Summer Exhibition 2016

"Hockney's Tunnel from t'Other Side"

I live just a ten minute walk from the tunnel of trees made famous by David Hockney in his marvellous landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds in his "Bigger Picture" exhibition at the RA. I have painted the classic view of the tunnel from Langtoft Road but this is the view from the other side looking back towards the road. We had strolled up the green lane to Broach Hill and got marvellous vistas of the Wolds including our delightful little village of Kilham where we now live. On the way back down I realised that the tunnel was just as ‘paintable’ from this side. The idea was to try and capture the warm spring light bathing the trees and hedges with the sharp contrast of the shadowed side. I think this is a lane I will be returning to on many occasions!  This large watercolour will be featured in my Summer Exhibition at Bridlington Old Town Gallery from 1st June to 31st July 2016. The gallery is open every day from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm Mon - Saturday and 10:00am to 3:00 pm Sunday. I will be in the gallery from 1:00 pm on the following afternoons - 10th, 12th and 14th. There will be some more dates in July and I will let you know them as soon as confirmed.

Shade, Shadows and Sketches

"Just Before the Dawn"

Several years ago I was given permission to use some sketches by JMW Turner as a base for a series of watercolours to be included in my 'Inspirations' Collection. To think I could turn sketches by the great man into watercolours was a bit presumptuous to say the least but what the hell....I sure enjoyed doing them. I did a few, concentrating on sketches that he never turned into paintings. These were early sketches and are obviously the work of a master craftsman but I noticed that he never included any shadows in them. I don't know about you but when I am sketching for a painting later on, I always record the shadows in the drawing. I thought this might be because Turner would add the light and shadows during the act of painting. After all he is the master of light and shade and with his knowledge and skill it wouldn't have been a problem. However Professor David Hill gave me food for thought by suggesting that perhaps Turner used a form of shorthand to record shade and shadows in the sketches that he could refer back to if necessary. Intriguing. Anyway it was a pleasurable challenge for me. As the sketches had no discernible shadows and certainly no colours I was given a free hand to use my imagination. I did tend to use a very limited palette and not compete with Turner's dazzling colours. The painting above was based on a sketch Turner made on his first visit to the Lake District. It was part of his first tour up t'North and it is said that this was when he changed from a topographical artist into the sublime painter of landscape that we all know and love. 'Just Before the Dawn' started off well and I was pleased with the sky but somewhere along the line I sort of lost the plot and the overall result is a bit bland totally unlike Turner's watercolours. Here's one that did work:

"Turner's York"

Again I chose to make this large watercolour a 'nocturne' so I could use the subtle effects of moonlight to enhance my composition. There are a lot more sketches to go at and I have already been asked to do another one so I am planning to pay Mr Turner's sketchbooks further visits later on this year.

More from Glenn's "Inspirations" Collection

A Solitary Neighbour and a Literary Masterpiece

"Cathy Come Home"

" 1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with."                                                                                                                        With these few innocuous words the reader is invited into the pages of the most famous Gothic novel ever written - "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. The speaker is Lockwood and his neighbour......why none other than Heathcliff himself. The novel records the ill fated relationship between Heathcliff and his beloved Cathy and its effect on so many lives. This masterpiece of brooding drama, unrequited passion, complex characters and heartless revenge was written by a clergyman's daughter no less which is just one of the many surprising things about this famous story.
My painting had a few surprises for me too. It sort of took on a life of its own. It started life as a simple study of an abandoned farmhouse in the remote fells of the High Northern Pennines. I brought it back to life, set it in twilight, lit up the windows and there it was...Wuthering Heights. I could feel the presence of Heathcliff waiting at the window for the return of the ghost of his one true love and his plaintive cry. Will she ever "come home"? Incidentally 'wuthering' is a Yorkshire word meaning wild, exposed, storm-blown which summed up the real place perfectly.

Have a look at more paintings by Glenn Marshall

My First Watercolour

My First watercolour

Here it is….my very first watercolour. I was pleased to find it after all this time. It looks better than I remember it I’m pleased to say. It was copied from a photograph as indeed were all my early efforts. I didn’t know what I was doing and used the watercolour paint very much as I would have used oils. There is very little water used in diluting the paint and the original has a very ‘chalky’ feel to it. The yellow added to the trees was done with no water at all, just paint straight from the tube giving the painting a textured surface. I grasped the idea of using the white of the paper for my highlights right from the word go so, all in all, not a bad first time effort. And here is my very latest painting - a sketch done for the very first time in my new studio. I hadn't painted for a while but this is the result of a happy couple of hours just messing about. I think you will notice I use a little more water now:

"Wander in the Woods"

See More Paintings by Glenn Marshall 

Life's not always a beach!

"On the Beach"

In another life I ended up working for a Building and Construction agency. We were still living in Bristol then and I had been made redundant. With a wife, three kids and a very large dog to support it was imperative that I get a job - any job so I had signed up with this agency. To be fair I enjoyed my six months with them. I was young and fit, the work was varied, mostly outdoors, and the pay was good. I worked all over the South West on different contracts. One particular time I was working at Bristol Airport. It was being refurbished with Langs as main contractor. However there were only three men who were actually employed by Langs - the foreman, his assistant and a labourer. The rest of the workforce comprised agency workers like myself. I spent a lot of time working with the labourer who was called Jim Murphy. He was knocking on a bit and had been in the trade all his working life so he knew all the tricks despite which he was very well respected by his foreman. He was Irish so inevitably he was known universally as 'Paddy'. He was a genial, rather squat man with dark curly hair normally concealed under his hard hat which we all had to wear, and with the most striking blue 'Celtic' eyes. We spent a lot of time together and I loved to listen to his soft Irish brogue as he entertained us with  tales of life in the building trade and how much it had changed in his lifetime. Our work seemed to mainly consist of standing, brush or shovel in hand, just chatting away. But Paddy had 'foreman radar' and from whatever direction he came from he always found us hard at work sweeping or shovelling! Gradually as the job neared completion more and more men left until there was just the four of us. We were just doing a general tidy up before handing the site back to the airport authorities. It was late one Friday afternoon. Paddy and I were hard at it (!) shifting some sand from the front of the airport. The airport had remained open throughout the whole operation and throngs of people passed us  as they made their way to the main entrance and eventual departure.  As usual we were leaning on our shovels. "Strange isn't it" said Paddy " All these people heading off to Spain and such places. When they get there what will they do? Maybe relax in the sun under a blue sky and have fun on the beach playing in the sand with their buckets and spades....and pay a fortune to do it". He paused a moment and then continued with a twinkle in his eye "But look at us boyo. Here we are relaxing in the sun under a blue sky playing in the sand with our buckets spades....and getting paid to do it!". Great lesson in how to look at life from a wise and lovely man - fare thee well wherever you are my old friend.

Enjoy a paddle in more sea paintings by Glenn Marshall

Moving on...

"Approach to Kilham"

I am moving to a new home and studio in the lovely Yorkshire Wolds village of Kilham. This is the approach road to my new location. It is as lovely as it looks and we should be in our new bungalow by mid November. We will both be sad to leave Sewerby behind but it will only be eight miles away so we can still enjoy our cliff top walks with Dilly. I am looking forward to painting in my new studio and exploring fresh subjects to paint.

See more delightful paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds 

A painting that took a long time to paint!

"Twilight Settles on the Moors"

It can be very rewarding to take a fresh and honest look at your work every now and again.I began work on this painting two years ago. I framed it and it featured in two large exhibitions under the name 'Full Circle' I had named it thus because it was a return to the subject of my very first paintings - the North Yorkshire Moors. I was pleased with the result and especially liked the subtlety of the sky reflected in the moorland. However when it came back to me I began to have a vague unease about the piece. I hung it in a very prominent position where I could look at it frequently. Gradually it dawned on me that although very meaningful to me the painting had very few points of reference for anyone else, in fact not to put too fine a point on it - it was very mundane, even boring! Here it is though the photo is not quite true to the original:

"Full Circle"

I decided to see if I could add some interest to it so bravely took it out of the frame and taped it onto my easel. It was surprisingly easy to add the sheep. Because I only use transparent colours I could wash out the pale background and carefully paint them in. Then I highlighted the vivid purples of the heather so abundant just now and added a couple of flying grouse. Suddenly the painting came to life and became the essence of the fabulous North Yorkshire Moors. I thought it deserved a new title. Anyway if anyone asks me how long it took me to paint this I can truthfully reply..."Two years and forty minutes!"

Have a look at more paintings of the North Yorkshire Moors by Glenn Marshall