Tag Archives: SCottish town

Architecture, Lanark, Lanark Heritage, New LAnark

Spires, Chimneys and Finials: Lanark’s Townscape

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August is the month when I like to complete unfinished work or perk up drawings or paintings that I think are just missing something.

I’ve had four framed drawings of Lanark townscape packed away but during a recent sort I brought them back into my studio.

‘The Wheel Turns’ – New Lanark

I really enjoyed putting these compositions together. I had only planned on doing the one at first, but there are so many interesting details in Lanark’s townscape that I ended up with four different layouts including New Lanark.

The thing that bothered me about these drawings was that they were locked into lockdown time when windows were decorated with rainbows in support of key workers. The images captured an expression of hope at that time but right now I want to look forwards.

All four images have been scanned at a high resolution and I have these on the record so I decided to take the paintings out of their own lockdown. I removed them from their frames and decided to free the rainbow colours from the windows and move the colour elsewhere on the drawings.

Inking up to pull out the forms

I’ve been looking at ways to take my street drawings in a new direction and I’ve really enjoyed searching out architectural elements and details and forming these compositions.

Skyscape over Lanark

I wrote a post about this change in work here when I responded to the call for entries to enter a local art competition here in Lanark.

Drawing removed from the frame ready to start work

Back to the task in hand. Having taken the artwork out of the frames I began by lifting off the rainbows (gouache paint so water soluble) and reinstate the dark blue and build up contrasts.

Finials, Spires and Chimneys

Looking at each painting in turn, I gradually introduced a range of blues. The colour pops of reds, oranges and yellows brought the warm spectrum colours out into the streetscape.

Revitalised drawings together before being reframed

I worked on these during our recent hot spell so I went for that sun-drenched, blue-skies and flaming chimneys look!

Here they are, back in their frames, refreshed and revitalised!

‘The Wheel Turns’ New Lanark
Crowsteps and Weathervanes
Finials, Spires and Chimneys
Provost’s Lamp
Set of four signed cards, 5x7inches.

The artwork and cards are all available to buy and shown together here on my main website.

Thanks for reading,
Ronnie 🙂

Art, Painting,, Douglas, Uncategorized

Shapes, Shadow, Light

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The Scrib Tree made quite an impression on our first visit: beautiful interior, locally-sourced food and outstanding artwork on the walls by Carol Taylor, who has her studio next door.

It’s located in the ancient village of Douglas with records dating from the 13th century and set within 33,000 acres of the Douglas Estate.

You can imagine how delighted I was to be offered the opportunity to hold an exhibition there this Spring 2021, with the town as my subject. The offer came late last summer when lockdown in Scotland had temporarily eased. I went straight there to spend time walking through the town and start the thinking process.

Douglas is intriguing. I became absorbed by the narrow streets, the variety of the buildings, the unexpected views and the intricate street plan. There were thin spaces between buildings and edges which concealed fragments of church towers and roads that disappeared over the brow of a hill.

I knew I wanted to push myself and present an exhibition of my experience of Douglas which would reflect the times we are living in.

I began to crop my photos to find interesting compositions and then began a thumbnail sketching spree. I stuck a row of sketches up on the wall and chose the ones with the strongest composition of shapes, shadows and light to work on.

Keeping in mind what I’d learnt on the Composed Landscape course at Paintbox, I simplified the subject by using a thick soft pencil – trying hard not to get distracted by details – something that’s quite a stretch for me!

The name of the body of work was there waiting for me as I walked around the town: ‘Around the Corner’.

With all the depressing events globally and nationally, I wanted to express things as they are now but with hope for something brighter, something different, something imminent. There has been such heavy news this last year, on top of already heavy news. I can’t ignore it and yet I always hope for the best.

I love all the phrases associated with ‘Around the Corner’, for instance ‘at hand’, ‘in the air’ or ‘looming’. This became the key focus of each study.

I settled on a square format, all the time working to simplify the view to focus on the corners and the atmosphere of anticipation.

I already had my palette in mind, but I will talk about that in my next post. In the meantime I will leave you with a couple more of the studies to give you an idea of this old Scottish village.

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie 🙂