67. Berlin Squash
21.9cm high x 61.69cm wide (Glazed in Frame)
Acrylic on MDF
2015
£135
Exhibited at Eagle members show 5th January– 7th February 2015
Rejected from Hertford Open Exhibition 3rd May - 16th May 2015
Exhibited in "Bargain Corner" part of "Urban & Rural" at the Eagle Gallery September 19th - 26th 2015
Exhibited at Eagle members show 15th April– 9th May 2019
Exhibited at 'Create '21', The Workhouse, 13th October - 13th November 2021
Berlin Squash was a slightly odd customer. I had a fairly short space of time to create a piece for the Eagle Gallery, so I would normally attempt a rapid pastel piece using a frame from the shelves of my studio.
For some reason, this evolved into using a sold off IKEA frame, cutting a piece of 8mm MDF to within the frame size and adapting a black and white pencil sketch from a Berlin scene to fit the wood size! Hardly the most time efficient solution, but it seemed the thing to do.
The source image was a small sketch I made from a hotel room in Berlin. My wife and I were treating ourselves to a few days in Berlin. It was a chance to catch up with the museums and experience the Christmas Markets. The hotel room had a panoramic view of various tower blocks and a busy road junction and some leafless trees. I was inspired to make a quick sketch as the light disappeared. I was fairly pleased with the energy in the resulting image and it was this that I hoped to capture in the final painting.
I used several coats of gesso before applying the paints.
I had envisioned the image as being viewed around 90° (Indeed the original positioning of my signature, seen in the photo above, infers this) I thought this further abstracted the image. I was after the energy of the strokes rather than anything representational. This later reverted back to the landscape version. I guess that I was concerned the representation of the car was too primitive and so I could mask it with the rotation. However the bicycles might have appeared strange riding “up hill”.
The source material was black and white so colours were decided upon during its creation. It was a rapid process and I enjoyed trying to capture, and revel in recreating the enlarged marks of the original.
The piece was wholly completed during Christmas week in a summerhouse in the garden of my Uncle and Aunt in Belper near Derby.
I only took the IKEA frame apart to install the finished artwork, and it was at this point that I discovered that the spacers that I had added to the back of the wood pushed it onto the glass of the frame which was not easily removable as I had hoped. I therefore cut two square holes in the backboard of the frame to keep the face of the picture away from the glass. This works but I do have a rather heavy painting. With both a wood image and glazed it’s certainly rather meaty.
Acrylic on MDF
2015
£135
Exhibited at Eagle members show 5th January– 7th February 2015
Rejected from Hertford Open Exhibition 3rd May - 16th May 2015
Exhibited in "Bargain Corner" part of "Urban & Rural" at the Eagle Gallery September 19th - 26th 2015
Exhibited at Eagle members show 15th April– 9th May 2019
Exhibited at 'Create '21', The Workhouse, 13th October - 13th November 2021
Berlin Squash was a slightly odd customer. I had a fairly short space of time to create a piece for the Eagle Gallery, so I would normally attempt a rapid pastel piece using a frame from the shelves of my studio.
For some reason, this evolved into using a sold off IKEA frame, cutting a piece of 8mm MDF to within the frame size and adapting a black and white pencil sketch from a Berlin scene to fit the wood size! Hardly the most time efficient solution, but it seemed the thing to do.
The source image was a small sketch I made from a hotel room in Berlin. My wife and I were treating ourselves to a few days in Berlin. It was a chance to catch up with the museums and experience the Christmas Markets. The hotel room had a panoramic view of various tower blocks and a busy road junction and some leafless trees. I was inspired to make a quick sketch as the light disappeared. I was fairly pleased with the energy in the resulting image and it was this that I hoped to capture in the final painting.
I used several coats of gesso before applying the paints.
I had envisioned the image as being viewed around 90° (Indeed the original positioning of my signature, seen in the photo above, infers this) I thought this further abstracted the image. I was after the energy of the strokes rather than anything representational. This later reverted back to the landscape version. I guess that I was concerned the representation of the car was too primitive and so I could mask it with the rotation. However the bicycles might have appeared strange riding “up hill”.
The source material was black and white so colours were decided upon during its creation. It was a rapid process and I enjoyed trying to capture, and revel in recreating the enlarged marks of the original.
The piece was wholly completed during Christmas week in a summerhouse in the garden of my Uncle and Aunt in Belper near Derby.
I only took the IKEA frame apart to install the finished artwork, and it was at this point that I discovered that the spacers that I had added to the back of the wood pushed it onto the glass of the frame which was not easily removable as I had hoped. I therefore cut two square holes in the backboard of the frame to keep the face of the picture away from the glass. This works but I do have a rather heavy painting. With both a wood image and glazed it’s certainly rather meaty.