Hi wonderful followers! I hope you are well and are enjoying the Christmas period so far. The Farmer household is now in full Christmas mode with exterior Christmas lights, a decorated tree and also Christmas crafts with the kids! I have to admit that I really do love Christmas, but even more so now that I have 2 children.
On Friday this week I met up with fellow #Northernboys (as we’re now nicknamed!) to paint out live in Manchester. For anyone wondering, #Northernboys is a group of like minded painters that share a love for painting outdoors, ‘en plein air’. The group consists of painters Ian Layton, Adam Ralston, Norman Long, Rob Pointon, Chris Slater, Steven Smith, Michael Ashcroft with more names being added every few months (And I’m certain I’ve missed a name here too!)
I left the house at 5.30am to arrive at Ian Layton’s place in Mexbrough, a few miles away from my home in Doncaster. From here Chris Slater kindly took over the driving and we arrived in Manchester in super quick time. After a short stop at a greasy spoon we quickly got to work on a morning painting. Here’s my first result of the day.
The first painting of the day always feels slow to get started, not really ‘seeing’ what I’m looking at. The scene was so muted in colour with very subtle changes in hue and tone across the canvas. After the first hour work I felt as though I’d started to make some progress and settled down into the location. I find it quite daunting working in such busy places, especially with such a large canvas, although it doesn’t take too long to become engrossed in the act of painting and forget everything else around me.
‘Manchester Morning’ was a very enjoyable piece to create and I have so many great memories of being out there in the city alongside friends, fighting with the painting and the rain! This first piece took roughly 2 hours before we were forced off by the light rain mixing with the paint on the palette which is never a good thing. We then headed off for a quick lunch which consisted of a coffee…..
The Christmas Markets in Manchester are incredible, full of life and such a variety of products on display. It’s not surprising then that the pop up market became the subject for the second painting of the day.
In contrast to my morning creation, ‘Christmas Market, Manchester’ is much smaller and intimate in terms of subject matter and composition. Painting in a group can sometimes enable you to do something you wouldn’t normally, and this is one of those occasions. The subject matter was suggested by Christopher Slater which I liked the idea of, within minutes we’d set up our equipment and were loading our palettes with paint ready to get started. This piece started in utter chaos, pushing thin layers of paint around until I’d formed an idea for a composition. In contrast, the morning painting was much more formulated in my mind’s eye before starting. The thing I was most drawn to initially were the stall lights and their reflections in the damp pavement.
My Final painting of the day was this, a 10 x 8 inch canvas panel, ‘Manchester Nocturne”.
This piece was the least laboured and turned out to be my favourite of the 3. You then start to ask yourself ‘why couldn’t I have started the day like this?’. The problem is that without the labouring and battling on earlier paintings from the same day and everything else that has gone before, you could never paint the same piece. A tutor once told me that ‘for every 100 paintings you produce, only half of one of them will be any good’. As Artists we thrive on those special moments, the moments when everything seems to perfectly gel and fall into place without thinking. Everything else is preparation, like musical scales to a musician.
I’m not sure whether this will be my final blog entry for this year or not, so I will wish each of you a very Happy Christmas and New Year 🙂
Have a wonderful week!
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