Last of the Summer Whines

Whoooop!
School's back, the kids are slipping into that funk of despond we all remember after the golden holidays of summer. Come to think of it, so are my many teacher friends (Oli, Dan, Jess etc.) Oh dear. Its been a long six weeks for them, shared between parents, in which I have actually managed to paint one or two pieces, but of course I'm gripped by the pang of anxiety at letting my output slump to virtually nil. Like me, most parents out there will tell you that the summer hols are pretty complicated in terms of caring for young uns, work, vacations etc. On top of this, when you're a separated, lone parent it gets just crazy. Having said this, we've had a great time. I wont bore you with the details, but for my time with the boys it involved mountains, campervans, crabbing, Southampton, Skye, Wiltshire, a gate, a wedding attended and a wedding missed (sorry Marc and Joanne), the M6, waterparks and Oil Paints.

Crabbing excitement (no crustaceans were harmed in the making of this blog)

So....painting. Yay, well, a few brief days snatched with Hannah and the campervan led us to The Isle of Skye. Ahhhhh, even with the midges you cant knock my love for the Isle. The campervan is mega....and borrowed. Make no mistake, I cant afford one of these badboys just yet. Look....

If only you were mine :) (at Elgol)

Painting almost En Plein Air with my pochade box (or, in English, from the back of a van with a cigar box)

Hannah insisted I paint whenever we pulled up for the night somewhere. The fact we had a 5 litre keg of Loweswater Gold bitter and a bottle of Bowmore single malt whisky kind of made this more of a hit and miss rule. I did a few though..

As it happens, I left these in the van, as some-way of a payment for its kind use. The owners like them, phew! 

I'll be ramping up the online stuff as of today, posting the various paintings for sale (few as they are) that I've managed to paint these past six weeks. Also I'm participating in the twitter #paintseptember campaign. It's a painting a day, throughout September. Dear lord, May was tough, September will be tougher I'm sure, but its a great discipline for any artist. Check it out, my twitter name is @lonedadpainting and below are the two initial paintings. I somehow feel the theme of the upland areas of the UK will feature heavily.

Me. Day one.

Not me, day two. (Sutherland...Not Donald)

September brings new schools, new starts and a whole heap of paintings. If you don't hear from me, I'll be hiding under a mountain of paintings, or indeed a painting of mountains.

The Accidental Artist

Last week, tumbles and all, only offered up two new paintings. One a homage to a friend of mines granny, Mary Robinson, and the other a trusty English Motorway System painting, number four I believe. It was really a week of new school visits, sports days and my lads bravely embracing new beginnings. But hey, these are the ingredients of life. 

The end of the week brought the West Lancashire Open in which a friend and I have paintings. Old habits die hard and I got a little drunk on the free wine. Hey, I make no apology, its been a long week.

Chapel Gallery...West Lancashire Open

I was dressed in shorts and a cap, nothing like these smartly attired folk above, and offered up one or two vocal opinions towards the end of the night. Eek!

The real art came afterwards, on a diversion to Blackpool, my old home town, with my girlfriend on the way back from the Exhibition. I still love Blackpool and its eccentricities. Its motto 'Progress' seems to have propelled it into the 21st century with a fury.

The moon and the Glitterball

Blackpool Vanishes

The amazing Comedy Carpet, beneath the tower

We wandered around my old haunts, some now sadly closed ( The Stanley Arms!), had a pint in Scrooges Wine Bar for old times sake, and took in the slightly scary Friday night atmosphere.  Blackpool is a crazy, crazy place. I would not like to live there now. It has changed, and rightly so. It has been inherited by a world that I find myself increasingly alienated from. Bless it though, with its charm and utter weirdness.

Sunday morning brought a visit to Sarah Thomas' wayfarer blog and a video interview with the lovely Edward Acland of Sprint Mill up in Cumbria. By sheer coincidence the Mill was open on Sunday as part of the NGS . It seemed too tempting to resist so off we went....WOW....what a place, what a guy, and lovely family to boot. We even met Sarah, post swim, in the river by the Mill.

 Basically, Edward adopted a ruined Mill, on the River Sprint 40 years ago and adapted it to a small holding and a rather eccentric, and beautiful living museum for all manner of resting rural and farm implements, interspersed with personal collections and artefacts. In fact scrub 'museum', this place it very much alive and in vibrant good health. 

The bottom image is a selection of Edwards reclaimed double glazing units, recycled into frames for his collages. They are beautifully arranged and aesthetically pleasing items. Edward is an artist by nature, not design. His work is full of integrity and wonder, from a man who seemed to have fallen into 'art' as a by-product of his lifestyle, an accidental artist. Amazing.

The rest of the small holding is as amazing, and very much a working farm. The families hand crafted furniture is fab.

This chair was surprisingly sturdy and comfortable. Sweet.

So there we have it. My week brought to quite a fine end. I even managed to sneak a pint of Windermere Pale at the Hawkshead Brewery on the way back. Ohhhhh, yes, how I love the hoppy goodness. Farewell for now Cumbria. A place of constant beauty and surprise.