time I peered through the tiny windows of our blackhouse or painted from memory.

Each morning I went down to the shore at Haunn with Ashby, where he occupied himself with the important task of fighting kelp and limpets. On Monday morning I came across an otter only 2 or 3 meters away, holding a large sea urchin. The strength of the wind was such it didn't notice me for a few precious seconds. It didn't notice Ashby at all, nor he it - just shows you can indeed see wildlife with a dog in tow particularly if the dog is glaikit enough. The sea eagles of Mull are not fussed by dogs, either, unless the dog in question is small enough to form a tasty lunch. After scanning the skies each day we finally saw two sea eagles yesterday morning, they flew right above us as we headed for the ferry. Pure white tails and a 2 metre wingspan - there's no way you could mistake them for anything else.

We stayed in a beautifully restored blackhouse at Haunn (meaning harbour), on Treshnish Point. See www.treshnish.co.uk/ I wholeheartedly recommend a stay there, certainly for lovers of wildlife. I'd been there before with my family 20 years ago, but nowadays there is electricity and running water! The farm has won all sorts of environmental accolades. In the last sketch, of Treshnish Point, you can see some little black blobs. They're the herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, who sheltered in a line from the howling winds.

* On second thoughts, yes, I can tire of the west coast in certain circumstances - I remember once abandoning a fully cooked dinner on the fire and spending all night hungry in the tent rather than face the midges any longer. And this was on the beach where the midges are usually less bad.

Lake Alaotra poster for the Ako Project

This latest poster in the Ako series will hopefully be going to press shortly...that is assuming another species hasn't gone extinct in the meantime and needs to be edited out. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the finished illustration of the habitat and wildlife of Lake Alaotra shows two Madagascar pochards where originally there was going to be an Alaotran grebe. The grebe was declared officially extinct early in the summer, whereas the pochard is 'merely' critically endangered (through habitat loss). On the other hand, Durrell's Vontsira, the animal that looks a bit like an otter, or as Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust describe it; 'a scruffy ferret' was first seen only in 2004 and scientifically named in 2010 - the first new species of meat eating mammal discovered in 24 years. It will be interesting to see how long this species survives.

Dogs dogs glorious dogs

I love dogs and I love painting dogs! It's very theraputic to occasionally paint extremely cute things like labrador puppies, and strangely satisfying to paint and then exhibit something that would almost certainly get you a 'Fail' in a fine art degree.
These acrylic paintings (10" x 10") are now for sale in Bellwood & Wright Fine Arts, Lancaster.

Pastel life drawing and Reverse Picasso

When I overcome my dislike of their dry dusty feeling, I find that pastels are a great medium, especially if you love bright colours. I often find that the less I blend colours the better the drawing works. I tried to use the pastels tonally without caring so much about the precise colour. My brain usually stops focussing properly after about 3 or 4 hours, at which point I like to draw other people with superior concentration spans finishing their paintings; the sketch shows Milan Ivanic painting a portrait. The following day I saw the Abstruse Goose cartoon.

Cute lemur family and misanthropic rant

Finished painting the gentle lemur family into my latest Ako Project poster today (Lac Aloatra, in north central Madagascar) It feels like it's going slowly but I've not had so much time to work in my studio recently, compared to over the summer which was when I was meant to be painting it. It was held up because a key advisor in Madagascar was pursuing an armed gang of tortoise smugglers. The gang were caught eventually. This sounds pretty funny but rare species smuggling is a massive problem in Madagascar, and all over the world. As long as people want to eat lemurs, sharks fin, tortoises, or make medicine from bear bile or tiger bone, etc etc, the trade will continue, and it's all just so unnecessary. This needless cruelty and destruction is what makes me personally so angry; similar to humans choosing to eat animals produced by battery farming methods, or fish taken from the rapidly emptying oceans. I'm afraid I've become a truly embittered misanthrope. You can, however, just look at the cute lemur picture.

My lightswitches are black

...but I spent a productive hour drawing a self portrait. I wanted to see whether the exercise I plan to set my class on Tuesday is actually possible in the time they have. Take a coloured pastel and smudge it all over the page, draw a head with charcoal, remove highlights with a putty rubber. Make lots of mess and revel in it. No hand washing allowed (well they can if they like, but there's no point). I remember someone once challenging me to eat a sugary doughnut without licking my lips, it's the same sort of thing. Fight against the urge to make everything neat and clean. Some people find that more difficult than others!

ps. If I appear somewhat peaky in this photo it is possibly linked with the fact I was at my friends most excellent wedding reception last night.

Cockroaches in Kendal

Just been told my painting 'Rocky & Ruth, Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches' has been accepted for Open Up North, an exhibition at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.
This painting has come a long way.

In 2006 I spent just over 3 months in Madagascar, volunteering on various arty projects for NGO Azafady, and the Botanical Gardens in the capital city, Antananarivo. My biggest project involved creating and painting models of large scale extinct species, a kind of diorama, for kids. My studio was a little school house next to the Azafady headquarters in Fort Dauphin. I made friends with some of the staff, especially Lala, an amazing conservationist and wildlife expert. Lala was an invaluable source of information. For example, he could identify Bad scorpions and Good ones (mocking me for panicking after discovering the latter on my pillow). He waded through swamps with me looking for bull frogs, explained afterwards why it was a particularly bad idea to go for a wee in the rainforest (leaping heat seeking leeches), took me and a couple of friends out on a pirogue looking for crocodiles, in vain, until we got out and saw a large one that had been lurking underneath our leaky vessel...

Anyway, it was Lala who after hearing me complain that I missed my cat, presented me with two giant hissing cockroaches in a shoebox. I kept Ruth and Rocky, fed them banana, and sketched them. They didn't really offer much in the way of cuteness value, but Rocky at least made hissing noises if you touched him. Unfortunately, he escaped after only a week and I realised that actually, I only like giant cockroaches if I know exactly where they are. Rocky turned up eventually, clinging to the underside of the chair in my room. Having decided enough was enough, I tried to remove him, but didn't realise just how strong a cockroach can be... it really took some effort to prise him off. I'm fairly ashamed to say I then lobbed him in the bushes.

When I left Fort Dauphin, I smuggled out the old bit of hardboard I'd been using as a palette. Obtaining the paint for use in my various projects had been a bit of an ordeal. I had some colours flown out with gap year volunteers, but the rest was Malagasy, hand mixed out of noxious substances up a dodgy looking alleyway in Tana. Having little Malagasy or French, I struggled to explain precise colour preferences, and seemed to end up with an awful lot of brown. Over the weeks, my palette became quite interesting, with crazed blobs of colour. The day before I left I painted one last coat of my 'favourite' homemade brown paint, and chucked a handful of sandy soil onto it. By this point it almost certainly constituted a bio hazard. However, it arrived home safely, and I then painted a portrait of Rocky and Ruth onto it, so that I can remember my 'little' pet cockroaches forever.

Rocky and Ruth will be on display at the Open Up North exhibition venues from Sat 1st Oct- Mon 10th Nov.