14. Luton Pigeon Surveys Guided Busway Progress
50.1cm x 19.9cm
Interactive Acrylic on deep edge canvas
2011
£125
Exhibited at Luton Art 2012
Rejected from Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2012
Exhibited at Eagle Gallery, Bedford, 17th September 2012 – 19th October 2012.
Rejected from 61st Annual Hertford Open Exhibition 2013 (May 5th – 18th)
Exhibited at the Eagle Gallery “The Garden and Beyond” Andrew Naish one man show 12th – 19th October 2013
Bit of a mouthful that title- but I haven’t had any complaints so it’s hung around. I feel I’m trying to say too much in it and something like ‘Pigeon 1” might be better. I guess it gives a bit more background to where and when, but I wonder if I’m not just trying to persuade the Luton Art judges that I’ve made the effort to do something local. With the controversy surrounding the scheme, I also worry the title is suggesting I’m being political in some way which to be honest I’m not.
This was painted quite late in the day for the competition and was a replacement for a different painting that I had intended to do. I’m forever photographing roadworks and I haven’t really used any of them yet, but this image I loved from the get go. I had always intended this to be on a narrow canvas, but it was going to be fifty centimetres by a metre. Perhaps not enough going on for such a big canvas, so I put the idea “on the back burner”.
Another idea I was keen on was to do a row of Luton shop fronts in Mill Street. I loved the often vibrant but messy and inconsistent graphics over these decaying Victorian buildings. I took a series of photos from the other side of the road that I pieced together, to try to emulate that clichéd beach hut painting, but frankly it didn’t feel right and would have been a technical nightmare on such a small canvas. With little time I remembered the pigeon idea and so it found a home.
I lost any blurriness and made the image a bit flatter, and enlarged the pigeon element of the photo and printed on quality gloss paper to use as reference and get the accuracy and detail to sell the image. Still pleased with this composition and also pleased to get a highly commended at the Luton Art exhibition.
Just for interest, the photo was taken from the pavement looking up through a gap in the temporary full height metal sheet fencing at the then recently removed railway bridge over church street Luton. They’d spent the weekend removing the brick parapet and revealed this embankment with bits of dissected wood and gravels. I particularly felt that the red plastic netting like fencing at the top sold it as a building site.
Interactive Acrylic on deep edge canvas
2011
£125
Exhibited at Luton Art 2012
Rejected from Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2012
Exhibited at Eagle Gallery, Bedford, 17th September 2012 – 19th October 2012.
Rejected from 61st Annual Hertford Open Exhibition 2013 (May 5th – 18th)
Exhibited at the Eagle Gallery “The Garden and Beyond” Andrew Naish one man show 12th – 19th October 2013
Bit of a mouthful that title- but I haven’t had any complaints so it’s hung around. I feel I’m trying to say too much in it and something like ‘Pigeon 1” might be better. I guess it gives a bit more background to where and when, but I wonder if I’m not just trying to persuade the Luton Art judges that I’ve made the effort to do something local. With the controversy surrounding the scheme, I also worry the title is suggesting I’m being political in some way which to be honest I’m not.
This was painted quite late in the day for the competition and was a replacement for a different painting that I had intended to do. I’m forever photographing roadworks and I haven’t really used any of them yet, but this image I loved from the get go. I had always intended this to be on a narrow canvas, but it was going to be fifty centimetres by a metre. Perhaps not enough going on for such a big canvas, so I put the idea “on the back burner”.
Another idea I was keen on was to do a row of Luton shop fronts in Mill Street. I loved the often vibrant but messy and inconsistent graphics over these decaying Victorian buildings. I took a series of photos from the other side of the road that I pieced together, to try to emulate that clichéd beach hut painting, but frankly it didn’t feel right and would have been a technical nightmare on such a small canvas. With little time I remembered the pigeon idea and so it found a home.
I lost any blurriness and made the image a bit flatter, and enlarged the pigeon element of the photo and printed on quality gloss paper to use as reference and get the accuracy and detail to sell the image. Still pleased with this composition and also pleased to get a highly commended at the Luton Art exhibition.
Just for interest, the photo was taken from the pavement looking up through a gap in the temporary full height metal sheet fencing at the then recently removed railway bridge over church street Luton. They’d spent the weekend removing the brick parapet and revealed this embankment with bits of dissected wood and gravels. I particularly felt that the red plastic netting like fencing at the top sold it as a building site.