The Live Drawer

Painting is like going to the gym. It’s often no fun, but you feel good afterwards. Well, most of the time. There’s the fun stuff, and then there’s the leg day, the tedious stuff. But it needs done.

And like the gym, it’s only with the space of month and years that you can see where you are.

In a tricky spot right now. But experience has taught me that nothing beats putting in the reps. Feel the burn and bite the bit and it’ll come good.

Painting a big ol’ bottle of Guinness Extra Stout and enjoying my Friday cigar ahead of the weekend. A large piece at 152 x 77 cm!

I’ve taken a step back from the Spillane line of work after months of doing nothing but it. I spent Dec 26 to now engrossed with with landscapes and landmarks. It was nice to sit back and let loose and apply all the lessons learnt painting bottles and packets of crips to the art of painting the world around us.

Changing gears I’m hoping to get back in to the watercolour portraits this coming week.

I need to find a rhythm where I can balance the various branches of work - from the intricacy of acrylic landscapes, to the verve of watercolour portrait, to the splash of the ‘Spillane’ pop art. Each instructs and informs the other.

All very exciting. I just need to bring them all in order.

So keep an eye out for some of the watercolour work I’ve been doing for years.

In my first post of 2021 I talked about my art journey under lockdown. Where others have been robbed of doing their job or vocation I was very fortunate to be able to dedicate more time than ever to my love of art.

Artists live in a state of constant lockdown and self-isolation, pandemic or no pandemic. Only difference for the artist under Covid is there are fewer distractions.

With all the time at hand I went down a new painting road. A lot less portraits and landscapes, a lot more painting bottles and brands.

I’ve been calling this my “lockdown experiment”. I kind of suggested in the earlier post that it’s been revolutionary. Well not outwardly in appearance, but definitely in terms of the craft and the process and what painting bottles and brands has taught me in terms of colour and composition.

Either way, it’s definitely a big big change in terms of the end product. A long way from watercolour portraits for sure.

I wasn’t sure about this new direction. So I adopted the pseudonym ‘Spillane’. Spencer in Irish.

I thought the new turn might have been a short phase. But I’ve really fallen for this new way of working and the end product.

I love painting the objects and local brands that we all love so much. The colours and the content and the familiar typography is something I just love getting stuck in to.

So I’m totally past the uncertainty of before and now want to embrace fully this new pathway and share it with the people out there.

I’ve been really happy to share this new move with my friends and supporters at @canvasgalleries in south Belfast.

We’ve spoken about the strength and the potential of the work and are really excited about working together on this line of work. I’ll continue to craft and produce the work, and the team at Canvas will bring their expertise to the work by framing, handling and presenting in the best way possible.

Maybe you already sussed things out with all the images of bottles in the background of my photos, or maybe it’s a surprise. Let me know your thoughts.

Hunched over the easel as ever. Doing a big landscape of Belfast. Work in progress. Inspired if not prompted by the great @colin_davidson_artist. I was struck by a post he made a while back talking about his annual tradition stretching back years of painting his beloved Belfast. The vista and muddy muse (a well?) he returns to time after time.

His paintings of Belfast are varied but always awesome. The scale and complexity of a high up view of Belfast is incredible and, for the artist, a little terrifying. But Colin sets the standard. Other greats like @francismccrory have tackled our city with graceful panache.

Inspired by these local lads I struck up the courage to take on, in Louis MacNeice’s words, the “river-straddling, hill-rimmed town… veneered with the grime of Glasgow… a city built on mud’.

And yes, the yellow and endlessly cliché “gantries” are included.

Hopefully you like.

A painting of @thearcadiaportrush and @55degreesnorth55 with the East Strand and Causeway headlands in the rear.

100 x 50 cm. Acrylic on canvas.

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In the studio painting the world famous #GiantCauseway. Northern Ireland’s own. Very tricky!

#giantsCauseway #causeway #CausewayCoast #causewaycoastalroute #causewaycoastandglens #causeway #belfast #belfastArtist #belfastArts #Irishartist #irishart #northernIreland #northernIrish #NorthernIrelandArt #NorthernIrishArt #arts #drinkart #belfastcity #belfastireland #belfastblogger #belfastpride #irelandArt #irelandArtist #irelandtravel #irelandtourism #tourismireland #buyIrish #ArtIreland

The iconic Dunluce Castle with the White Rocks Beach and Portrush in the rear ground.

Acrylic on canvas. 100 x 50 cm.

A painting of Seamus Heaney.

Always drawn to draw and paint the Irish great. In this I’ve included some of his words.

‘Two buckets are easier carried than one, I stand in between.”

It’s acrylic on canvas, 20 x 27 inches.

This piece represents another growth spurt in my art journey. The understanding to paint the face with such depth and projection comes from the most unlikely of sources. Something I’ll explain on another occasion.

Excuse the splurge of posting. I’ve been pent up.

This piece I worked on for days.

The famous @harbourbarportrush and @ramoreportrush. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 50 cm.

With this new venture/direction I’m riding two horses. One is an evolution of my work, which this painting represents.

The other, which I’m yet to make public, is more of a revolution.

Let me know what you make of this. Hoping to show the other strand of my work in the next day or two.

Goes without saying, it’s been an insane 11 months for us all.

Artists follow solitary lives, so I’ve been fortunate to pursue my vocation without the upending change, heartache and loss others have had to endure and even suffer.

I spent these lockdown months hunkered down in the studio, hunched at the easel for hour after hour, day after day, week after week.

Like an athlete going to training camp and hiding from public glare, I wanted to withdraw and simply put in the reps, graft and hard work.

I’m not sure people will have noticed, but I chose to massively curtail how I shared my art, my space and my process.

By coincidence (or perhaps subconsciously prompted by the pandemic), at the same time a virus changed the world I decided to change and totally review and revise my way and approach to painting.

At the same time I was also very fortunate to gain a new and much larger studio space. Something I’m very proud of, but have never shared online.

I shared little because I was unsure the change was right.

To those close to me who new about this change, I called this my “lockdown experiment”.

With the coming of the new year I have gained a lot of confidence and clarity.

For a few weeks I stood at a crossroad. Unsure whether to continue in my old vein, or to fully commit to the new path and share this with the world.

I only committed to painting full time in autumn 2016. I’ve grown and learnt a lot, from a caricature street artist and evolving to a fine artist who can now spend real time on my craft.

From spending minutes on rapid fire art when I first started, I want to truly commit to producing high end desirable art.

Today I’m sharing a photo of me in my new space surrounded by some of my latest work.

This is just the first step. I am really looking forward to sharing with my friends and followers the fruit of these months of solitary labour.

There’s a big surprise to be announced. Something I think people will really like.

Self-portrait, Jan 2021. Acrylic on board. 64.5 x 74.5 cm.

Another horse painting.

Painting @vanmorrisonofficial.