Pick of the week

Here are a couple of photos of the exhibition before people started arriving and a copy of a lovely write-up that appeared in today’s Oxford Times (Link to electronic version here). The opening went very well, with lots of visitors all enjoying themselves and the paintings.

My Paparazzi friend Neil took lots of photos, so hopefully I’ll have a few of those to post soon too :)

We opened again today and had several visitors in, so hopefully with the article in the paper Saturday will be busy once again. :)

The exhibition is open every Thursday, Friday and Saturday up to and including Saturday 18th December…

Hope you can come along :)

A Winter Wonderland of Art in the Woods

A Winter Wonderland of Art in the Woods

Oxfordshire artist Graham Rice will be holding a Winter Exhibition at Cuckoo Lane Art Studios from November 27th to December 18th.

This will be Graham's first exhibition since opening his Studio and Gallery at Cuckoo Lane earlier this year. It offers visitors a chance to see his latest swirling watercolours, including a number of new local scenes, along with a contemporary series of oil paintings which combine Gold and Silver leaf with traditional oil painting techniques to produce works that sparkle with life.

Alongside the Gallery is Graham’s charming Studio, which gives the opportunity to see just how his artwork is created. All manner of artistic equipment is on display and the artist is happy to explain how they are used to develop his diverse pieces of artwork.

If all this creativity inspires you to want to have a go yourself, you can sign up for one of the many art workshops that are currently being held at Cuckoo Lane Art Studios, including an ‘Introduction to Linocuts’ being run by Graham himself.

The Winter Exhibition is on from Saturday 27th November to Saturday 18th December at Graham’s Studio & Gallery, Cuckoo Lane Art Studios, Eynsham Park Estate, Cuckoo Lane, North Leigh, Witney, OX29 6PW. Open hours are Thursday, Friday & Saturdays 10 – 6.

Moonlit Square Eynsham - Drawing

I’ve started on a new watercolour of the square in Eynsham today. Just at the drawing stage at the moment, but it’s going to be a night time scene, hopefully with some interesting lighting coming from the doorways of the church and Bartholomew Rooms.
Posters for the Winter Exhibition starting to go up today (16 days to go…) and website beginning it’s overhaul, so all in all a busy day :)

St Peter's Church Eynsham - Finished

Finished this autumnal view of St Peter's today for the Winter Eynsham Arts Group exhibition.

The Stag and the Moon - Finished

Here’s a final print of ‘The Stag and the Moon’ and a drawing stage photo of a new watercolour ‘St Peter’s Church Eynsham’.
I’ve used silver and aluminium leaf on the stag prints which was an interesting experience…printing with gilding size is a sticky business…:)

Started a couple of new pieces

I started painting the background on 'Pastures new' the other day but forgot to seal the gold first, so I need to wait for the oil to dry before I can move forward with that one. I’ve started a couple of other new pieces this week ‘Conversations’ and ‘One of us is going in the wrong direction’, just starting on the underpainting on both of those, but thought I’d post them anyway :)

I’m going to have an exhibition over at the gallery from 27th Nov to 18th Dec so they’ll be lots of work to do between now and then, hopefully finishing some of these new gold pieces as well as some new watercolour swirls…fingers crossed :)

Lino Cutting Class

I taught the first of the ‘Introduction to Lino Cutting’ classes last Friday, all went very well with everyone enjoying themselves and producing some wonderful prints. The next class is on Friday November 19th, if you’re interested in coming along more details can be found HERE :)

The Stag and The Moon - Outline Print

I’ve been doing some work on one of the ‘Stag’ linocuts today. Here you can see where I’ve refined the lines of the drawing, transferred it onto the block, carved the block and finally a test print. There’ll be another block for the background colour, more of that later :)

Pastures New - Just started

I’ve started a new piece today called ‘Pastures New’. As you can see I’ve done the under painting for the ‘figures’ and gilded the relevant areas. I’m planning on doing a more complex sky on this one too.

I’m teaching a lino cutting class starting next Friday, so I’m planning on doing some work on the stag linocuts tomorrow...as well as building some cutting boards… If you’re interested in future classes have a look HERE for further information :)

Dreams 01 - Finished

I’ve finished ‘Dreams 01’, just working over the flesh, sharpening things up, adding more contrast etc. I’m really glad I settled on keeping it grey rather than flesh coloured I don’t think it would be half as interesting if I hadn’t done it this way.
I’ve also started a new piece today of two sheep…I’ve sealed the drawing with acrylic, so you can’t really see it that clearly in a photo, so I haven’t bothered posting it yet. I’m going to paint the sheep in grey, the sky in blue and everything else in gold, so it’ll be another experiment to see how far I can push things but it feels like I’m getting close to a style I can run with now :)
Once again many thanks to Mary for posing for the ‘Dreams’ painting, and Jack and Mary for ‘Awake’ hope you like them…more to follow :)

Happy Jack - Underpainting and Gilding

I started a new piece today, ‘Happy Jack’. This one is a bit of an experiment to see how small I can paint a full figure, I want to get on and paint the more complex ‘woodland’ paintings soon and I need to keep the scale of those under control. Partly due to the time involved, but also the cost of the gold I’ll need…so the smaller I can do a figure, in some ways, the better.
I’ve done the under painting using acrylic on this as it’ll dry nice and quickly and I find it a little easier to control at this stage, I’ve also gilded the background using silver on this one. I’m leaving the slight gaps between the sheets of silver as I quite like the effect and I think/hope it’ll leave an interesting texture once I’ve painted over the top.
The gilding will need a few days to dry so I’ll try and finish the ‘Dreaming’ painting tomorrow…
As you can see the winter winds have started to blow so the fire has been lit and Bryn in making the most of it :)

Awake My Soul - Finished

Finished ‘Awake My Soul’ today. Hope you like it :)

Awake - textures

I’ve added most of the texturing to ‘Awake’ now. The next step will be to add more contrast to the shading, working some depth into the leaves and darkening the background.

Stags - Design

Here are some designs for new linocuts I’m going to do. They all need a little more refining before I transfer them on to the lino blocks but I thought I’d post them at this stage so you can see how the ideas develop. I want to get the design of the stag the same on each block and I did ‘The White Stag’ first so that one needs the most work to pull him into line with the others. I’m going to try and print one of the colours on these prints using silver…which should be an interesting experiment :)

On a related note, I’m teaching a couple of ‘Introduction to Lino cutting’ classes. If you’re interested, further information can be found HERE :)

Meller Merceux Gallery

‘One and Three Quarter Pears’ is currently in the front window of the Meller Merceux Gallery in Oxford. If you happen to be wandering in that direction, pop in for a look :)