A pleasurable way to spend time at the Burton Gallery in Bideford Park. It gave me time to walk around the exhibition and closely look at the magnificent work there. So today I’ve been stewarding the Christmas Exhibition with yet another stinking cold! Exhibition ends on the 31st December.
The return of BLACK ARTS, a project I’m involved in with artists Adrian Beasley and Stephen Raff. We create our images in black and white using Photography, the Wet Collodian process and use of Bideford Black pigment, hence the name BLACK ARTS. We aim to undertake this three day residential experience later this year. Below is a link to the webpage with more information to follow!
Below is a link of our first collaboration in 2019 on the closing night of The White Moose Gallery.
https://albrownartist.com/2019/11/02/last-night/
A wonderful poem and video by Dr Emma Fisher, an anaesthetist, who I have had the pleasure of working with at North Devon District Hospital. As a registered Staff Nurse who works in the Operating Theatre Department I have worked with Dr Fisher and many of the healthcare practitioners featured in my sketches in this video. This poem sadly describes one profound experience a team had to deal with during this Covid Crisis!
Below is a link to the original pen and ink images.
The start of the annual Christmas show at the Burton Gallery in Bideford North Devon. I am pleased to have been selected again for this wonderful event which will run from the 4th to the 31st December. The paintings I’ve submitted are Bucks Mills and Lee Abbey! Al
I’ve finally mounted this Bideford Black painting of Roborough Hill in Barnstaple, North Devon 40 x 25″ on thick cartridge paper. Throughout the pandemic and various lockdowns I’ve found this area of Roborough to have been a great escape from all that mayhem. To look out over North Devon from this wonderful highpoint is a view to behold. I think this painting would be certainly a talking or focal point to any room! Al
My wife and I spent a wonderful time in Bodmin Jail. This jail has been fully renovated to accommodate a four star hotel. We spent the night in the Naval Wing in room 125.
Within the Jail’s walls is the only working Victorian Gallows in the UK and has claimed the lives of 55 prisoners. Each of the Hotel’s rooms has a plaque of an inmate who spent time there, ours was John Hoskins who stole of bushel of wheat and walked into the fresh air for the last time on the 11th August 1796. The prison closed in 1927.
Here is a video on my YouTube channel https://youtu.be/bz3Gx402co0
I took an early morning walk along the quay in Padstow and it was wonderful to see the boats coming in during a quiet sunrise. Below is St Enodoc Church just a fifteen minutes walk out of Roc, the spire is actually that bent. On the way there we fed a tame robin by hand, the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman is buried here too. To get to Rock you have to take the ferry from the quay at Padstow which takes you across the River Camel giving you views out to the Doombar and down the Estuary.
We stayed two nights at The Old Custom House in the harbour and from our window had marvellous views out over Padstow and across to Rock; who needs a television or iPhones when you have such a view. It was wonderful to see Padstow without the throngs of tourists and after four at night was almost a ghost town. We ate at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant and Paul Hainsworth’s Caffe Rojano and The Mariners at Rock, we had superb meals with friendly staff at all.
An acrylic of mine from a few years ago. As Picasso once said, ‘Ever now and again one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things!’ The painting above is one such picture for me.
This acrylic painting is now completed 24 x 30″. I started this composition by using an ultramarine acrylic spray to create an almost uniform blue base colour. I’ve then gradually dry brushed layer after layer to create some 3D depth to the sky. I’m now using some watered down paint to blow in the sea, waves and foreground, then using my favourite Payne’s Grey I’ve accented some depth to the pebbles. I must say I like the vapor trail of the plane on it’s way out to sea. During the pandemic the amount of flights have dropped and this has been evident in our North Devon skies.
May the wall rise up to greet you,
May the wall rise up and lift you,
Let the water elevate and heal you,
To face another day.
Dark waves will always push us back
We dive, evade, get blown off track,
Bless the water that finally heals you,
To face another day
Bless the water that finally heals you
To grace another day.
The autumn sun is out and I’ve just noticed the glass beads I made a few years ago! Inspired by our local beaches!
As slow as sycamore seeds thrown from skyrise windows
Our hearts soar and fly then eventually grow
On the winds of whim we hover then fall
Cast to the dirt
Along concrete verges we flow
Away from our dreams of yesterday
Then down to realities vaults
Gone are summers where we used to play
Tears arisen from the sum of our faults
Al Brown Artist. 