Yesterday was a VERY EXCITING DAY. Over the past year the artist Christine McArthur has been visiting the van to buy flowers - a mixed bunch of flowers that I get to chose. She has then been taking them into her studio and painting them. The results are on show at Roger Billcliffe's Gallery in Glasgow City Centre and last night was the Private View.
It was fantastic to see the results of the whole project. There is a mix of styles - many of the bunches are painted in monochrome watercolour outline (red, blue or yellow depending on the hue of the bunch) in a very free and masterly way - they are deceptively simple as I can identify every single flower - the scabious "compliment" and white tiger lilies in Blue June, the Crocosmia "Lucifer" in a yellow painting of Golden August .
There are also smaller close up watercolours of the van, buckets and oil lamp. My favourite though was a large acryllic of pink tulips - it was the first bunch of flowers that Christine bought this year and I remember it vividly - a mix of several varieties of tulips with very long stems - there was Mariette, Rosy wings, and Marilyn - many of the tulips were twisty and the whole bunch looked shimmery and shiny like silk. This has all been captured with such apparent casual ease. My photo doesn't do it justice - snapped as it was over people's heads - if you can, go and see the show which is on until 21st November - some of the paintings are also on the website www.billcliffegallery.com
2 comments:
These were lovely Jane - actually they were a massive departure from my usual preference - I like concrete representations rather than anything idealised.
These were enough of the real deal to still be attractive to me and I liked many of them.
The lady does have good taste though - your photos of your displays make attractive subjects
Heather
I love the way that Christine distils the image down to something that looks "dashed off" while losing nothing of the essence.
Thanks for the compliment - I am having a great time fussing about displaying decorations at Christmas Fairs. It is a laugh as our house is always chaos.
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