Art Sunday Jennifer Thomson Scottish Artist.

Art Sunday; Jennifer Thomson

all information from website below.

http://www.jenniferthomson.com/

 Jennifer began her painting career ten years ago when she gave up teaching art to paint full time. She has a keen following and her sell-out exhibitions typically open to a queue of eager buyers.

 Her success lies in her ability to observe the subtle, humorous moments in everyday life. She skilfully captures the personality of the places she paints as well as the characters she finds there.

Jennifer's work is influenced by the work of The Naïve Artists with their simple compositions and their use of bright colours.

I hope you enjoy looking at her originals, prints, cards, placemats and other gifts on her website. These are just a few of the paintings you can see there.

Art Sunday D J Fergusson

Yesterday I spend an hour or so wandering around the Fergusson Gallery in Perth. The first pleasant surprise was the gallery itself. It’s a grade A listed structure originally built as Perths first Waterworks. It was designed by Dr Adam Anderson ( engineer and then rector of Perth Academy) and completed in 1832. It’s one of Scotlands best cast iron industrial monuments.
It’s also the earliest known example of cast iron building in Scotland. Perth used to use the river Tay as its main source of water but as early as 1750 the Town council recommended looking for alternative sources of fresh water due to contamination of the river. By 1820 no solution had been found and Anderson was appointed by the council to find a suitable supply.

It wasn’t until about ten years later that Anderson, unable to come up with a viable supply of fresh water put forward his extraordinary and very radical plan to build an infiltration system. His scheme was probably only accepted because the town recognized his previous success at providing the town with its first gas supply.  Anderson acted as architect, planner, chemist, geologist, physicist and engineer. An Act of Parliament was needed (granted 1829) to authorize the construction of Perths first waterworks. The waterworks was designed as a massive sandstone drum, sandstone being the local stone, surmounted by a cast iron water tank and covered by an iron dome.

This wonderful building has been threatened with demolition several times but it was finally saved from the threat of demolition and restored to its original condition by public concern and the Perth Civic trust in the 1960’s. It was initially used as the tourist information centre, when they were re-housed it was used as a general gallery by Perth council and now, after extensive refurbishment, it is the permanent home of the Fergusson collection and the National Centre for the study and appreciation of his work. The Fergusson gallery was opened 0n Fergusson’s birthday 9th march 1992.

http://www.pkc.gov.uk/Education+and+learning/Museums+and+galleries/Fergusson+Gallery/

Fergusson was born in Leith near Edinburgh March 9th 1874. His parents both came from Pitlochry and Fergusson always considered Perthshire and the highlansda his spiritual home. As a young man he enrolled at Edinburgh to train as a painter but after only a few months he left to study on his own. He set himself a rigid timetable of painting and drawing from life mostly in the open air. His inspiration came from the Glasgow boys, a group of painters based around the Glasgow School of Art and the French naturalist painters.

He visited and studied in France regularly learning to make small quick studies which could later be worked from in a studio. One of the biggest influences during this time was Whistler, especially the work exhibited in Paris at the Memorial exhibition 1905.

He continued to live and work in different parts of France, and in 1913, in Paris, he met his lifelong partner Margaret Morris, a young dancer and painter who was visiting Paris with her own dance company.
During the war years Fergusson and Margaret returned to Britain, she stayed in London and he divided his time between her in London and his family in Edinburgh. Toward the end of the war he was commissioned to make a series of paintings in the naval dockyard Portsmouth.

 At the end of the war Margaret began establishing her various dance schools and Fergusson developed his reputation as one of Scotland’s greatest painters. He died in 1961 and it was Margaret Morris who inherited most of his work. She realized its importance and it was her who, in 1963, established the J D Fergusson Art Foundation to administer the collection.

The collection had, at that time, no permanent home but was loaned out regularly to various other international galleries. Now the collection of over 150 oil paintings, hundreds of watercolours and drawings, 23 sculptures, and around 60 and sketch books are all housed and stored under one roof. The archives, consisting of around 3000 letters, 500 photographs and Fergussons personal library are also part of the permanent collection. I have to say………..what a grand day out that was 

For more information see
http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?ArtistID=27&ArtisticStyleID=4

Also, quite a long time ago I did another post on Fergusson, here

http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/62/J._D._Fergusson_Scottish_Colourist
The red sail is one of the paintings Fergusson was commissioned to paint of Portsmouth Dockyard.
John Duncan Fergusson
Oil Painting
Fine Art
In this late painting, Fergusson shows how his association with the Fauvists, affected his work. Fergusson settled in Paris in 1907 and soon after his work underwent radical chqnge. He began to paint using bold colours and simple, flattened shapes. Even in this late work, probably painted after Fergusson settled in Glasgow, the lasting influence of Fauvists can be seen
He is primarily remembered a one of the Scottish Colourists, they were four Scottish artists who worked independently of one another but believed in the same approach to painting. These men were Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Boileau Cadell. The group all trained in France and the French influence can be seen in their work. Fergusson, more than the others was influenced in his later work by the Fauvist movement. 

Art Sunday Derek Robertson

Art Sunday Derek Robertson.

This man was born and raised not far from here. He went to Duncan of Jordanstone Art College of Art which is part of the University of Dundee and he still lives and works in the area.

I came across his work a week or so before Christmas and just by looking at it I can see how familiar he is with this landscape.

I’ve chosen a couple of his winter landscapes to show here because they show exactly what this area has looked like recently but there are many more landscapes, seascapes and wildlife paintings on his website.

From the artists website
http://www.derekrobertson.com/profile.php
Profile of Artist Derek Robertson

‘’Born and raised in Fife, Derek Robertson works from his studio in Balmerino and, since graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone Art College in Dundee some fifteen years ago, has established a name as one of the country’s foremost wildlife and landscape artists. He exhibits work in galleries around the world including regular selection in the Woodson Art Museum “Birds in Art” international show in the USA. His paintings are held in private collections in more than 40 countries as well as in numerous public collections including those of several British Universities, Museums and the collections of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and The Scotland Office in London. Derek is a professional member of the Society of Scottish Artists and the Aberdeen Art Society.’’

Art Sunday; Sir james Guthrie

(above; schoosdays)

Sir James Guthrie (June 10, 1859 – September 6, 1930) was a Scottish painter.
He was best known in his own lifetime as a portrait painter, although today he is more generally known as a painter of Scottish Realism.
He was born in Greenock, the son of a clergyman, he originally enrolled at Glasgow University to study law, but abandoned this in favour of painting in 1877.

(below; Pastures new)

Unlike many contemporary painters he did not study in Paris, he was mostly self-taught, although he was mentored for a short time by James Drummond in Glasgow and then John Pettie in London.

(below; the highland funeral)

He lived most of his life in the Scottish Borders, most notably in Cockburnspath, Berwickshire, where he painted some of his most important works, including A Hind's Daughter 1883 (my personal favourite, just love that little girl in the cabbage patch), and Schoolmates. He was strongly influenced by the French Realists, but is remembered as one of the painters in the Glasgow movement.

(below; The Hinds daughter, my personal favourite)

Guthrie embraced the establishment, being the first of the 'Glasgow Boys' to be elected to the Royal Scottish Academy (1888). He was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1888, and a full member in 1892. In 1902 he succeeded Sir George Reid as RSA president in 1902, and he was knighted the following year.

(below; reading the morning paper)

Guthrie became one of the most progressive of Scottish 19th century painters. He chose his subjects from everyday life; A Highland Funeral (1881) was widely regarded as a master-piece and is today held by Glasgow Art Gallery. This is a wonderfully atmospheric painting and showers his remarkable skills, but as I said, my own particular favourite is the Hinds Daughter.

(below; The summerhouse)

 

Art Sunday; Auchmithy Arts Festival

This is an Art Sunday with a bit of a difference. I’ve written about the tiny cliff top village called Auchmithie before, it’s beautifully picturesque and 5 miles north along the coast from where I live. This weekend, for the first year, they held an Arts Festival. In the village hall there were home made cakes, biscuits and teas plus an exhibition of what they called the ‘amateur’ artists.

At 15 other venues through out the village different local artists displayed their work. These ‘venues’ were the villagers homes plus the village school house and church. I took a couple of pictures of my friend and her work but I couldn’t really go to all the different venues taking photographs so I’ve found as many of their we sites as I can.

This is Liz Watson who I go out painting with sometimes

 http://www.scottish-painting.co.uk/

local potter

http://www.franmarquis.co.uk/

local cartoonist and college lecturer (also pet portraits)

http://frankmcdiarmid.com/index.htm

Ross Bull Photographer and film maker

http://www.agitatorstudios.com/

Helen Macdonald, recycled jewelry

http://www.jollygoodstudio.co.uk/

These are just a few of the artists and craft makers exhibiting at Auchmithie this weekend. 

Art Sunday; Contemporary Scottish Artist David Smith

I just love this guys work, sometimes you find work that you admire but wouln't want on the living room wall. This work I love, I admire it and would have my living room filled with it, and the bedroom, and the hallway.............and every other available space. It is so very, very realistically Scottish.

Paintings and information from this web site;

http://www.scottishartpaintings.co.uk/artist-david-smith.asp

David SMITH

David Smith was born in Dunbartonshire in 1957. He was educated at various colleges in Glasgow including Glasgow School of Art and the Glasgow Print Studio.

David Smith is constantly inspired by the Scottish coastal scenes and the fishing villages of the East Coast of Scotland. Other subjects which regularly feature in his art works are the Scottish islands and mountains.

The palette and inspiration of David Smith's contemporary paintings are taken from the Scottish Western seaboard and the landscapes of Scotland.

This combined with David's love of climbing and hill-walking is reflected in his paintings. His distinctive art style generates a feeling of a particular time and place and the associated atmosphere at the time

David Smith has been the recipient of a number of art awards including the prestigious David Cargill prize at the 2001 RGI art exhibition. He is a member and current President of the Glasgow Group of Artists