THE GREAT SHEFFIELD ART SHOW

This week sees the 24^th Great Sheffield Art Show, the largest art show in the North. For the third year, I have a Professional Artist’s Stand.

As can be imagined, I am working feverishly to get my latest work finished and ready to display, so this Blog will be short because I need to get on. Time flies, it really does.

On show will be my latest skyscapes, snow storms, some new city views, paintings inspired by walks in the Peak District, plus contemporary woodland compositions.

 

The ever-popular browser will be there too with unframed ORIGINAL paintings at great prices. Something for everyone! 


The 24^th Great Sheffield Art Show dates are: 8, 9 & 10 July 2011 at The Octagon Centre, Sheffield.

Friday 10am – 9pm, Saturday 10am - 6pm, Sunday 10am - 6pm

Adults £4.50, Concessions £4.00, Under 16 Free.

Hope to see you there. Meantime, back to the last minute preparations.

“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.” ~ (Vincent van Gogh)

RED CROSS ART AUCTION, A SNOW PAINTING AND WALKLEY FESTIVAL

So, what has been happening since my last post?  Well, my painting for the Artists for the Red Cross auction sold for above the guide price, which was good. So thank you to the person(s) who bought it.
 

The auction, which featured donated artworks by ten Sheffield artists raised over £3000.

The paintings were beautifully displayed at the Winter Gardens in Sheffield and I was there on the last day meeting the public and the lovely Red Cross workers and signing postcards.

Here is a photo of me and my painting with the landlord and landlady from the Ranmoor Inn. The photo was used for an article in the Sheffield Telegraph.

 

The following painting I finished this week and it will be on show at the Walkley Festival here in Sheffield. It’s the first work that I’ve completed depicting a street in Walkley where I am now living and working. It’s very high up with lots of amazing views over the city. This particular painting features Blake Street during last winter's snow spell. It’s reputed to be the steepest street in Sheffield and at the top is ‘The Blake’ pub, which has recently re-opened. I think it was featured in ‘The Full Monty’. Anyway, it’s mine and Wifey’s favourite local pub by a long chalk, great beer and staff who know their stuff.

Blake Street Under Snow, 60cm x 60cm, Acrylic on Canvas

If you wish to see the painting, it will be on show at the Walkley Festival art exhibition at St. Mary’s Community Hall, Howard Road, Walkley, Sheffield.

26 June to 2 July, between 2pm and 7pm.

I’ll be there on Monday between 6pm and 7pm.

I’m busy getting a new batch of paintings together for the Great Sheffield Art Show, which begins on the 8^th of July. There will be new skyscapes, cityscapes and woodland paintings. I am adding the paintings to my website as soon as a new one is completed. Follow this link for a sneak preview:

http://www.markhwilson.co.uk/private-view

An artist's career always begins tomorrow. ~ James Whistler

Busy Wilson Studios, new skyscapes and why I don’t teach

Well, it’s all go at Wilson Studios at the moment. Coming up in July is The Great Sheffield Art Show where once again I have a premier artists’ stand.

I am working on a series of new skyscapes for the show, developing the techniques I’ve been using over the past so many years. People often ask me how I achieve my effects and I never can really. I can say what equipment and materials I use and how I use studies, drawings and photos etc but that’s about all.

Sometimes I don’t know how I’ve done something. I’m not a teacher so can only say that experience is the best teacher. The more you paint the more you learn.

All in all, it’s what you end up with that counts, not how it’s done.

Here are three new works I did last week.

 

Higger Storm Sky

 Ringinglow

Higger Storm

"Intentions don't matter. It's the end result we are all judged by. Evil in the name of good is still evil. And when you dance with the devil you seldom get to pick the tune."
— Sherrilyn Kenyon

SHEFFIELD ARTISTS OPEN STUDIOS AND EASTER FLOWERS

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s the Sheffield Artists Open Studios event starting at the weekend. It’s all very chaotic and last minute as usual, but I’m sure it will sort itself out.

Not much time to write at the moment so I’ll post these sunny flower paintings I did over the Easter period. I was inspired by walking through Weston Park in Sheffield and seeing all the colourful new flowers. I’ll be showing them at the weekend along with around 20 new paintings, some big, some small. Something for everyone!

 
The weather has been glorious lately, apart from a crazy hour the other afternoon when it was more like Christmas. I’ve never seen such big hailstones and the roads became mini rivers. This was the view from my eyrie, dreaming of a white Easter!

Anyway, back to the preparations for the weekend. I’m staging my event at Sheffield Cathedral this year so hopefully there’ll be a good turnout of visitors, especially if the weather stays nice.

Check out the details at the following address:

http://www.openupsheffield.co.uk/artists/mark-h-wilson.htm

SPRING CLEANING, NEW PAINTINGS & MY FIRST EVENT OF THE YEAR

Well, the house is ready for a spring clean. Wifey has started today and I will start on the top floor studio rooms as soon as I’ve got my latest paintings mounted and framed ready for my first event of the year. Honest, I will, whenever I get a spare minute! 

My first event of the year is the Curbar Art Show in Derbyshire. It’s being held at the local school and helps to raise funds for the school.

I first started taking part in these village shows in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire in the mid 90’s when I began to concentrate on landscape painting. They are held in churches, church halls, schools, community centres etc and I used to do as many as possible. I did really well at some selling all, or nearly all, my work. Some were a dead loss so I ruled them out and concentrated on the better ones. It was a big help to get me known in the region and also helped out the organisations and charities involved. 

I will be showing six pieces including these two new paintings of mine at Curbar in the Peak District on the weekend 9/10 April 2011, so get yourself along, have a cup of tea and a piece of cake and maybe pick up a bargain work of art.

Anyhow, back to the spring cleaning!!

 

 

City Storm Sky

First Light City Sunrise

SPRING, BLOSSOM, FLORAL PAINTINGS & THE SPACE-INBETWEEN

Well, the weather has been great recently with the advent of Spring, my favourite time of the year. I love the blossom, the emerging buds and the longer, brighter days. I feel like I’ve emerged, too, from a winter hibernation. Wifey loves the winter and the dark nights but for me it’s a bit glum, especially after the Christmas and the New Year festivities.

Anyway, seeing all this new colour has got me inspired to get going on some new floral work.

 SPRING 40cmx30cm

I’ve always loved using flowers as a starting point for a painting. There are so many colours to choose from, so many shapes. I don’t set out to depict a flower in a botanically correct way, after all I’m an artist, not a scientist. I choose my flowers, setting them up in an untraditional arrangement and start with loose, quickly done studies using diluted acrylic and a selection of brushes, palette knives, sponges, bits of card, kitchen roll, anything that’s lying around really. I sometimes put spotlights on the arrangement to cast shadows on the white background, what I call the space in-between. Working like this allows me to try different compositions, colour combinations and techniques and because I use paper I can throw them away if they don’t work. I usually work on about 10 of these at a time moving from one to another in rotation. At the end I might get 5 or 6 that I think are worth saving and mounting.

I don’t really class these paintings as studies. Quite often they contain a freshness and spontaneity that larger, more ‘worked’ paintings can lose.

Here are three examples to finish with.

ON GOLD 40cmx30cm

  

BUNCH 40cmx30cm

ARRANGEMENT 40cmx30cm 

A BIT ‘STUCK’, A BIG TREE PAINTING & MY BIGGEST CANVAS EVER

I’m currently going through a bit of a ‘stuck’ phase where I can’t get down on canvas what I envisage in my mind. I always want to move on and make better paintings. I’m never really satisfied with doing something that I’ve done before. Maybe I try too hard and want to achieve too much too quickly. At times like this, I find that I have to keep going, to work through it, and more often than not it does result in something positive, a new discovery, a stepping-stone to who knows where. Persistence is the key. As my favourite poet George Mackay Brown wrote: “There’s no retreat. The path mounts higher and every summit fringed with fire.”

However, here is a painting I did finish last week. It’s the latest of my woodland derived paintings and my biggest so far. I like the texture on the trees, the vertical rhythm, and the fluidity of the paint. Someone has commented on its Klimt-esque qualities which pleases me. Klimt is an artist whose work I’ve always been drawn to, maybe TOO decorative at times, but I do love his dream-like, abstracted trees and landscape paintings.

Mark H Wilson

Tangle Wood 2

Acrylic on Box Canvas

100cm x 70cm

Gustav Klimt

Beech Forest

Talking of large paintings, my biggest painting on canvas EVER measured 8’x4’ which I did at Art College many, many years ago. It was a big blue abstract based on the lettering and images from discarded canned food labels. Abstract Expressionism was all the rage at our college at the time, but I was a big fan of Pop Art, so I sort of combined the two.  I remember it got accepted for the Open Art exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull and I recall getting a few disparaging looks and comments carrying it through the streets of Hull for selection day.

Finally, to celebrate the arrival of Spring on this lovely sunny day, I’ll finish with this painting of mine called “Spring”.

A Popular Painting and Watercolour Competitions

Today, this painting of Whitby harbour made it to the top spot in the Art Web’s Popular Artwork, which is pretty good considering there are over 4000 works listed. It’s taken 2 years to get there. The painting was actually bought last year by one of my most valued customers in Japan, which is quite poignant considering the terrible events in Japan today. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what to say really.

 

Evening Harbour, Whitby Lights

60cm x 30cm on Box Canvas

http://www.artweb.com/artwork/popular

There are a couple of watercolour competitions coming up in the next few months that I intend to enter. It’s a medium that I haven’t used for a while. I prefer the physical, tactile and textural approach more suited to using oils and acrylics. I’ve always found watercolours too delicate and precise for my liking and have never been able to achieve the rich vivid colour I want. However, I came across this Howard Hodgkin watercolour the other day. I love his bold, deep, intense use of colour. Can’t wait to have a go myself now after seeing this. Where’s my watercolour set?

A Storm

Howard Hodgkin

1977

Well, a couple more hours of painting before the daylight goes, then I’ll see if Wifey wants an aperitif and a game of Scrabble. I’m on a good run at the moment, 14 games undefeated.

Mark H’s latest painting - a Contemporary Woodland

My latest painting featuring muted greys and loads of texture.

Tangle Wood 

60cm x 60cm on box canvas 

I finished this woodland painting yesterday. I’ve been working on it for a while, not being happy with it, but yesterday I looked at it and thought ‘that’s it, I can’t go any further with it now, it’s finished’. Every so often does a moment come along, and to me this painting is such a moment, when something has happened that I can’t explain, but is somehow right. Don't ask me how it's done! 

Keep painting and the magic will come.

A Sheffield Painting for Charity and my Magic Brush

Here is the painting that I am donating to the Red Cross charity art event to be held in the fantastic Winter Gardens here in Sheffield in June. It’s a winter sunset scene and features the Ranmoor Inn pub, which always looks so welcoming. I’ve done a few versions of this scene as I find the viewpoint and perspective interesting and challenging with the two roads on either side of the pub diverging away from the focal point. 

 

Also today, I’m showing you my ‘magic’ brush. This is the last of a set of hand crafted sign writing brushes that I was given when I did the coachwork painting and sign writing on the restoration of Hull tram 132. 

As you can see, it is well on its last legs but somehow seems to keep going. It’s absolutely fantastic for doing trees and thin sweeping brushstrokes. I used it for the trees on the painting above. I wish I still had the rest of these amazing brushes but they either got nicked or lost during a house move.

Anyhow, check my website for the Red Cross event dates and you can see Hull tram 132 in the Streetlife Museum in Hull.

Work in progress, storm sky paintings and a good weekend

 

Here are the two storm skies I’m working on that I mentioned last time. I’m happy with the way the skies are coming on. I’ve loosely painted in the view so far which is looking down a very steep street here in Sheffield. It’s called Blake Street and has apparently been used as a location for a Hovis advert and was seen in the film ‘The Full Monty’, well the Blake pub at the top of the street was. The pub has recently reopened as a really brill real ale pub which is good for me and the 3^rd Eye as we only live five minutes away.

Well, to round off a good weekend, I sold two of my new woodland paintings today from my studio, the one featured on my first blog and ‘Pinkie Wood’ shown here. Seeing them online gives you an idea but seeing them for real reveals the texture, subtleties of colour change and hidden depths.

These new paintings are getting good viewings on my website, Saatchi Online and ArtWanted. I’m inspired to do more of these, even bigger ones.

Just listening to Jarvis Cocker on 6Music while writing this. It’s my favourite radio show of the moment and is being broadcasted from here in Sheff, so lots of Sheffield music old and new.

Next time: the ‘magic brush’, the commissions in progress and a painting for the Red Cross.

Latest addition to Woodland Series

Red Wood Birches

Today’s image is ‘Red Wood Birches’. This is the latest painting I’ve completed in my new woodland series. I’m moving away from my previous naturalistic depiction of the subject (which can be seen on my website) to a more abstracted, textural approach. I love trying to get the reddest reds I can. Irene the third eye suggested I try different compositions such as this one with the dominant trees placed on the left. It’s a challenge to do this and get the painting to balance, but it's fun to break the traditional rules of painting and the way to move on and create something ‘new’.

This week, I’m working on some commissions and some new skyscapes. I’ve had these going through my mind for some weeks now and need to focus and buckle down to get something produced. I had a ‘breakthrough’ day yesterday when things began to happen. We had some great storm skies here on Monday which inspired me to bring two sky paintings I’ve been working on for weeks to come to life. Then I started two commission pieces that I am pleased with thus far. I also came up with a new title for the sky/cityscapes, which I will reveal when I show the works in progress next time.

Anyway, must get on. Time flies, it really does.

New Blog and New Woodland Paintings

Hello and welcome to my new blog.

I’m a full-time artist specialising in contemporary landscape and floral paintings.  In these posts I’m going to try to record my day-to-day, week-to-week life as a painter. I’ll be showing you works in progress, my thoughts, ideas, preparation for exhibitions and events, plus all the high and lows of creating art.

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. As usual, the week’s gone by in a flash!  I’ve been busy working on a new series of Woodland paintings which I’m really excited about. I haven’t done any of these for quite a while so it’s great to be working on some again. The painting shown above is called ‘Bluebell Time Birches’. It is on a boxed canvas measuring 50cmx50cm.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and I look forward to telling you loads more about my latest news in future posts.  I’ll also keep you updated with everything I’ve got lined up for 2011.

Anyway, I’m off for a beer now and a relaxing game of Scrabble.

Have a peaceful weekend.