RAF Tholthorpe

NFE Night Flying Equipment Store

This is the second painting I did on the former WW2 RAF airfield, Tholthorpe. Painted on location on a sunny, but breezy, afternoon during the Easter holiday, between giving Seth driving lessons.
It's great that so many of these buildings are still standing. I am including some of the photos I took of this and some of the other buildings at the bottom of the page.
It's always tricky painting outside, given the limited time, changing light and not having the comfort of your studio. However, it is great fun and very rewarding. The results are always looser and more impressionistic painting outdoors than they often are indoors, largely because decisions have to be made quickly.
Anyway, here it is..

 The Night Flying Equipm.ent Store

 The angle I chose to paint from.

 Early blocking in and establishing colours and values.

The finished painting.

Some of the remaining buildings:

Some of the buildings are still used on the industrial estate, including the hanger type building where we have our car serviced.  It was something like a 'fusing shed'- the actual hanger is used on a farm at the other end of the airfield. There are also defensive buildings on a farm at the bottom end of the field, but you need permission to visit those.

Paul's amazing house in the 'Newer' Control Tower.

Difficult to see, but the nearest (long) building is from the war.

The Old Watch Tower RAF Tholthorpe

A couple of miles from where we live is the old airfield RAF Tholthorpe, which was home to several Canadian squadrons in the war. Although it is now largely just farmland and industrial units, some of the WW2 buildings survive, with some still being used as businesses, and others allowed to fall into ruin. I have started taking Seth there for his first driving lessons, and in doing so I looked again at the remaining buildings with a view to painting some of them. This painting is the old watch tower, which also served as the operations/control room. It was later replaced when the airfield was upgraded by bomber command from a satellite airfield for RAF Linton. Halifax and Lancaster bombers flew sorties from Tholthorpe, obviously not all of them returned. One fully loaded Halifax crashed close to our house on the train lines.
My friend Paul and his family renovated the 'new' watch tower and converted it into a great house. Paul is an artist and you can see the influence of the clear views and huge skies around his home in his work.
The airfield is reputedly haunted, and has been the subject of numerous 'paranormal investigations' (cranks), however, there are a few stories relayed by some of the people who work in the businesses based in the remaining WW2 buildings.

A couple of links about the history of the airfield:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Tholthorpe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhwVkkh9ad4

This painting is a small oil on canvas, painted on location.

The Old Watch Tower

RAF Tholthorpe

Oil on Canvas

Painting Outside

I took my paints out for a few hours this week (several times actually, but some of those are to follow).
Sitting in the middle of a badgers sett, I was painting looking pretty much into the sun. This painting is smaller than I usually work on, and the idea was to make myself consider more carefully every brush stroke.
Here it is.
Oh, and for the record, I didn't see any badgers, but did see treecreepers, buzzards, roe deer, and I heard them barking.
Good times.

 'Across he Field From Black Wood'.

Oil on Canvas

First Post of 2015

..... and the first painting since October.

I flick around on the net a lot, looking at artists and their work. I don't watch TV- I read and I browse. There are some great painters around, and I've just come across someone who I think is very special; Jeremy Mann. He's the kind of painter that confirms two things; just how much I have to learn, and how much I want to paint. Jeremy Mann makes me want to paint.
I particularly like watching people paint on YouTube and Vimeo. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any footage of how Mann works, which leaves me looking closely at pixelated images trying to work out his method, and how he lays the paint down. It's all good fun.
I started this painting (it isn't finished yet) after looking at Jeremy Mann. It's very crude, but it is nice that he has (unknowingly) given me the nudge to paint again. I need to be painting again. The idea is that now that I have stepped down as Head of House, and once we move house, I will have more (time?) energy.
Here's hoping.

Thirsk 

(unfinished)

Strangers

My latest piece. Again a stranger in the street, deep in his own thoughts. 

Beyond pushing the paint around and enjoying the act of painting, I think these latest pieces are about not knowing. We come into direct and indirect contact with so many people who we never really know, and we never really understand to what degree we don't know them, even when we become familiar and we think that we do. Similarly, we never know what life has in store for us, or the impact we make, directly and indirectly, on others.

Even people we pass in the street.

 Simple blocking in and establishing tonal areas.

Pushing the paint around a little and suggesting buildings and windows in the background. 

The finished piece.

 Detail.

 This is it in progress in the corner of my studio.

Street People.

 I've been intending to paint people for quite a while now. My interest lies in painting strangers that I see around in the streets. These are about the people, not the streets. I don't know them, and therefore don't bring any previous knowledge of them to bear. I can impose any kind of atmosphere or suggestion that I like, but am not restricted by the 'need' for a likeness. That said, this does look very much like the guy who I surreptitiously photographed. I like the idea that the people I paint are unaware that they are being looked at, and so I'm looking for those unconsciousness expressions and poses as people go about their business. I suppose that we are all people watchers, one way or another.

I still want to push the paint around and enjoy the act of painting more, as I said in my last post, but felt that this painting needed a little more accuracy than the last piece.

Early stages. A ground and initial drawing.

 Detail.

 Pushing the paint around.

 Time to start looking at the figure.

 Modelling the face. The composition needs something else..

 Detail.

 Loosely suggesting a street scene. Detail.

 Details.

Finished.

Untitled

Pushing The Paint Around.

Like most people I'm probably my own harshest critic. I have been frustrated by my painting for a while, both with the results and with the process especially. My last painting is a classic example of this. It ended up looking nothing like I'd wanted it to, I didn't paint it in the way that I'd intended, and I didn't really enjoy painting it. To be fair I was feeling a little stymied on ideas.

I've been thinking about painting people for ages. Not so much portraits, just strangers in interesting poses, and with interesting expressions - so there is no immediate association for me. It gives me the opportunity to start enjoying the process of painting again, and to push the paint around making more expressive marks.

The painting below is the first attempt at this. It's the second painting (of three) that I did over half term. I probably won't be posting the first one, but the second will be posted later.

Anyway, here it is. It has no title yet....

 Salvaging an old canvas.

 Detail.

Done.