Society of Staffordshire Artists and the Pottery Industry

On October 9th I submitted 5 paintings to the Society of Staffordshire Artists adjudication panel for consideration for full membership and was delighted to receive a letter last week informing me that I had been successful.

Freesia watercolour. One of the paintings submitted to SSA for membership.

The SSA has been established for 80 years and has had some notable members and exhibitors since that time, including many that were also employees in the pottery industry. For me this is of interest because that's where I started out.  Past members include Minton's designer Reginald George Haggar RI,   Gordon Mitchell Forsyth RI , Leslie Gilbert RI and Arnold Machin RA, who is best known as the man who sculpted the relief portrait of the Queen used of the first decimal coins and on stamps, the portrait is said to be the most reproduced image ever printed! So I'm pretty pleased to be included.

I've seen many paintings of industrial scenes of the Potteries over the years but oddly enough I appear to be the only current flower painter in the Society and I don't see many in galleries either, which came as a surprise given the tradition of floral painting within the pottery industry. Both my mother and grandmother had worked as paintresses, and I worked as a design technician in the Royal Albert division of Royal Doulton in the 1980's. Having that background in the family meant that painting was always considered a completely 'normal' activity at home. I can recall my grandmother showing me how to paint the freehand floral designs of a Hollyhock pattern that she had painted at work when she was a young woman who worked at at E Brains China.

Sadly the Staffordshire Pottery industry has declined significantly in recent years,  largely due to the changing market, small producers were consumed by larger companies and much of the production was then outsourced to the middle east in the 1990's. It was no real surprise that the appeal of the product and emphasis on local skills was lost and along with it jobs.
Fortunately today there seems to be a glimmer of hope for the craftsmanship and bringing production back to the Potteries.
Funny how things come around as you get older,  I'd never really had much of an interest in the history of the pottery industry, in fact I couldn't wait to get away from Stoke and thought it the most grim of places when I left.

What to Paint?

It feels like an age since I studied the SBA diploma but during my studies I recall frequently complaining that there was nothing suitable to paint ...... of course that's absolute rubbish because there is always something to paint! For me it was just a mechanism to distract from getting on with the job in hand....and I'm still doing it!

With the exception of native plants which can pose numerous problems we really are very lucky with an abundance of available subjects to be found at the florists, garden centre, botanic gardens or even the supermarket and of course there are plenty of leaves, seeds, lichens and twigs to keep an artist going all winter.  Also being organised with work over the summer pays off in the long term because by collating good quality photographs and creating comprehensive sketch book studies enables works to be successfully finished off over winter.....well that's what I try to tell myself and what I try to do.

In an ideal world this all sounds very sensible and organised but in reality it's not quite so simple because it's not so much that there's a lack of things to paint but a lack of finding something inspiring to paint.  Added to this is the problem of ' what should I be painting' Sometimes I feel like I must paint the species and native plants to be a 'real' botanical artist but actually there's merit in painting just about anything you can get your hands on if it inspires you....you don't need to feel guilty about it either (maybe that's just me!)

It's easy to become slightly bored with subject material and the technical challenges that botanical work poses can result in stagnation. I've had a bit of a shift in my work recently, although it's probably only noticable to me, and I have become more focused with movement, composition and the subtleties of warm and cool colours where light and shade is concerned. It's just another phase of the never ending learning curve and no doubt has a purpose that will all piece together in the long term. 

So with this in mind I'm painting some big 'blousy' flowers and pot plants ....just because I like them! ........ The most important thing is to keep painting and drawing.... it's the only way to learn!

Calla lily pot plants courtesey of the local supermarket. Note the odd double flower second from the left.

I painted this Calla lily on 300 lb Saunders Waterford HP paper. What an ordeal it was painting on a surface of something that can only be described as similar to the texture of sandpaper! won't be using that again. I was waiting for a delivery of  Fabriano Artistico, which is what I normally work on but decided to take a trip to the art shop and purchased a range of different papers to try, very interesting exercise with so much variation in colour and surface. Will post more later on my favourites and least favourites.

A Fresh Start! first painting underway.

Relocating takes time and definitely distracts from getting on with painting! A couple of months ago I  moved after 23 years living in Aberdeenshire..... a painting is long overdue! Always in need of a bit of a goal to motivate,  I tracked down the Society of Staffordshire Artists and will be submitting 5 paintings to be considered for membership in October this year. This has given me the incentive I need to get painting again and is a great opportunity being originally from the area. The Society has been established for around 80 years and holds several exhibitions each year.....they have no botanical artists as members!   

Looking for inspiration I decided to raid mum's garden because I no longer have one, and, have reverted to working on the kitchen table.... no studio anymore either! It's easy to use the absence of these things as an excuse not to paint but having worked for years without such luxuries it's really not a valid reason to abstain. I don't have the lamps or the magnifiers and to be honest although these things help they are not particularly good for the eyes or essential. It will be interesting to see how the new work turns out under different conditions... but it's got to be good to be able to adapt to a different working environment because running demonstrations can prove difficult if you get too picky about your working conditions.

I found some lovely honeysuckle with beautiful bronze coloured leaves weaving it's way through the garden,  it seems like a good candidate to start with, so many colours in the flowers, leaves and fruit it's a bit of a gift to the botanical painter. I actually can't remember the last time I produced a 'proper' painting and seem to have been been producing small studies for around a year now. ....so here we go with the first study page towards the new painting.

 

I have included as many different parts of the plant as possible, flower, bud, dissection, woody stem, fruit at different stages of development, I may add a few more bits and will probably complete a second study page but think it's time to start thinking about the composition. I don't make a lot of colour notes because I seem to find colour to be pretty instinctive and there are often several different ways of getting to the same place with colour mixing....although I could be way off the mark!  The light and shade is more tricky with warm and cool colours but I'll write more about this later because it deserves a separate post.  More difficult for me is the composition. I usually start with some rough sketches on tracing paper using just the basic shapes. I want to get the movement and 'feel' for the plants growth habit, these are the elements that have become increasingly important to me....too often botanical studies can look quite rigid and for plant like honeysuckle it's anything but rigid!  
  

SBA Membership and RHS Malvern Paintings

It's been a busy few weeks! Exhibited at the Society of Botanical Artist annual exhibition at Westminster Halls 20-29th April. It was a succesful exhibition and sales were up considerably this year, so great news for the Society. Also collected my very large SBA membership diploma certificate at Westminster Halls on 2nd May - see the shocked expression at the thought of having to carry it around London for the day! fortunately they agreed to post it and I had a great afternoon indulging in the Lucian Freud Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery and at the National Gallery, where I took  the opportunity to scrutinise the select number of Dutch botanicals by Jan van Huysum and Rachel Ruysch. Also great to Titian's Flight into Egypt.

I'm currently exhibiting the leaf paintings at the Malvern Gardening Show as part of the RHS botanical Art display until Sunday 13th May, photos to follow. Was awarded an RHS silver medal for the leaves. Feels like I've been away for months! Next up: BISCOT, Botanical Images Scotia at the Gardening Scotland Show and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh at the beginning of June...phew!

Collecting my SBA membership in London at the AGM. I think I already posted this .....but I'm still excited about it!

 

Below the 6 leaf paintings exhited at Malvern RHS, 2012 All on vellum. Awarded silver, not a strong enough theme apparently....oh well try again

Decaying lime 1

decaying lime 2

Cappadocia

Red maple

Cherry

Horse chestnut

Twelve months on from the SBA Diploma, Full Membership!

Since graduating in spring 2011 from the Society of Botanical Artists Diploma course,  I've not   really managed to get back into the swing of painting as well as I would have liked to, probably due to all the other distractions and disruptions in life and a bit of burn out!
However I did somehow manage to continue to produce work, most of which has been on vellum.  In February for this years SBA show at Westminster, 'Botanical Celebration'  I submitted another 5 and was fortunate enough to have all 5 paintings accepted for the third year running.  I didn't take the fast track membership because I had already started down the path and this was quicker for me.The exhibition starts next week on the 20th April. On the 12th March ( my birthday)  I received a letter from SBA informing me that I had been elected a full member of the SBA, which was just the news I needed to give me a good kick and get painting again!  I travel to London on the 2nd May to pick up my membership certificate/ Diploma.  It's not unusual for artists to suffer from these frustrating periods of nothingness and they usually coincide with the low points in life but they always pass.  

One of the 5 paintings exhibited at the SBA Show, 2012, Primula vulgaris, on vellum, sold at the opening along with two other pieces on vellum. It was highly commended for the Joyce Cumming award.

Very large membership certificate! See the 'now where am I going to put this!' expression!

Over the last few weeks I think (hope) some progress is being made and I've managed to produce several new leaf paintings on vellum. These paintings will be exhibited May 10 -13th at the Malvern Gardening Show as part of the RHS botanical exhibition. 

Here's work in progress on a decaying lime leaf painted on vellum which I collected from the grounds of Duff House in Banffshire.

Decaying Lime Leaf on vellum or Malvern RHS show

Decaying Lime Leaf 2 on vellum for Malvern RHS show

Flower number 3, The Crocus

Very quick painting of a crocus, not sure I'm very happy with it - looks a bit stiff, so I may rework it to give it more movement and shine. Movement in a composition is something that I've become more concerned with recently - I think that in botanical  painting it can get overlooked because of the focus on  technical accuracy.

Saturday's flower, Hellebore

I think this hellebore is White Spotted Lady.  It's never flowered before this year, which is odd because all the others in the garden have failed to show. I'd just about given up on it but perhaps it liked the hard frost we had this year. Next up the crocus.

More flowers 30 Day Challenge

It's about time I uploaded some of the flowers from my 30 day flower challenge, so here we go with a Iris reticulata hybrid, I think it's  'Katharine Hodgkin', which is quite a pale version. 
Also I have lots of the regular dark blue I. reticulata in the garden too, which I painted it for my SBA Diploma portfolio ( image below)  That was over a year ago and it seems like a distant memory now. It's good to paint it again and this one has to be my favourite iris. 

I spent about  40 minutes on this one, it's not the greatest painting but has a nice delicate quality.

'Katherine Hodgkin' 40 minute watercolour study

 

Botanical Illustration of Iris reticulata from the SBA Diploma portfolio. I think I sold this one, can't remember where though. It's a very dark purple so plenty violet diox and soem Indanthrene blue too

New Flower Challenge and an Etsy shop launched!

I didn't quite make the finish with the leaf challenge but it doesn't mean I can't try again! I did quite a lot some of which I was pleased with and others not so!
So thought I'd have another go but this time with flowers!  Maybe one week at a time so that it's not too overwhelming. Here's number 1. Tulip

A very pink tulip! Some Permanaenent rose and Quin magenta for this one. I tend to avoid the Opera rose, which is bright but transient, so can fade. I try to work only with ASTM rating I and II paints. ASTM is the standard for paint testing

NEW SHOP!

 I've also created an Etsy shop to sell some of my smaller works and sketches produced as part of the challenges http://www.etsy.com/shop/diannesutherlandart

It seems like a good way for an arist to sell more affordable art works, such as small originals, prints and cards. The only problem is that it's very large and difficult to find things and theres a good chance of buying more than I sell!   

Final leaves for the 30/30 Leaf Challenge

Ornamental cherry from outside my daughter's house in Stoke on Trent

Picked up at a motorway service station in Glasgow on the trip home following my grandson's first visit to Scotland.

From Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire, my hometown

No blogging for weeks now and never did get round to finishing the challenge - I think I managed  just 17! too many other things to do in October but here are the last few leaves that I managed to complete....maybe next year I'll complete the 30! or maybe 30 flowers instead.