THANK YOU MR HOCKNEY

It was very sad to hear that David Hockney had passed away at the age of 88. Over the years, he has been one of my biggest inspirations. It was because of Hockney, that I wanted to become an artist, and it was because of Hockney that I wanted to teach other people about the joys of art.

David Hockney - My Hero!

This week, ironically, I have been working again, like Hockney, creating paintings on the iPad. They are based on gardens in Northumberland and hopefully will become part of an exhibition in the next year or so. They will be quite different from the work, I have been doing recently and that makes them more exciting and perhaps a bit daunting.

Gayle’s Garden No2 June 26 - digital painting - ProCreate

Gayle’s Garden No2 June 26 - digital painting - ProCreate

Before I get ahead of myself with this new theme, I still have an exhibition ‘On the Edge’ to organise at the Alnwick Playhouse Gallery. I will need soon to start framing and labelling all the pictures I intend to exhibit soon but in the meantime I am still working on two paintings which hopefully will make it to the final cut this exhibition. 

Turquoise Van - acrylic - 50x50cm - A work in progress!

I went to Berwick to the Granary Gallery to view the Joan Eardley exhibition ‘The Sea at  Catteline’. It was a small, but very moving exhibition of work and I would like to think that her paintings have influenced me to become more expressive and use freer brushwork.

Finally my painting ‘The Aln at Alnham’ can be seen at the Witham Arts Centre in Barnard Castle.

SUMMER STARTS HERE?

As the weather warms up it is possible to paint much more often if your studio is also your garage and is unheated. I have continued to work on my painting of Low Newton and it is making good but slow progress. Every time I complete a painting session I am always pleased with the bit I have just painted but then somewhat unhappy with the earlier sessions. 

Low Newton 50x50 cm acrylic on canvas

I have also started to work again on ProCreate on the I Pad painting impressionistic scenes based the local fields near Alnwick. Whilst making these studies Is have been thinking about Hockney, Klimt and Monet.

Hawthorn, Greenway nr Alnwick digital painting ProCreate

Finally I delivered my painting “The Alnwick at Alnham” to the Witham Art centre in Castle Barnard.The Witham Summer Open Exhibition can be viewed between 9th and 27th June. The Witham Art Centre is open Tuesday to Saturday between 9am and 4pm. For more details click on the following link >>https://thewitham.org.uk/ . 

The Aln at Alnham 30x60cm acrylic on canvas

Despite the heavy rain we enjoyed visiting a town we have never been to before and we almost certainly return to explore the town more. We drove back to Alnwick taking the scenic route over the hills via Stanhope, Corbridge and Prudhoe to complete a very pleasant and fruitful day.

The impressive countryside near Stanhope in County Durham

WORK AT THE DOVECOTE STREET ARTS OPEN AND WORK IN PROGRESS

I was thrilled to attend the Dovecote Street Art Open in Amble and view three of my pieces which made the cut. It was a well presented exhibition and can be viewed until June 7th. 

My drawing ‘Early Warning, Brislee Woods’ on display at the Dovecote Street Arts Open Exhibition

Two more of my drawinds at the Dovecote Street Arts Opemn

I have been busy in the studio looking to get paintings finished for my exhibition ‘On The Edge’ at Alnwick Playhouse in September.

My ‘Low Newton’ painting is my most recently started work and I have been aiming to get the tonal values right before adding all the local colours. It still needs a  lot more work but I am pleased with it so far. I like thee freshness of the finish.

‘Low Newton’ my painting of this iconic view of one of my favourite parts of the Northumberland Coast

‘Turquoise Caravan, Birling Carr’ is a painting that started out as a digital painting using ProCreate and has proved a challenge. Do I copy the digital image or like when I paint from a photograph how closely do i copy the photographic image? I have decided to use the digital image has just a starting point and see where it goes. I will find out in a month or so if I am right.

‘Turquoise Caravan, Birling Carr’ This work in progress will hopefully be an important part of my forthcoming exhibition at the Alnwick Playhouse

My third painting that I have been working on ‘Bamburgh Sky’ is still a work in progress but is much closer to being finished than the two paintings i have already mentioned. This image is closer to a postcard view than I usually use but the dramatic sky counteracts that I hope.

‘Bamburgh Sky’ I started this nearly eight months ago and hopefully it is nearing completion now

Next week I intend to decide on a date when I stop painting and start mounting and framing the paintings and drawings for the ‘On The Edge” exhibition at the Alnwick Playhouse.

BUSY WEEK AT THE EXHIB!TIONS

I have this week delivered three pieces of artwork to the Dovecote Centre for the Dovecoate Street Arts groups first open exhibition which opens next week. On the same day I drove to Ashington to pick up two pieces artwork from the Northumberland Open Arts exhibition at the Woodhorn Museum. My third piece I entered ‘The Aln from Lesbury’ sold just a few days before the exhibition closed.

The Aln From Lesbury 30x30cm charcoal on paper

In the studio I have been working on two paintings for my ‘On The Edge’ exhibtion at Alnwick Playhouse in September. My painting of the path next to Alnmouth Friary is almost finished but my painting of Low Newton is still in the early stages but is going well so far.

Path, Alnmouth Friary 30x60cm acrylic

In the next couple of weeks I hope to start doing some drawings on the I Pad using ProCreate as I have not done many drawings since I did some experiments during my trip to Lytham St Annes in February.

UPDATE MAY 2026

I have been working on numerous paintings and drawings for my upcoming exhibition at the Alnwick Playhouse. The theme of the exhibition is “On The Edge” and is a tribute to the coast of my native Northumberland. I have particular enjoyed depicting the caravans and huts you find on the sand hills at Low Newton, Seaton and Birling Carr. These temporary holiday homes are cosy whilst at the same appearing incredibly vulnerable. I initially worked on ProCreate to create I pad images and completed a number of charcoal sketches and I am presently looking to complete several acrylic paintings.

I have had three pieces of work accepted for the Northumberland Open Arts exhibition at the Woodhorn Museum in Ashington and as a result I was invited to submit work for an exhibition at the Witham Art Gallery in Barnard Castle. I found that I have also sold one of my drawings at this excellent exhibition.

I have submitted work for the initial Dovecote Open Arts Exhibition in Amble and had three drawings accepted. I have also been invited to exhibit my work at the Bailiffgate Museum in Alnwick in a joint exhibition.

The Boats, Alnwick 30x21cm graphite on paper

In the next year or so I am planning a an exhibition in collaboration with garden designer Rael Rawlinson. It is based on Monet’s gardens at Giverney and promises to be an exciting project for 2027.

So overall it has been a busy time!

UPDATING WEBSITE

I am intending to update the website and trying to make it more current. Please bear with me whilst I work out how to do this !

EXPERIMENTS AND COMMISIONS

I have now started to experiment with my next theme of “On the Edge’ by producing digital painting on ProCreate in a freer more colourful style. This looser style is influenced by the work of Paul Bailey an artist whose work I have admired on line for some time. I intend to do a series of paintings on the I Pad exploring this technique.

Meanwhile I am working on two commissions based on charcoal drawings of the Northumberland Coast. The first is of Boulmer Beach and the second is a drawing of the beach huts in the sand dunes at Low Newton. Both pieces hold unique but different challenges. I love working in charcoal and I like the fact that you have make a decision and stand by it as it can be very difficult change any mistakes.

QUESTION ANSWERED?

In my last blog post I posed the question ‘What next?’. This question has been answered to some extent after a meeting at the Alnwick Playhouse confirmed that I will be following my successful ‘The Aln – Source to Sea” with another exhibition in September next year. The theme of this exhibition at the moment is “On the Edge – Amble to Bamburgh”.

Caravans nr Warkworth Golf Club - digital painting - Procreate

In the meantime however I have several commissions to complete including a painting of the lonesome tree at Marden Rocks near Alnmouth and a charcoal drawing of the navigation markers at Boulmer. I have also been working on another project, which has been like an itch that’s needs scratching. These are studies based on views from a car on the A1068. At the moment they are just sketches and vague ideas but hopefully they may develop into something more concrete in the future.

One aspect of “The Aln – Source to Sea” exhibition was the success of the cards I produced of my paintings, as they nearly all sold out. As a result we have printed another selection which are now available from the Alnwick Playhouse.

Finally the weather in Alnwick is warming up nicely so its time to get back into the studio to begin painting again. I am looking forward to getting the studio ready to spend long Northumberland evenings painting.

EXHIBITION AT ALNWICK PLAYHOUSES - WHAT NEXT?

Whilst my exhibition at the Alnwick Playhouse has been a tremendous success it was quite sad that on Monday I had to take it down. Apart from selling work I have met some lovely people during the six weeks it has been up.

I am now thinking about what comes next. I may try to book another exhibition at the Playhouse next year or even try the Bailiffgate again although it might be in Northumberland Hall by then. I may even look farther afield to locate galleries that are still open. Meanwhile I have a few commissions to complete including drawings of Boulmer, Craster and Beadnell. For my next theme I have contemplating the title ‘On the Edge – Amble to Bamburgh’ looking at places people live on the coast. I hope to research why people set up home on the coast, how and when! From the fishermen who set up temporary homes called ironically a shiel to the grand castles of Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh and Warkworth.

A WEEK IN STAITHES

My exhibition ’Source to Sea - The. Aln’ has proved a great success, in terms of sales and the public response. I sold much more than I expected and for the first time we produced greetings cards which have almost sold out. I had wanted to use this exhibition as a practice event for a similar exhibition at the Old School Gallery in Alnmouth. However they been forced to announce that they are closing down at the end of the year due to the owner of the building deciding to redevelop it as a residential property. It’s a real shame as it was one of the best galleries in Northumberland. Hopefully they will be able to find another venue in Northumberland .

During the exhibition I did a ‘Meet the Artist’ which went well. I later finished the five paintings I demonstrated during the day and have now added them to the exhibition.

Away from the exhibition I attended the February Dovecote Streets Arts Crit at the Bailiffgate Museum. The Crit was moved from its usual Amble venue so the attendees could view Gillian Lee Smith’s excellent exhibition “The Lost and Left Behond”. Gillian talked about her work explaining its genesis. Artists Luke McTaggart and Jim Donelly organised the event which was a great success.

At the moment I am on holiday in Staithes staying at the impressive Bethel Chapel. I have been to the Staithes Studio where I met Ian Mitchell and viewed his work and that of his wife Stef Mitchell. Whilst Ian’s work is quite hard edge Stephs is much more organic. Both artists work was impressive and is well worth a visit if you are ever in Staithes. I also met the lovely people at the Staithes Gallery and particularly liked the work of Rob Curtis and Chantal Barnes.

I have been making a concerted effort to keep a diary of my artistic thoughts in notebook forms and I intend to post some of the pages online to help me stay motivated.

'SOURCE TO SEA - THE ALN’ ALNWICK PLAYHOUSE

A lot has happened since my last update a lot has happened. In March 2024 I negotiated an exhibition of my work at the Alnwick Playhouse. I decided to develop a theme ‘Source to Sea - The Aln’ which was based on the working methods of Cornish artist Kurt Jackson. Unfortunately at that point in time I only had one painting which included the River Aln. Therefore I found I had nine months to complete a body of work that could fill the space.

Initially I walked the stretches of the Aln that I was familiar with near Alnwick and Alnmouth and took hundreds of references photographs on my I phone. I then started planning out the paintings on my I pad using ProCreate.

I then decided to research the stretches of the Aln that I did not know. This included visits to Whittingham and Alnham. I knew the source of the Aln was near Alnham but where it was depended on which maps you looked.

For the next nine months I painted and drew a large variety of work based on the river and by December I had enough work to mount an exhibition.

Promoting the exhibition by delivering posters and flyers and plugging the event constantly on social media was exciting but hard work and sometimes takes you away from what you really want to do which is paint. However we got the exhibition up and it has been a great success and as i write this I have sold twelve of the the twenty seven pieces of work on view.

The big decision now is what comes next?

NEW PAINTINGS STARTED

Since my last update I have started several new paintings been to a number of exhibitions and hopefully got a chance to take part in a group show.

I am in the middle of painting a view of Warkworth Castle from the dunes near Amble. I have already done a version on an I pad and I am trying to use that as a reference. There are things you can do on a computer that you can’t on canvas. The most striking one is that you can work on layers on a computer which means you can paint or repaint the backgroung/undercoat. On a canvas this is virtually impossible. On the other hand the canvas is a physical object which has a presence that a computer screen lacks.

I have started a painting of Amble coastguard cottage again from the dunes and a depiction of Howdiemount beach in the thick snow that fell earlier this year. These last two paintings are still at a very early stage where I am trying balance the tones before introducing colour.

My studio is in the garage of the new house we have lived in since December and its great to have a space to paint although it a bit cramped and at times cold.

I went to see a group pop up show organised by a group of artists in Amble at the Customs House. Luke McTaggart, one of the artists, is a young up and coming local artist. He is always keen to talk about art and has asked me if I want to participate in a future group show he has organised. It’s a lovely gesture as he knows that being new to the area I have few contacts in Northumberland.

I also went to Newcastle for the day and trudged across town to the Biscuit Factory which is a very impressive venue and appears to be ‘the’ place to get your work exhibited in. This and one or two others galleries are what I am aiming for when I get a body of work together which fully reflects my style and artistic aspirations.

I have got lots of plans artwise but despite the fact I can paint full time it’s fitting everything in that’s the issue.  I do however plan to do a link to all the artists, galleries, arts organisations and exhibitions that I have came across since I have been in Northumberland. Also I want to do links to all the artists that have inspired me to paint the way I do.

I would love anybody to give me feedback at john.shiels.1958@gmail.com

WEB SITE UPDATED

I have finally updated the website with a selection of my paintings and drawings. I have included many of my digital paintings because that is what I have done most of in the last two years. Unfortunately it has taken time away from my artwork but now it is almost complete I will be able to concentrate on finishing paintings and starting new ones. I have a few acrylics in progress which are based on sketches painted on the I pad. I am working on a painting of Warkworth Castle and a painting based on views from the passenger seat of a car. The second of these is a diversion from my usual work but is based on an idea I have that mot people see landscape from their car. I will post it on here as soon as I feel it is in a state where I can share it

NEW START

Since I last posted updates on this website Covid has come and hopefully gone. I will be soon looking to fully update the website and share all the exciting things that have happened since I last posted.

THE LALLY GALLERY EXHIBITION MOUNTED!

Eventually got the exhibition mounted all of the paintings screwed securely to the wall at the Lally Gallery, Erewash Museum in Ilkeston. As usual I took far too many pieces of artwork and it was quite a job to work out what to leave out. I think I got it about right in the end. Once I had finished I felt very proud to see all my work on display especially as it is in my home town of Ilkeston.

I went two days after mounting the work to show a friend around the exhibition only to find the gallery was being used to house a meeting of the Local History Society. I knew quite a few of the members of the group but it was impossible to view the work so we nipped for a cup of coffee and returned an hour later. In the past when I have exhibited at Cromford Gallery at Cromford Mill I have been at the exhibition all the time so I found it very difficult to walk away from the Lally gallery without being able to see peoples reaction to my work. I had not realised how important it was for me to know what the public thought until that point.

Back in the studio I have produced a study of Mousehole in charcoal, which I am very happy with. It seems to be one of those pictures that came easily and has worked without too much fuss. If only all drawings and paintings could go so well.

I spent the New Year in Cornwall and to be honest I did not want to come back! It was a lovely break the weather was unseasonably warm and Mousehole where we stayed was as charming as ever. I went to the Kurt Jackson Foundation and was again blown away by Kurt’s paintings.  The desire to copy what he does in sometimes over whelming but I am trying to stay influenced and inspired rather than just copy. In the local Penwith Galleries you can see plenty of artists copying his style or rather trying to copy his style.

EXHIBITION LALLY GALLERY - ILKESTON

I am currently getting my work ready for a one man show at the Lally Gallery in the Erewash Museum. I am really thrilled to be exhibiting again at such a wonderful venue. I know from my dealings with gallery owners that times are tough. Just today I spoke to a gallery owner who told me she had sold one of my paintings only to inform that she was being forced to close the gallery down because she could not make it pay.

I hope to keep everyone up to date on my Art exploits but it will take self discipline to keep updating this website. I have made this promise a few times before but hopefully this time I will be more successful.

PAINTING SOUTHWOLD

Since my last blog I have started and completed a couple of paintings based on my recent trip to Southwold in Suffolk. The most successful was a view towards the Harbour Inn at dusk just before the light went and darkness descended on the scene. I have painted from this spot before but in the opposite direction towards the town rather than the Harbour. I was really pleased with the result and if i did not already own it I would buy it!

Since completing the Southwold sketches I have started on a composition for a good friend who has asked me to immortalise a mans best friend, his dog! Working from photographs I have not taken is a challenge but I have made a good start.

At the weekend I took four of my Bluebell series to display at the Nutbrook Cafe on Shipley Park. So if your cycling up the Nutbrook Trail and fancy a coffee and a bite to eat drop in and admire the artwork.

WEBSITE UPDATING

Welcome to my website! Like most artists promotion and self publicity does not come easy to me. As a result my plan to update this website and keep it current as to some extent been but put on the back burner a bit. Ironically this defeats the object of making it more current. However this is the start of a new beginning social media wise.

To comment on my artwork or the work I have done so far on the website contact me on john.shiels.1958@gmail.com or on twitter at @jshielsart