‘Local mackerel III’ for The Folkestone Macmillan Art Show’

http://thefolkestonemacmillanartshow2012.yolasite.com/

Creative Canterbury recently alerted me to Cancer charity Macmillan’s Folkestone Art Show 2012. Last year I exhibited alongside loftier artists such as Tracey Emin with my ‘Local mackerel’ (Margate version) in a Pilgrim’s Hospice exhibition of artists’ postcards at Margate’s Harbour Arm Gallery. Folkestone is a local Kentish seaside town that I thought would adapt well to the mackerel concept. The original idea was a linocut (see previous post) and I have also painted a whole shoal of these as small watercolour originals (Whitstable version, which are sold at Taking the Plunge in Whitstable High Street), but this is the first time I have turned to canvas to convey the concept.

Base layer drying in my studio

I transfered the design to the large (0.5m x 1m wide) box canvas by the time-homoured process of drawing a grid over a linoprint and translating the size upwards to the canvas. I then painted the sea and base colour which I left to dry.

Pre-stripes

Now down to the black linework, painted in a very graphic style close to the original linocut.

 

Painting the mackerel’s unique pattern

Note the bluish-green reflective surface

Once the black linework was dry, I added a mix of acrylic varnish and silver flecks of glitter to achieve a lovely fish-like sheen. As a result, the canvas winks beautifully when it catches the sunlight. The exhibition runs from Friday the 17th of Feb to Tuesday the 28th of Feb 2012 at Georges House Gallery 8 The Old High Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 1RL Tel: 01303 244533

St George’s House Gallery window

‘Local mackerel III’  © Peter Gander

 

National Trust sign (Mosaic)

National Trust sign   © Peter Gander

Another painting for one of Fiona’s Photo Mosaics. Scratch (dip) pen and Indian ink with watercolour and wax (texture).

Bateaux Mouches, Paris

Bateaux mouches, Paris  © Peter Gander

Mosaic again. Paris by night. Painting of the famous Parisienne boats company sign with the Eiffel tower in the background. Dip pen and watercolour on rough paper.

Ruby port bottle & glasses

Port bottle & glasses  © Peter Gander

Mosaic painting. A particularly nice chance effect of transparent blends on the bottle. A wax candle was used to provide glasses highlights.

Mosaic painting: Ballantine’s whisky

Ballantine’s Whisky  © Peter Gander

Another mosaic piece, this time it’s for a client with a penchant for whisky. Dip pen and ink with watercolour on rough 300gsm paper.

Fish & chips

Fish 'n' Chips  © Peter Gander

Another ‘Mosaic square’ painting. I used Winsor & Newton ink for this one, which gives a rich finish on this 300gsm rough paper. Salt & vinegar anyone?

Café

Café  © Peter Gander

Using Indian ink and white gouache on Indian Khadi paper, a loose, gestural painted sketch of a waiter through the window of a London café. The heavyweight, cotton rag paper is perfect for those unexpected blooms, spreads and grainy effects that give richness to the piece. Indian ink, gouache on Khadi 310gsm paper.

New Year, New Yew Tree Sign

At last, The Old Yew Tree, Westbere, Kent, has my new sign up. Here I proudly stand below it, with a real yew tree visible right behind it.

President Emmental pack

‘President’ Emmental  © Peter Gander

Another small square painting for one of Fiona’s Family Mosaics. Each small square of the print reflects a particular interest of the person or family involved and a small painting like this looks far better than a ‘pack shot’. Drawn with a dip or ‘scratch’ pen, I allowed the (Rotring) ink to dry before adding watercolour, as it’s resistant to water only when dry. The dip pen gives a lovely, variable line like no other. The coloured shadow was painted wet-into-wet. Ink and Winsor & Newton watercolour on Daler-Rowney 300gsm rough paper.

‘Seven Peas’ Gravy Boat

The ‘Seven Peas’ Gravy Boat  © Peter Gander

Following on from my recent post & visit to Chessell Pottery in the Isle of Wight, I recently painted this gravy boat (well, it’s a half-litre jug really) as my keen cook wife wanted something handmade for Christmas. I found the excellent Espressions pottery painting & ceramics café in The King’s Mile in nearby Canterbury, Kent. The spelling is intentional and reflects their excellent coffee offering. The place is run by a really friendly couple and they bent over backwards to see that they had the right kind of pot in for me too. Design-wise, I took a leaf out of Edward Lear’s Owl & Pussycat verse and painted a scene to match my theme of ‘sailing the seven peas’. Again, using the sgraffito method, I was advised to paint several layers of white onto the entire raw jug, allowing this to dry and then add a few layers of dense black. Scraping back the black to reveal the white layer underneath proved much easier this time as the softer white layer was more yielding than the white ceramic substrate of my Chessell fishy plate, so thanks for the tip, Espressions!

The Beetle

The Beetle  © Peter Gander

Back to acrylics for this new painting, a Christmas present for my eleven year-old son Jack. It’s our bottle-green Mexican import Volkswagen Beetle, in the (much lovelier) old style of body design, though only a decade old as it was one of the last run of Mexican imports made in the retro style in 2003. Jack loves classic cars and is very fond of this motor (as I am) and asked that I paint if for him months ago, so he should be chuffed with this. I had got to the stage where the car was finished on a plain white canvas and something was lacking, so I gave it a bit more of a cooler, urban feel, with spattered and running paint. (Hope he’s too busy to be looking at my website before Christmas Day ;)