Author Archives: clo

North Yorkshire Open Studios. Weekend 2 & 3 December 2023.

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A chance to see artists and demonstrations. Selected to take part in the North Yorkshire Open Studios, I will take part in the Winter event on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd December, from Wold Pottery in Loftus. I will be there with ceramicists Emma Donoghue and Jill Christie, and many other selected artists will open their studios throughout North Yorkshire on that weekend. If you’re in North Yorkshire, you will find an artist near you.

I’m busy until the end of the year, but if you’d like to discuss a commission for 2024, please get in touch, or drop in during the Open Studios at Wold Pottery. Thank you.

Wold Pottery, 79 High Street, Loftus, TS13 4HG. More info and list of artists on http://nyos.org.uk

Wold Pottery on Loftus market place, between Pizza Cottage and The Brown Box.

Calendar 2024

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My new calendars have landed! Most of these paintings were completed this year. The calendar, as in previous years is A4, one page per month and printed on 250gsm paper in Yorkshire. I hope you will like the artwork I have chosen for this next year.

Please reserve your copy, and tell me if you want to pick it up from me or you want it posted to you. Thank you!
The calendars are also available from Wold Pottery in Loftus.

£12.50 each (+ postage* where applicable)
*sorry, my prices haven’t changed but postage has gone up…
1st class Postage UK:
For 1 calendar: £3.30
For 2 calendars sent to one address: £3.30
For 3 calendars sent to one address: £4.80
For 4 to 8 calendars sent to one address: £5.40

Autumn 2023

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I have been rather busy… A large commission (a quadriptych!) was finished last week and went to its new home today, an exhibition at The Station in Richmond in September came and went, and I’ve been designing a calendar for 2024 which should be ready in a couple of weeks. But for now, here is “Monk’s Trod”:

The wonderful Ilona knew and liked my artwork and wanted a large painting of the bluebells woods by the old monk’s trod in Glaisdale. This painting would capture the essence of the place, and would be a memorial to her mother, who loved to walk along that path. The small sized rooms, stairs and doorways of my little house stop me from working on very large canvases, so I suggested a triptych. It was Ilona’s idea to have four panels and to stagger them, and it worked very well (at least we both think so), with the path linking the four canvases together. It has been quite thrilling to work on such a big piece, for nearly three months. My newly insulated and refurbished attic studio feels empty now, the easels standing like suddenly denuded trees. But it won’t be empty for long, as I have a couple of other commissions to paint…

Summer 2023

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A British Summer is… unpredictable. Sometimes it is warm and sunny. I’m busy painting commissions, which is brilliant, and also preparing for a September exhibition in Richmond. But I’m feeling rather blue, as a gentle man who was a patron of the arts has sadly passed away. My latest artwork, which had started as a sunny interlude, changed to softer tones to reflect my mood…

Quiet Corner (the weekend race at the old mill, Westerdale). Acrylic on gesso board, 40x50cm

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Thank you to all those who came to see me at the North Yorkshire Open Studios. I hadn’t taken part for ten years, so it was great to see new faces and to meet visitors I hadn’t seen for at least that long. And yes, it was simply brilliant that some found an artwork to add to their collection.

During those weekends, I painted a little watercolour of my high street. It features Wold Pottery, which hosted my open studio, and the controversial large aluminium pipe which had recently appeared on the front of “pizza cottage” (This was removed today). The painting is now exhibited in Wold Pottery, along with a selection of my local artwork.

North Yorkshire Open Studios 2023

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Over 140 artists open their doors this summer for one of the biggest open studio events in the UK.
Stretching from the coast to the moors, dales, and beyond, North Yorkshire’s artistic community invites the public to take a peek inside their studios this summer.
The open studio event is on the first two weekends of June: 3-4 and 10-11 June, 2023.
It offers the public an exciting chance to discover works from emerging and established artists in the region.
The open studio event is organised by the artist-run collective, North Yorkshire Open Studios (NYOS), a not-for-profit community that works to support the hundreds of painters, sculptors, print-makers, jewellers, ceramicists, photographers and creatives who live and work in North Yorkshire.  Details of all the artists taking part can be found at : www.nyos.org.uk

I’ll be taking part from Wold Pottery gallery in Loftus, with Jill Christie, a highly skilled potter specialising in hand-thrown domestic earthenware. There is an article in Yorkshire Life about the Open Studios, I’m so pleased they chose one of my paintings to illustrate it! That painting “White Sun” (Whitby beach) will be exhibited in Wold Pottery. I hope to see you there!

PS. 6 June. The first weekend of the NY Open Studios went well, thank you to those who came to see us. And someone fell in love with “White Sun” so it has found a home (that it is the home of a talented mosaic artist is simply wonderful). For those others who might also love this image, I have standard A4 prints (£12.50) and a few A1 prints (£50) available.

Happy Spring.

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Maybeck. Oil on deep edge canvas, 50x70cm.

It’s still cold in North Yorkshire, but glorious when the sun shines. Above is my latest finished painting. It is a busy time. I’m now working on commissions, and preparing for the North Yorkshire Open Studios in June.

Spring Exhibitions

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Spring exhibitions! (And not just flowers in my little garden)
As the weather warms up, here are a few places where you can see some of my work this Spring, if you’re visiting North Yorkshire:

The North Yorkshire Open Studios preview exhibition is on at Inspired by Gallery in Danby, until mid May, and there’s a social event with live music on 1 April.

Blandscliff Gallery in Scarborough re-opens its doors on 1 April.

Wold Pottery in Loftus is open Wednesday to Saturdays.

Ailsa Nicholson’s Gallery in Sleights is open weekends.

The Brigantia exhibition at Harlow Carr, Harrogate, starts 21 April.

There is also Land of Iron Museum in Skinningrove and Chris Geall’s Gallery in Grosmont.
And of course my untidy home studio, open by appointment. 🙂

My garden in April. Mixed media, A4.

Glaisdale Dale.

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My latest painting is different from my other landscapes, an impression from memory rather than a studied representation. A rougher, more immediate painting style. The image started as an abstract, then became a sunset over a frozen broken land, then as paint layers built up, I realised I was painting Glaisdale. It feels good sometimes to start with just marks and colours and discover where the paint takes you.
Glaisdale Dale. Oil on thin edge stretched canvas, 50x70cm.


Twelve Tulips.

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An unexpected present at the beginning of January has been brightening and colouring my Winter. (I have lovely friends). The tulips arrived by post and flowered until March.
I couldn’t resist painting them, lined up on my kitchen windowsill… It was an inspired and inspiring gift!
I wondered whether to cut off the bulbs and plant them, but I loved seeing the whole plant. I assume they were grown hydroponically, as they arrived with flower buds and clean roots. So I put them in glass vases, and I put some diluted liquid feed in the bottom of the vase.
Now the faded petals are falling, so I have cut off the flowering stem and I’ll let the bulbs rest and dry. I’ll plant them in the garden so they can delight me again.
I put one in a clay pot, as I love that deep purple colour, so it doesn’t get lost in the garden.