Edition 2 - July 2012

Showcasing creative images and their makers

Naked City by Lys Hansen

Introduction

In the studio with ... Lys Hansen - p4

Marek Styczen - photography : p12

Viki Bolton - The Lonely Painter : p22

Paul Mowbray - On Paintings : p30

Gillian Hunt - Dancing with Flowers : p35

Lorna Dairon - paintings :p39

Maureen Mitchell - printmaking :p44

Ciaran Whyte - photography : p50

Lorraine Gillighan - photography : p57

‘Tales from the Nude’ by Roswell Ivory : p60 - on nude men!

Artpistol Featured Artist - Coll Hamilton : p65

Anasomnia - Animation : p71

Exhibitions :

Fortingall Art : p97

Pittenween Arts Festival : p101

Heartwood : p102

Perthshire Open Studios : p104

Kinross & District Art Club : p106

North East Open Studios : p107

Close : p110

6x6 International (images taken with the 6x6 app) : p72

Lorraine Nicholson - artist : p78

Louise Jarvis - paintings : p80

Lorna Cameron - mixed media : p84

Dave Hunt - photography : p87

Kate Kirby - paintings : p90

Andrew Hunter - paintings : p94

Fortingall Art Feature -The Splinters - wood engravings : p98

imoshemagwww.imoshe.com

Edition 2 - the first sequel !

Going way back to my childhood like many a wee lad I was an avid fan of The Beano comic, guess that’s part of growing up! For a long time I would just look at the pictures and not really read the text, this was probably just laziness and reading to me was boring, but I found myself making up the stories, I was probably a long way from the author's ideas at times, but this was just how I enjoyed the comic.

It seems that years later not much has changed, I may be a bit less lazy as some things have to be read in life, but when it comes to looking at visual creations I am sometimes content in looking for my own meaning in images rather that trying to understand the vision or meaning shared by its creator. And this goes further in my own work as many images I create I accept will mean different things to different viewers.

As for reading, I still find it boring !

When this mag was first conceived one of the biggest struggles was to decide on the range of content. There is much already written about artists practicing painting, drawing or printmaking, and there are many printed and similar styles of electronic publications featuring photography, but I wanted to open the doors to all forms of creative image mediums.  Many artists practice in more than one medium so why should they be restricted in a publication. 

The concern of course is that featuring such diversity could lead to either diluting the strength of the content or offering too broad an appeal, but the aim is to allow those that follow one medium in particular to appreciate the work of others. Time will tell if this works!

So, for this edition we include reference to an animation website called Anosomnia that is definitely worth a look and there will be more in future editions. One challenge however is the technical hurdle of some

All images are copyrighted to their creators - use of or reproduction in any way is only possible with the consent of the copyright holder.

animations not working on some mobile devices such as the iPad but this will not deter inclusion. So apologies if you are a committed iPadder you will just have to fire up that dusty old brick of a laptop to view Anosomnia.

In edition 2 we focus on my home county of Perthshire in the Scottish Highlands, a county rich with diverse artistic talent. The beginning of September is when many artists and makers open their doors once again for the Perthshire Open Studios. This is one of many Open Studio events held throughout the UK where venues of all sizes are open for the public to not only see creative work, but also to meet the artists and experience their working environments. As with previous years this event runs between the Pittenweem Arts Festival and the North East Open Studios giving over a month of artists work being on display to the public. 

Whilst this mag has a bias towards Scottish Artists we are fortunate to include an Artpistol featured painter from Glasgow, some wonderful photography from Ciaran and Lorraine from Dublin, along with some inspiring iPhone art from much further away.

Enjoy !

Dave HuntPerthshire, Scottish Highlandsdave@davehunt.eu

Note, if you are viewing the pdf on an Apple iPad this emag is best viewed in iBooks where all the links work. I have recently discovered an iPad app called GoodReader which also works well for link rich pdf documents !. For Android there are many similar apps available but please offer feedback.

Lys HansenStirlingshire

I met Lys in her studio in Braco one rainy afternoon during the Forth Valley Open Studio event in June.

Lys HansenIn a few days time I will be in Berlin. It’s like going from the sublime to the ridiculous, the extremes. I am in the middle of Scotland, at the gateway to the Highlands. Nothing ever really surpasses the Scottish landscape, its power to overawe you. Then to get on a plane and be transported in a few hours to Berlin, an extraordinary city that is evolving and changing, year by year, There has been the unification, and now the memorials that they are building to say sorry to the world are a huge tourist attraction. On one side you’ve the terrible, murderous, black history and on the other this new city emerging with its new energies in the 21st century, a city of steel and glass buildings built on an area of flat sand so everything towers up and, well, there is no landscape. Its European climate makes the city very warm in the summer. So they make parks with lots of trees. It’s a very considerate city.

When I go there I am never really sure what kind of work I am going to do. Although I might be on a main track or on a shelf about the work, certain other influences start to come in, so over the past 10 years at least the drawings have evolved to echo the changes of the city and the changes in my response to it.

How long have you been working over in Berlin?Well I first went there in 1985, I had a scholarship from the Scottish Arts Council, which was great, as I was relieved of my working job and this was really important. I didn’t know the language and didn’t know anybody either, but you get by.

What made you go there?

Well firstly I was born and grew up in the Second World War; so that was my childhood. Later, when I was a young woman, there was the cold war, so there has always been a presence of war.

Then the Wall was built in 1961. Withholding

One day the city woke up and this wall was being built, but the Wall is most interesting as most of it is down now and pieces are in museums. The thing about the Wall was that it was meant to separate and divide, but it became a huge artwork so that anybody could go and put a statement on it. Whether it was colour artwork or a political slogan, or just a scratching of a name, it had this amazing graffiti. There are many books recording this work and it becomes a very powerful point in the history of Europe.

So does this artwork now stand for freedom or democracy?I think what it stands for is the physical evidence of violence and it’s something you can look at. You can’t really look at dead bodies and war graves but the Wall art takes on another dimension. Very few of us have clout and cannot really change things that much. Ordinary people are governed and ruled over by the chosen few. The Wall is a people’s piece, and that’s its absolute power. They have taken much of it down and simply marked the line with granite blocks that are set into the roads and tarmac throughout the city. So I am going there this year and I am not sure what I will encounter. That’s the exciting aspect. It’s such a demanding city due to its scale so it’s not an easy city. Although they have an excellent transport system, as you would imagine, very well organized and punctual, it is a challenge from living in a small community as we do over here.

Your work features people and figures rather than buildings…?Yes. Well the thing is that the body and the landscape, the body and the blocks, and the body and the architecture are all in huge contrast so you can see this in some of the drawings and in the simplification of modern building. In New York the twin towers became the symbol of western wealth and these were just such easy targets: now we realise how naive we are.

This was just another evil mind, so you will see it referred to in my thinking and in my work. You have the paradox and the contrasts and extremes of human nature between love, kindness, motherhood and family: then you have war, violence and evil and this one man’s duality or, as Rabbie Burns said in his Sketch inscribed to Charles James Fox, Esq Night Visit at the Blocks

“How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix and uniteHow Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white.”

There was tussle too, as well as this inner struggle to be wonderful, but now nature is sometimes not quite so wonderful and everybody knows this about himself or herself, so this is why the human figure is always a fascination to me. It’s not about… well, for example, Lucian Freud was concerned with the circus of the body and the process of ageing, and how it looks and how to get the paint surface and texture to emulate that.

Francis Bacon, for example, uses distortion and his work is much more design- orientated (he was a furniture designer) and these are very powerful, very poignant images. He does brutalize the figure so there is contrast with my work. His almost overfilled painting on the one hand is a close encounter with the body, the land and the body, and on the other, how people affect me, so when I go to Berlin and do this type of simplification of drawing I am trying, almost as in poetry, within a few lines to give you a very consolidated statement.

It’s not a case of the drawing first and then the painting. It’s actually the painting then the reduction to a drawing. So I would say that eventually the drawings are much more powerful in a way because they are minimal. Perhaps they stay with you because as there is actually less there, then there is more. However I just love working with paint and colour and love filling a canvas. That is like theatre to me and it’s a performance… which I am very keen on. If I had not been a painter I would love to have been a dancer. But painting covers every aspect of living and touching and being and I just love working with it, so I like to surprise myself.

Do you?I do, yes I do, which is why I like bigger canvases. What will happen to them I have no idea but they are a huge adventure and City of Hope

you keep discovering things so the process of actually assembling them and painting them is hugely exciting to me.

What about these remarkable wood pieces we see in the studio?

Yes, I am very excited about these, which are a new development this year. They came about because a tree behind my house was cut down, a tree that I have looked at all my life and one that gave me such pleasure. It was a big chestnut tree. In the Spring one waited for the big, leafy fingers to come and the pink candles, then this bridal path as the blossom fell, then of course the chestnuts came, that would be gathered by the children and the squirrels. Later, the golden glow of the leaves filled the house, and then in Winter it became this beautiful line of drawings. When you have been as intimate with something all your visual life, it was very sad to see it come down. So I was looking at it and all these chopped-up pieces and thought I had to do something with them all.

Looking at them I could see limbs, and the blocks were heads and things so I brought them into the studio to let them dry out and started painting them. So it’s been a really interesting process. I will show these at my next exhibition, at the Kinblethmont Gallery near Arbroath that opens on 31st August and runs through to September 16th. I am showing these wood “sculptures” alongside a number of my large canvases and also some smaller pieces which show the Baltic Spring springing with energy into life. www.kinblethmontgallery.co.uk

The exhibition is called “When you reach September”. It’s a September song because September is the time of fruitfulness when Summer eventually moves on and we gather the fruit. It’s a maturing time (much like myself) so I feel full of that kind of realisation of what you have been doing these past these past 20 or so years. And I feel full and fruitful so I thought that this was a nice title. It’s also a gentler time and we most appreciate it, as shortly we are on the descent into Winter, so there is a comfort and a warmth.

And you are taking part in Perthshire Open Studios again this year?

Oh yes, there is that, of course. Much of my work will be in Arbroath but I have got plenty more to bring out. There will be some large works, and then of course I should have some of my new work from Berlin.

The Glorious and The Grotesque 007

Going back to your Berlin work do you see this as reaching a conclusion, is it an ongoing body of work or do you have a goal in mind or a vision to achieve, or are you working to see where it will take you?

I will be working on a publication, I will bring the drawings together and so I am having it designed in Berlin by a friend of mine who is an artist and a book designer. I wanted her to do this because it’s so much about Berlin. It will be in German and translated into English as well.

It will include an essay that was written by a very academic curator, in conjunction with an exhibition that I had in Berlin. I think that’s interesting to put in, and probably also some other writing from Mette Bligaard, formerly Director of the UK Danish Cultural Director here in Edinburgh, who knows my work very well. When you have a connection with various writers they know the span of your work and they can see the changes and can make very valid comments about your work, which I think is very useful… and particularly getting the Nordic and European connections, that’s good. Although I have been educated well in Scotland with training by the masters of Edinburgh College of Art, at the same time I liked to keep a European perspective rather than think of myself as a European artist.

I think that because of my childhood and the war and I believe you have to be in the world and not in a cupboard. Here I have to say thanks to my Berlin friend, Karen Christiansen who has offered me the use of her studio, and so made it possible to go and actually work there. That’s what makes the work so authentic; and because one goes for 5 or 6 weeks at a time you can make a body of work over there which is not the same feeling as doing it here. I see it as a sort of reportage in the field.

So, do you speak German?

No, just some words, as I said. I get by. I got myself an exhibition at Humboldt University on the Unter den Linden just with the few simple words that I have. I think if you want something badly enough you find the words.

Moment of Truth

Birthing Blind

Any final thoughts on your experience of Germany and its art?

In conversation with some contemporary German artists, I find that there seems to be a legacy from the war that affected their childhood, in particular in many who were born soon after the war. They ask how could they love their parents and trust their teachers. There is a definite burden there, which is why in a way they have to be so efficient. Well, they always have been very efficient, but they always want to be the best. I don’t see anything wrong with that: you want to do things the best but it sometimes comes at a price. It got very twisted and distorted with the Nazi Regime.

Saying that, it is certainly the city to be in because there is so much on offer and the flexibility of their thinking is good. They will just take over a derelict farm and it will become an art space with performances and exhibitions. I remember in what was formerly the East when they were building all the tunnels for the new transport system, whilst the tunnels were being formed they put on the most amazing performances and concerts down there. You were led down by young people and followed small markers with night-lights and you were taken to your seats, which were on scaffolding and it was amazing. Well nobody in this country would ever let you near anywhere like that, certainly not for a public performance; so there is this flexibility and diversity in their thinking. I have been to a lot of concerts in bombed-out buildings that have just been swept and cleaned up and an orchestra has come and played on improvised benches. It’s much more organic. You take what you have and the art continues and the performance will take on the spirit of the environment.

The one thing that they were very keen on before the Wall came down was that you could get scholarships for theatre and film-making, photography and dance and this diversity is exhilarating.

That flexibility that anything can happen is why a city like that gathers artists. People want to go there because there are these extreme ideas to work with and challenge you.

Lys Hansen - 2012

www.lyshansen.comFragile Fragments

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 53 on the Plum Route

Serious Red

Marek StyczenPerthshire

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening.If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so.It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life.It leads home.

Herman Hesse

Pier

My first explorations of the natural world were around the periphery of nearly 1000 acres of local army training grounds, some of which I could see from my bedroom window - that vast territory, scarred by tank caterpillar tracks, with stumps of training walls and aiming practice structures punctuating the landscape. Separated from community allotments by a burn, a little wooded gorge and a steep sandy incline, this was our childhood 'wilderness'.

I clearly recall digging shelter in the walls of a tank hide and cooking soup on an open fire; the communist-era equivalent of the Oxo cube and the solitary mushroom we managed to find had to suffice for flavour. The experience was exciting, even if somewhat perplexing in its apparent out-of-placeness. Like with so many things under communism, there was an aura of an alien and distant threat hanging in the air that you did not fully comprehend as a child but realised it delineated a geography of allowed, not allowed and the huge grey area in between.

It was not until we started regularly visiting a family farm on the doorstep of Mazury - where I ended up spending most of my childhood summer holidays - that I found peace in the interaction with nature. For over two months at a time I would lose myself in the farming landscape of natural woodland, gentle rolling fields, ponds and farm tracks. Cereals and potatoes were the main crops and no pair of hands was too sacred for work, no matter the age. Between driving the tractor to the fields, feeding the pigs, and gathering cattle for the night I would spend long summer days wandering, charting the territories, tingling with excitement for that view round the bend in the farm track or over the top of a hill.

The skies were big and open and complemented the land in perfect harmony; there was no question in a child's mind that this was the world as it was supposed to be. I still get a sense of longing for that idyllic environment. That Dunalastair Reflections

childhood fascination with the man-shaped landscape has remained imprinted deeply into who I perceive myself to be.

In 2005 we relocated to Scotland and I started producing new work. I don't always find it easy to photograph these landscapes. One oscillates between cliché and obviousness on the one hand, and obscurity and lack of substance on the other. I try and let it flow. Open up the senses. Memories of the past come back, and they visit in a peaceful way, traveling over those twenty or thirty years and two thousand miles.

I do not superimpose meaning on the work I produce, I believe in artistic choices made above all on instincts, and also beliefs and ethics. Some opt for anti-aesthetics, ugly awkwardness and moral ambiguity. Perhaps controversially, I refuse to see the attraction of celebrating those. Perhaps childishly, I still cling onto those moments of revelation that come from a simple find round the bend in the farm track. Perhaps naively, I savor the splendor of rugged beauty and the sense of history that lingers in the air.

Traigh Scarasta

Loch Tay

Caolas an Scarp

The Tummel

Machrie Bay Allt Mor cascades Kinloch Rannoch

The Hiding Place

Stainmore

Tree and Pier

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 75 on the Green Route

www.acreswildphotography.com

acreswildphotography

The Lonely Painter by Viki Bolton

There is a woman with a shy smile. When she walks she looks around, looks up. Talks to the stars. She’s a bit odd that one. They say. She is quiet. She stares when in company, her mind wanders and she forgets to listen. Not very friendly. They say. Cats love her, but it’s not mutual. She is surrounded by people - her people. She sees how beautiful they are without their armor. She doesn’t care where they went to school, how much they earn, how neat their house is. She sees only them. They dance for her. They weep. They are exposed. Fragile. But strong in their honesty. They are her. They are you. Sooner or later they leave to be loved by another, as intended. But that is ok. Tomorrow she will look into you and paint another.

If You Find My Heart

Deepest Secret

A Partial Veil

Eternally Incomplete

Unforgotten Self

Tangled Mind

Wednesday

www.facebook.com/lujomastudio

Artwork can be viewed on www.lujoma.com and you can visit the artist in her studio in Auchterarder between 1st-9th September as part of Perthshire Open Studios....

Venue 56 on the Red Route

Wednesday

Paul MowbrayFife

I recently found myself questioning how much time traditional artists spent making drawings prior to the popular use of photography as an aid. For example, the Musee Ingres in Montauban is said to house 4000 of Ingres drawings.  Therefore, it could be speculated that with this neoclassical master it would have amounted to a total of years rather than months composing drawings.

Most artists and collectors would agree that the concept of skill, and labour intensive working, are the main credible routes to producing fine art and in most stages of my own art this is the only way. Its just how much technical assistance can I introduce to maintain maximum time on the final process of painting? Photography and Photoshop allow the artist to view a composition or style as a preview to a finished work. The power of the undo button on the computer over wiping off paint from the canvas. The mechanical shortcutting aids have taken time to introduce, being of the traditionalist beaux-arts mindset.

Looking back to the early days of photography and moving on from Ingres time by a few decades, numerous Victorian painters were increasingly using the new medium of photography to co- exist with the sketch. Interestingly, from as far back as 1858, the great French painter Eugene Delacroix suggested “If a man of genius uses the daguerreotype as it ought to be used, he will raise himself to heights unknown to us...”.  An interesting perspective with the medium at an early stage.

Personally, I am not willing as an artist to let photography be the sole route as I am very sentimental about the time I spend drawing the model, or an environment.  Time seems to stands still as the rewards of the traditional approach take form on the paper. It is the historic approach in action. After three hours, I would have around five useable drawings that may form options for central or composite parts in the final work, but, if later, a gesture or the light wasn't quite right or an arm in the wrong place it presented either further challenges or the return of the model.

In contrast, photography, if carefully executed, may deliver in the space of two hours with a model, 40 or 50 realistically proportioned colour accurate sketches to choose from and for my approach, the nostalgia of carefully rendered drawings as reference material has principally given way  to this  more productive aid for our faster times.  Ultimately, this leaves me more time with the paintbrush exploring the final work.

Of course, depending on the artists’ style, the drawing stage can be a time to receive the visual data and make personal transformative stylisation as they go.  It delivers that 'time in the making' when we can apply our own idiosyncratic adjustments that are inherently our signature. This is something that I will never give up in my work, especially for my experiences during travel, but for the greater part, visual accuracy reigns, and photography along with Photoshop give me two transformative layers of creative control, to harness and contain a concept. The third and final stage comes from the act of painting when I filter and adjust my way to a finished work. 

Recently, the status of photography in my art was confirmed to me, when I was commissioned to paint a portrait. The sitter would not be present and the client produced a photograph. I considered its flaws then adjusted the image to my liking using photoshop, but it was during the painting I felt challenged as I continued to improve the work to my eye as a painter, without the usual help of reference photography that was my own. This tone greatly highlighted that I had finally adopted the camera and that the mechanical timesaving sketching device was now part of my creative process.

www.mowbrayart.co.uk

Gillian Hunt : Dancing with the FlowersPerthshire

Everybody needs to find a way to have 'timeout' . . .  a way of getting life and our lives into perspective.  Instinctively I did this often in my childhood and having learned the lessons I continue to use them now everyday.

I always felt the odd one out as a child - I never seemed to fit in and was always different - and the feeling persisted as I grew up and I found turned more and more to the joy of being out in the countryside and to the harmony and sense of belonging I found there. Until 2007 I was always an observer . . . and . . .  then . . . I was taught the basics of Macro photography and my imagination took flight. 

I learned to stop talking to the plants I met and to listen instead. I learned to not just look at the external beauty in front of me, but to see beyond it and to really feel the life force surrounding me  . . . and in doing this  I learned the freedom of Dancing with the Flowers. I learned how to capture what I felt and saw and how to translate it on paper. Now with my work I want to take you by the hand and lead you into the Dance as well and share with you my freedom.

Dance with the Flowers and see the colour in the windDance with the Flowers and feel the texture of the sunDance with the Flowers and allow yourself the imagination of wings  . . . Dance with the Flowers and fly to the true beat of life.

GillianHunt.Photographic.Artist

www.photographybygillianhunt.com

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 88 on the Red Route

.. and also at Athol Arms Hotel - venue 111

Lorna DaironDunblane

Lorna studied at Edinburgh College of Art Graduating with BA Combined Studies (Art and Design).

Heavily influenced by nature and her surroundings, her aim is to capture the atmosphere of a particular place or character of her subject.

Lorna is driven by her own emotional response to subjects, images and events. Her interests include; landscape, wildlife and empty buildings and places. She is particularly drawn to the wild and remote and all things worn and weathered.

Lorna enjoys working in both monochrome and colour using a variety of drawing and painting media. The use of texture and mixed media is also a characteristic of her work.

Competitions.

Lorna was a finalist four years running in the National “Paint a wildlife subject competition”(PAWS) 2000-2004.

Lorna is a participating Artist in Perthshire Open Studios Event (1st to 9th September 2012) Venue 52 Visitors very welcome - please check brochure for details/ directions.

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 52 on the Plum route

www.lornadairon.co.uk/

Lorna-Dairon-Artist

Maureen MitchellStirlingshire

I have been working from a studio at home in Bridge of Allan, for the past few years.  A post-graduate Design student of Edinburgh College of Art in my youth, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to be a mature student, studying graphics at Forth Valley College, Falkirk, graduating in 2009.  After a stint working in the industry, my work has developed into printmaking and also designing greetings cards.  After completing a short course at the Glasgow Print Studio, I joined up so that I could use the wonderful facilities there.

My future plans for the business are to introduce new products which are design-related.  Printed canvas jewelry which developed from one of my lino-cut prints has sold well.

The recent Forth Valley Open Studios event in Bridge of Allan was very useful in terms of contacts, commissions and feedback.

www.maureenmitchelldesign.com

pinterest.com/mitchelldesigns/MaureenMitchellDesign MitchellDesigns

About printmaking:

Collagraph printmaking is very closely related to collage.  A plate is made using board and textured papers which are layered on to the plate using pva glue.  

The design can then be cut away using a scalpel.

The plate is then varnished several time to make it more robust.  When it is totally dry, it is then ready to be inked up and printed using a traditional etching press. All collagraph print editions are very small, due to the fragility of the plate.  

Most editions are varied, which means that no two prints are the same colours.

The print is signed by the artist, titled and numbered.  For example, a print signed 4/5 VE means that it is the fourth print in a varied edition of five.

Digital prints are made entirely on the computer using software such as Adobe Photoshop.  I use a graphics tablet and pen together with photoshop and enjoy this method of working. Recently, I have enjoyed making the original print as a linocut and then working on it digitally. The computer is just another tool which can be used for some groundbreaking artwork.

The methods used in digital printmaking can involve as much if not more time than the traditional printmaking methods.  It is a very skilled process, which creatively is just as satisfying as creating prints by traditional methods.When the digital file is ready to print, a proof is usually printed to see how the artwork appears on paper.  Archival inks are used to ensure that the image does not fade.  High quality watercolour paper, such as those produced by Hahnemuhle, ensure a high quality image. 

As with publishing generally, printmaking is an art form which is evolving with the advance of new technology.   The Glasgow Print Studio has a digital department where you can have large images printed using the latest large format printer.  They also run short courses teaching all aspects of printmaking.

Maureen Mitchell

Ciaran WhyteDublin

Having come to photography reasonably late in life, at the ripe old age of 30, my first forays into it were with digital photography and digital SLR'S. Coming from a technical background, what initially drew me to photography, was actually the camera itself; taking pictures, certainly taking "good" pictures was a secondary concern. It was the love of gadgetry and the geek factor that first held the appeal, but this was soon consumed by the love of the image itself.  8 years have since passed and my initial flirtation has turned into a full blown obsession. Whilst I do not work as a photographer and deliberately choose not try and derive any revenue from my work, I do define myself as a photographer. It is an integral part of me and is something that occupies every waking moment (certainly every idle waking moment). 

 

model: Fredau

Over recent years my work and images have transitioned into what one could call fine art, but whilst I'm comfortable assigning the title of art to my images, the title "artist" sits less comfortably with me. Sadly, I'm still very much a technician and approach my shots from a technical standpoint first. My primary and often sole focus is the light in the image, with everything else secondary to it. 

My work now almost exclusively centers around working with art models from Ireland, the UK, Europe and beyond. By and large most fine art nude is monochrome, but colour, almost as much as light is central to my imagery. Whilst I acknowledge and appreciate that the naked female form has the capacity to both offend and titillate, neither is my motivation. I try to capture images that are beautiful and feminine, not sexy or glamorous.  As a hobbyist photographer, I am an active member of a camera club and participate in it's local, national and international competitions and distinctions.

These provide me with a focus for my photography, that would otherwise meander aimlessly from shoot to shoot. In Ireland I attained my Licentiatship (LIPF), Associateship (AIPF) and Fellowship (FIPF) in 3 consecutive sittings of the distinctions judging, over a 12 month period. Since then I have attained the AFIAP and EFIAP distinctions from FIAP (Federation Internationale l'Art Photographic), also in consecutive years and have been lucky enough to have been awarded over 50 awards in International salons.  

model: Madame Bink

model: Iveta Niklova model: Ivory Flame

model: Raphaella

model: Raphaella model: Raphaella

model: Raphaella

As for what the future holds? Who knows?

I want to continue to improve and am constantly inspired by photographers around me. None more so than my wife Lorraine. An altogether far more creative photographer than me and a constant driving force in my own work. 

model: Kayt Webster Brown

www.thewonderoflight.com

thewonderoflight

Lorraine GilliganDublin

When I was three years old, I had an imaginary friend. His name was Fred, and he was a “Troc-ol-dile”.  As I grew up Fred moved on, but he left me with the gift of a vivid imagination; seeing shapes in clouds, imagining adventures on rainy days and reading books that take the mind to different worlds.A lot later, in 2006 I discovered Photography, and realised it was a wonderful medium to allow me to embrace my imagination, to try create a visual representation of what I see. For me a photograph begins in the mind, it reveals itself slowly, building narrative and drama, story and style. And finally through the magic of light the dream becomes structure, an imagined moment frozen.  

I love to create images with a sense of drama, theatre, vulnerability and delicacy; playing with light, styling to show form and flair in combination with photographic technique.    I work with Ciaran most of the time I shoot, and although we do discuss ideas for shoots and work out the plan for shoots in advance we tend to have very objectives for working with models and certainly different results.  

Amazon Queen - Fighter

We work carefully to select models who have inner grace and ability to be emotionally expressive and a sense of creativity, for me this is crucial in helping translate my vision and to fit each together.   My most recent work was created for submission to the IPF for a Fellowship, and happily it was successful. The panel is my creation and vision, I prefer to style the shoots myself because I have such a specific vision, but i am careful to have a good brief prepared for the makeup artist and for the model. The concept for the panel was to identify a selection of female characters, both real and fictional, and to broadly interpret each through the lens of fashion /nude. 

These are my Drama Queens: you can see a surreal Ice Queen (Ivory Flame),a Fallen Angel (Raphaella),Jane Austen (Iveta),Delilah (Fredau) and an older and wiser Alice (Madame Bink).  

Makeup (usually) by Ruth Lawlorwww.ruthlawlormakeup.com

Wonderland - M'AliceLorraine.Gilligan

www.lorrainegilligan.com

Tempation - Fallen The Rapure - Joan of Arc

Tales From the Nude: On Nude Men!byRoswell Ivory

Diane Arbus photographed professional circus ‘freaks’ in their homes as completely ordinary people (whereas almost any other person who faced her lens took on a freakish quality!) As she died in 1971, I cannot ask her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her way of tackling her subjects was part of her own private joke- making ‘freaks’ normal and everyone else into freaks.) After all, circus performers were not popular photographic subjects in the 1960s and 70s. Now, when people with body modifications grace the pages of art books on a regular basis, street photography is considered an art form and photographs of naked women are permitted in the home without drawing too much scrutiny, the subject people shy away from seems to be… well, men!

The Guerrilla Girls said it best a few years ago: “Do women have to be naked to get in the Met Museum*? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art section are women, but 85% of the nudes are female!” They were talking about how female artists are underrepresented, but looking from an art model’s perspective, it also shows that men in nude art appear to be a rare species indeed.

Occasionally, I find myself falling into the mindset I try to discourage in others: that nudity automatically equals sexuality. Many people now understand that an image of a nude woman is not automatically pornographic. Some of these people understand that this is still true of a nude man. However, despite the classic “Adam and Eve” image being so prolific in culture from art to advertising, the idea of a nude man and woman together in a picture often seems to inspire uncertainty.

Although I make it clear which poses and styles I am willing to do when I am booked for a photo shoot, it is not a prerequisite of mine that a photographer send their ideas to me beforehand. (Though of course, some photographers like to do that and I’m always happy to see what we’ll be working on together.) The idea that any of my poses could be misconstrued and seen as anything other than art does not occur to me, but when approached to work alongside a male model, I am cautious. Though for a gallery of excellent male/female pairings in art photography, have a look at the work of Thorsten Jankowski, Gregory Prescott and Andreas H Bitesnich.

Throughout history (and especially religious history), women and their bodies have been viewed as seductive, mysterious and therefore a little frightening! It is women who, it was advised by a certain Pope or two, must be looked upon with caution for fear of corruption. Even the Ancient Greeks- lovers of nude male and female statues- had their Sirens.

Now, there are regulations on how seductive a picture of a man can be (on modeling websites anyway!) When every town has a strip bar, every newsagent has a “top shelf” and for those looking for art, almost every gallery has a nude lady, the male body now seems more mysterious than the female!

Lastly, when I asked a female photographer friend whether she would photograph a nude man, she exclaimed “I wouldn’t know what to do with a naked man… not in front of the camera anyway!”I wonder now, whether the tables have turned…

Roswell Ivory2012

www.roswellivory.co.ukRoswell-Ivory-model-and-writer

Photography by Dave Huntand Morag Knight (yes, a female artist !)

Model : KrisPhotographer : Barrie Spence

www.barriespencephotography.com

Featured Artist : Coll Hamilton

listening

Coll Hamilton shares some words with Artpistol. A very talented emerging artist with a distinct style that we love. He's proven popular on Art Pistol and is one to watch!

Bio:  My interest in story-telling and narratives are distilled in my paintings to creating moments that capture a place, a character or an expression, but most of all an atmosphere that could be part of a bigger story but which also stand alone as single images. I graduated from Glasgow School of Art and continue to live and work in Glasgow.

Art Pistol (AP): What’s the first thing you can remember painting?Coll:  Daleks - lots of them. I used to fill pages painting and drawing Daleks in lots of different colours - they are still my doodle of choice. I found a painting recently I did when I was about 5 of a Dalek exterminating Mr Happy. That's probably some sort of metaphor.

AP: When did you first realise you were an artist?Coll:  I'm not sure. I was always interested in stories and creating my own stories - when I was growing up I sort of thought I might end up trying to be a writer and drawing had always been something I just did all the time and

Exterior 6

Scene 1

gradually the two passions for narrative and mark making kind of blended into one. I think if you are trying to be an artist you get into a mind-set where it's difficult to switch off and everything you observe and experience feeds back into your work somehow but I don't know if this happens because this is how you are made up or because you have spent so long doing it you have turned yourself into that. And if you ever achieve some level of success where you can support yourself through your art, can you then switch off between your work and your life or are they just intrinsically intertwined forever? Certainly a few years ago I found it very easy to switch off from the feeling I should be working and now I can't. So I suppose there wasn't a time that I can remember where I first realised I was an artist but over the last couple of years I think I have finally realised I am artist.

AP: How would you describe your art to someone that has never seen it before?Coll:  One of my friends recently described my painting as "figurative abstract" and I really like that description. I think the importance of storytelling in the images would be something that would hit anyone looking at them for the first time and I like the medium and the process of using them to come through in the images as well - so there is the narrative that I am describing on the surface and then there is the narrative

Closed

Interior 1

described by the brushstrokes or pencil strokes or pastel smudges (I enjoy fingerprints in my work as well and tend not to always rub them out) that tell the story of the image's creation - or at least hint at it.

AP: Is your work on any famous person’s wall?Coll:  I've got some work on the walls of people who aren't famous yet but probably will be one day soon - I've given work to friends who are writers and a film-maker and other artists who I think will be very successful and famous.

AP: If you had the opportunity to change something in the art industry what would it be?Coll:  I don't think I've got enough experience of the industry yet to know as I'm still just trying to break in.

AP: Do you have any other interests or talents that you’d like to share?Coll:  Well, I'm working on some graphic novel stuff at the moment so I'm certainly interested in writing and hope that I have some sort of talent for it. Time (and other people's reaction to the work) will tell.

Light pours down smaller

Exterior 7

AP: Describe yourself in 3 words, one has to be a colour?Coll:  Orange (it's just my favourite colour, I don't fake tan), Happy, Sad

AP: Tell us your perfect scenario for painting.Coll:  In my flat (which serves as my studio just now), after having lots of coffee and a breakfast involving eggs, with either music or an Adam & Joe Podcast on my iPod, lots of bright sunshine and the whole day ahead of me to paint.

AP: If you weren’t an artist you’d be..?Coll:  The only job I've ever had is working in bookshops (still there part-time). So that, probably.

AP: Do you have any advice for artists just starting out?Coll:  I would say get used to rejection and knock-backs. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your own working (unless you can afford a studio) as I wasn't prepared for this being such a solitary existence. And not to get the internet anywhere close to where you are trying to work as it is like a constant, constant, nagging, whispering distraction.

AP: And finally, what are you working on just now?Coll:  I'm working on two very large paintings, a few smaller ones and on a couple of graphic novel projects. And some Dalek doodles.

Exterior 5

See more of Coll’s work on

@artpistol

artpistol

Anasomnia

A really cleaver interactive animation from the guys who created 99rooms.anasomnia.com>>>

6x6 International(Images Taken With 6x6 App)

Images by site creator Phil BishopCalifornia

Facebook pages dedicated to images taken with the 6x6

Buy the books on Blurb.com

iPhonephil

Sean HayesBelgium

shonski

Simone ReynoldsMelbourne.

simone.reynolds

Gerry CoeBelfast

gerry.coe

Gillian DownieNorth Ayrshire

Kelley6000

Cynthia WebsterOhio, USA

cynthia.westover

Lorraine NicholsonPerthshire

I am an artist/photographer who has actively used my creative outlets to process my various journeys through severe depression and beyond.

It all culminated last year when I had a poetic narrative published fully illustrated by my artwork and photography called "The Journey Home".

Images featured are both from Lorraine’s book.

www.hope4recovery.co.uk

Renaissance Woman

Trusting - Onward JourneyLorraine Nicholson

Louise JarvisPerthshire

Louise Jarvis’ passion for animals is deep rooted. Having learnt to ride horses at a young age she never dreamed of anything other than owning a pony. She would sit and draw horses day after day dreaming of the horse she would one day own. She grew up with cats, dogs and a number of other various furry and feathery creatures.

Louise studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee, Scotland and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2006.

Although only graduating in 2006 Louise has been commissioned to draw many animals since this time and her studies and passion for horses and other animals has led her to work passionately on her collection of Equine artworks including “Firstlight”, “Legion”, “Arclight” and “Fragments” as well as many private portrait commissions. Louise's work is all drawn in pastels.

Louise’s Equine studies and drawings are inspired by light and the relationship between light and form. The subtle hint at a shadow or the way light dances across the subject leads us to understand and get a real feeling of empathy for her subjects. Louise works in a sensitive but powerful way ensuring spectators get a feel for the power of these magnificent animals.

Her work also includes commissions of other types of animals. She is capable of capturing the animal’s character and soul and this lends her ability to draw animals of every shape and size.

Louise spends her days with her family and Golden Retriever in Perthshire, Scotland.She gains recognition through local, UK and International commissions. Portraits drawn by Louise hang in many homes across the UK as well as further afield places such as Canada, USA, Spain and France.

Commissions undertaken. Telephone: 07738 165748

www.louisejarvis.co.uk LouiseJarvisArt

Lorna CameronPerthshire

Much of my craft work is created from beach-combing jewels.

For the wall art I tie dyed the material, attached some shells and drift wood, made and painted clay seahorse, dolphin, fish and octopus.

Hummingbirds trumpet sketch was a therapeutic piece and they reminded me of myself at the time....They are the only group of birds able to fly backwards and depending on the species can hover flapping their wings 12-80 times per second!

Art helps me to find peace, poetry helps me find solutions. Nature inspires my art and poetry, as much as the love of it motivates me.

I work with mixed media, my mood and experience of the world at any particular moment dictates whether it be painting, sketching, pastels, textiles, ceramics, or photography that I use as my vehicle. Within artistic expression, as in life in many ways, I prefer to have plenty of variety... as it aids in my development as much as it prevents me from getting bored.

I have a blog where I chat about things that matter to me... like family, food, music, holistic healing, humanity, politics, nature and laughter, there are art images too. www.Poetry-scotland.blogspot.com

I also have a Facebook page with plenty of new creative images. Website coming later this year.

Lorna-Camerons-Creations

Master…Peace

God sculpted the rainbow, that day.As I lay.DisenchantedDisempoweredDisappointed.It beckoned me,From my feather down, where I layeye to the sky.And lit my solitary spiritfor almost a second. Once again the mastermakes good use of sun and rain.Merging them for that glorious peace.How does he know of my pain?Producing this fine work of art!Not only for my pleasureAt this timeBut for all to seeFundamental reminders, thatLove heals pain naturally.

The rainbow lights me from within.Although I cannot  ingest it.It helps me retain faithContinuous explorationsOf my depth of colour,Uniqueness.That  harmonious balanceMiles from black or white.Who else could paintA finer work of art? 

Humbled to knowthere is no priceTo reflect the rainbow.Only a beliefAn understandingA smilePerhaps a twinkle.A Willingness to progress, somehow.sculpting your own artConcluding that the masterpiece; is the peace!

©Lorna Cameron

Fairy and Goblin Dance One night with the fairiesand goblins I met.We danced in the rain‘till our bones were all wet We sang and we ran and laughed ‘till we split!

Sliding down toadstools brimming with wit. Spinning round rainbowswings made of silk.Naughty goblinshad drunk all the milk! Thirsty for something

We stopped at the well.

What are your wishes?

Make my heart swell!

©Lorna Cameron

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 61 on the Plum Route

Dave HuntPerthshire

Misty Dancers...

My last significant project was a photographic study of movement and light through dance that became ‘dancers in the dark’. So how do you follow such an all consuming body of work without obvious repetition whilst producing images that have some coherence with earlier work.

Like much of my work it tends to evolve rather than be created or planned. A thought, an idea, some play, a test, hopefully a few mistakes to catch you off guard, but above all keeping an open head. When I walk in the woods I like to wander along the smaller less defined paths and deviate into areas that we would not normally find when we take the fenced track. Every outing should be one of intrigue and discovery, following your own footprints is a quickest way to follow yourself.

Too often we can plan things too carefully, we either obey inspirations from other artists too closely or we avoid copying at all costs for fear of (self?) accusation of plagiarism. For me the middle route is the way, playing with ideas and letting the work find you.

Model & Dancer : Raphaella

Model & Dancer : Raphaella Dancer & Model : Eenia

www.davehunt.eu

DavehPhoto

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 88 on the Red Route

.. and also at Lujoma Studio - venue 58

Model & Dancer : Katy L

Kate KirbyPerthshire

I have painted since I was a child.... always looked for any excuse to get as messy as possible, an attitude which sadly continues to this day.

I studied at Leith School of Art and Cyprus College of Art and am a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and University College Dublin. 

I have worked in different media and enjoy experimenting, however  for the last decade  or so I have been concentrating on "straight forward" figurative painting, mostly in oils.

My latest work is a series of landscapes of Pitlochry, the small Highland town where I grew up and where I have recently returned to live. Prior to that my family and I spent a few years living in Argentina, where I painted  domestic scenes of our house and garden as well as still-lives of the abundant fruit of that area.

I have exhibited in Argentina and Scotland and have work in private collections around the world.

There are many absorbing elements in painting but  my main focus is light and the way it changes everything.

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 108 on the Red Route

www.kate-kirby.com

katekirbyartist

Andrew HunterPerthshire

I spent my working life in the visual media as an Art Director and Creative Director for some of Scotland's best known graphic design partnerships. I have been involved in creating high profile visual identities for all kind of organisations and businesses and the way in which I worked then ,in the design world, has undoubtedly influenced some of my personal work today.

Born in Edinburgh and studied at the College of Art.

How colours is applied and how it interacts with the subject matter creates the mood, and atmosphere. I am interested in finding the relationship in shapes, texture and in form that is inherent in natural and living creatures, , or in the case of landscapes adds an element of individuality.

I was commissioned to do the collection that forms ‘Fruits De Mer’ initially in oils (I hoped) but the client insisted on watercolour. He wanted the freshness and brilliance of colour that this medium can have. It was a challenge as the the final size requested 45 x 60 cms and with a list of specific specie there was no room for mistakes ,the subjects were drawn from life, loosely pencilled in to create the composition ,without any shadows as its enhances the textural qualities of the subjects.

Fruits de mare

Ardlussa, Isle of Jura

The mackerel apparently existing ‘out of water’ in unlikely positions are a desire to use recognisable living things in a semi abstract way, to create an arresting image .

The landscape, recently commissioned, uses the sunshine flooding in from the right to create drama ,and whilst the purpose of the painting is the house it is the wild flowers and long grass that create the statement and individuality.

My work is in Aberfedy Gallery, Colours Gallery, Edinburgh and I regularly show at Fortingall and in Perthshire Open Studios and other events.

I had a solo show on the Isle of Colonsay in 2011.

In the Net

In the pan On the grillOn the Pan

Perthshire Open Studios Venue 2 on the Orange Route

www.silverhunter.co.uk

The Fortingall Art Exhibition will open for its 8th year on Saturday 28th July and runs daily from 10am to 6pm until Sunday 5 August 2012. A selling exhibition of painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, jewellery, furniture and more, the event is being held once again in the Molteno Hall, in the delightful village of Fortingall. It has become something of a Mecca for collectors and art lovers who have high expectations of this Highland Perthshire showcase. Visitors are unlikely to be disappointed with an array of innovative and traditional creative pieces on show. Fortingall Art has always tried to encourage young people and its popular local children’s competition featuring CD-sized artworks, will be on display in the hall.

Fortingall Art was formed in 2004 by a group of Perthshire artists with a vision to establish a professional annual art exhibition in Highland Perthshire. Fortingall, with its unique Arts and Crafts style of architecture, and the elegant Molteno Hall, provide the perfect setting and venue. The summer exhibition has grown from year to year, and has made its mark on the Scottish cultural scene. The area has many important historical and spiritual links with Scotland’s development as a nation and is well placed for visitors to enjoy the beauty of Loch Tay and the surrounding mountains and glens.

Fortingall-Art

The backbone of the Fortingall show is still provided by paintings and an excellent pool of work by Richard Alred, Keith Brockie, Morag Cummings, Bill King, Malize McBride, Maryanne Ryves, Audrey Slorance, Eric Timms and Zanna Wilson among others.

These are complemented by Kate West’s jewellery, Heather Cumming’s metal sculptures, photography by Jamie Grant, Martin Knight, Dave Hunt and Gillian Hunt as well as furniture by Angus Ross and the work of glass-artist Bonnie Maggio.

Printmaking is represented by the Grandtully-based wood engraving group, 'The Splinters' whose display will also include Linda Farquharson's vibrant linocuts and Malcolm Appleby's prints.

www.fortingallart.co.uk

The SplintersFortingall Art 2012

“Of all media, wood engraving is the one in which there is the least to be taught and the most to learn”

Clare Leighton, Wood Engraving and Woodcuts, 1932

Established three years ago, the Splinters is a group of artists with an interest in printmaking, and specifically wood engraving. The obsessive nature of wood engraving led to the idea of holding regular meetings and we now meet once a month to discuss our ideas and to practise our engraving. The inspirational meetings provide an invaluable opportunity to make and discuss art among friends. The group is joined from time to time with visiting students, friends and artists. This exhibition is the third for the group and its collaborative nature complements our 2011 exhibition, An Alphabet of Scottish Animals. The Splinters’ 2012 Fortingall Art theme is a calendar - each member of the group undertaking two months apiece. The origins of the illustrated calendar lie in the medieval ‘Book of Hours’ - usually as an addition to a Psalter or book of psalms. Often these have been small and highly decorated. Illuminated manuscripts have provided an insight to the everyday life of their time, often revealing quirky and charming details. Traditionally the months were illustrated with labours or occupations, reflecting the changing seasons, festivals, and daily life, with delightful glimpses of the natural world alongside these activities. Our calendar reflects individual styles and interests, incorporating descriptive and narrative elements such as January skating, February’s lovers, the arrival of migrating birds in March, midsummer and midwinter frivolities, May’s flowers, the moody landscapes of Autumn, and November’s fireworks. The prints are sold individually with plans to compile a calendar for 2013.

View this work at the Fortingall Arts Fair

WOOD ENGRAVING

Wood engraving is a simple method of relief printmaking. Designs are transferred on to the endgrain of hard wood – typically either boxwood or lemonwood. The areas of the design that are to be white are cut away using a variety of tools, such as the spitsticker, scorper and graver. The block is then rolled up with an oil-based ink, pressure applied, and prints taken. Linocutting is another method of relief printmaking that uses different sorts of cutting tools often giving bolder results.

An alphabet of Scottish animals Our 2011 Fortingall Arts project was based on an alphabet of Scottish animals. Alphabets have long been used as a device for exploring printmaking and illustration techniques and the collaborative nature of our group lent itself to working on such a project. The results have been extraordinarily varied, reflecting not only individual styles and interests but also idiosyncratic subject matter. Our array of creatures includes such archetypal Scottish beasties as the eagle, pinemarten and a (very) wild cat. An otter and salmon, together with other watery and seashore sightings of limpets, crabs and kittiwakes (not forgetting the ‘fishy on the dishy’). Mini beasts feature prominently (not surprisingly, this is Scotland) and we have midgies, wasps, and a menagerie of insects as well as a collection of microscopic zooplankton. Mythical creatures include an angel and unicorns, alongside the more domestically familiar (sheep) dog, rooks and garden birds.

The prints have been compiled together in a concertina book, as well as individually.

The SplintersRuth Atkinson • Aberfeldy-based ecologist, taxonomist, writer, printmaker & gardener. Linda Farquharson • Strathbraan-based printmaker & artist.Penny Kennedy • Loch Tayside-based designer, artist and printmaker.Alyson MacNeill • Aberdeen-based artist, printmaker and teacher.Philippa Swann • Grandtully-based writer, photographer and latter-day wood engraver. & Malcolm Appleby • Grandtully-based internationally renowned engraver and designer and occasional wood engraver

Fortingall Art2012 Summer Exhibition

Saturday 28 July toSunday 5 August 2012

Open Daily 10am to 6pm

Molteno Hall, Fortingall,Perthshire PH15 2LL

www.fortingallart.co.uk

Follow AA signs from A9 and A827

“Just gets better year after year!”

Linda Farquharson, Linocut

Fort-art-A6PostcardInvite.indd 1 17/05/2012 16:23

Free entry to all exhibitions, 10am - 5pm daily.

The festival hosts an exciting mixture of well-established invited artists, newcomers and resident artists, who exhibit in homes, studios, galleries and public spaces throughout the village and its environs.

Frequently shown in paintings, Pittenweem currently has around thirty artists resident in the village and many more in the surrounding chain of small fishing villages set along this lovely coastline, known as the East Neuk of Fife.

During the festival we offer visitors a wide variety of different exhibitions, workshops, performances, talks and children’s events, all related to the arts.

The festial is funded by the registration fees of the participating artists as well as small grants and donations. Artists have their venue number displayed on an official blue board outside their venue. Please be aware that any venue without a blue board is not part of the festival and therefore the exhibitor has not made a contribution to our substantial running costs in order to participate.

PittenweemArtsFestival

Pittenweem Arts Festival: Celebrating 30 years - Sat 28 July - Sun 5 August 2012

PittenweemFest

www.pittenweemartsfestival.co.uk

HeartwoodArtists

Horse Saunaby

Edward Summerton

Play Horseby

Su Grierson

Inception byFrancis Law

After RainbyFanny Lam Christie

OpenStudios1-9 September 2012

Perthshire

Over 180 Artists, Makers and Creators welcome you into their studios across stunning Perthshire. From hidden locations in remote glens to intriguing spaces in historic villages and towns.

THE

BIELDBLACKRUTHVEN

www.perthshireopenstudios.com

Perthshire Open Studios, now in its fifth consecutive year, will take place from Saturday 1st - Sunday 9th September. Artists and craft makers from across Perthshire and Kinross-shire will open their studios and workshops to visitors. A brochure of the event is available on-line at our web site: www.perthshireopenstudios.com and here you will find details of the routes to follow, as well as information on the artists' particular disciplines, should you wish to seek out particular types of work on display.

As well as displays, some artists will be offering workshops and demonstrations. Visitors can be sure of a warm welcome from these talented people, who will be only too happy to talk about their work. Entry to all venues is FREE.

Alongside the displays in individual studios, Perthshire Open Studios will be running a showcase exhibition, from Saturday 25 August to Sunday 9 September at The Barn Gallery, The Bield at Blackruthven PH1 1PY. This will give you a sample of the huge variety of arts and crafts on display across the area. After sampling the arts and crafts on display, visitors can then plan which studios they would like to visit.

Our brochure also recommends cafes and restaurants along each route so visitors can plan whole days out, confident of having adequate refreshments as they venture to more remote areas of rural Perthshire. Printed copies of the brochure will be available in various venues across the area from 23 July or you can download a copy from our web site.

The committee and members of this increasingly popular event invite local residents and visitors alike to join us in making this our most successful event ever!

Perthshireopenstudios www.perthshireopenstudios.com

River TayRiver Earn

Crianlarich

Crie!

Auchterarder

Kelty

Glenfarg

Caputh

Methven

Muthill

Coupar Angus

Blairgowrie

Pitlochry

Dunkeld

Alyth

Murthly

Ballinluig

Bridge of Cally

Errol

New Scone

Kinnaird

Longforgan

Meikleour

Kinloch

Clunie

Abernyte

Crianlarich

Crie! Methven

MeikleourMeikleour

Blairgowrie

Dunkeld

Abernyte

KinlochKinloch

Coupar AngusCoupar Angus

Killin

Rumbling Bridge

Yetts of Muckart

KeltneyburnWeem

FearnanKenmore

Comrie

Pool of Muckhart

Blackford

Dunblane

Tillicoultry

Kinross

Dunning

Spittal of Glenshee

Kirkmichael

CaputhCaputh

MeikleourMeikleourMurthly

St Davids

Orange Route

Lime Route

Turquoise Route

Plum Route

Green Route

Red Route

Loch Tay

River Tay

Firth of TayTibbermore

Ruthven"eld

Grandtully

Milnathort

Lochearnhead

Callander

Pitlochry

Glenfarg

Auchterarder

Blackford

DunblaneDunblane

A85

A85

A827

A827

A924

A923

A9

A93

A93 A94

A926

A90

A977M90A91Route map

This map is for general guidance only and not to scale. Please refer to Ordnance Survey Landranger maps for detailed information.

A82

A822

A822

A84

A923

B953

A984

B9099

B950

B947

A93

B934

B867

A823

B934

Loch Earn

Forgandenny

B9099

B935

B846

Luncarty

Spittal"eld

Ballintuim

Longforgan

M9

St Davids

TibbermoreTibbermoreTibbermoreTibbermore

Auchterarder

River Earn

Braco

A9

Auchterarder

3

46

1312

1716

25

24

23

27

36

37

3839

4644

49

50

52

53

55

56

79

63

65

84

88

Forgandenny

Bridge of Earn

Forteviot

Bankfoot

B9063

31 29

40

Perth

48

11

DykendB951

98

20

2122

51

54

59

71 72

78

7473

81

1

2 5

10

7

15

14

19

Enochdhu

Straloch

30

26

32Cargill

35 34

Invergowrie

45

18

41

Crook of Devon

60

7069

58

64

86Pitcairngreen85

8382

Stanley

90

87

92

91

94 95

9796

99

101

102

107

108

105

Killiecrankie

KinlochRannoch

Glengoulandie

Balquhidder

Kingshouse

Guildtown

28

33St Martins

43

57

62 61

66

68 6775

7677

80

89

93

98100

Aberfeldy

103

104106Logierait

109

110111

112

GlengoulandieLoch Rannoch

Meigle

47

Perthshire Open StudiosRoute Map

AND

OPENING EVENING WEDNESDAY 7-9 p.m.Thursday 3.30-8 p.m.Friday 3.30-8 p.m.Saturday 10.30-4 p.m.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT www.kadac.co.uk

(Perthshire Open Studios Venue 48)

EXHIBITION SALE OF WORK

KINROSS PARISH CHURCH Station Road SEPTEMBER 5-8

KINROSS AND

DISTRICT ART CLUB

2012

Starting out as a small open studios event with a couple of dozen artists back in 2003, NEOS has since grown into the biggest open studios event in the whole of Scotland, competing for the largest in Britain.   The geographical spread is enormous: from Buckie on the Moray Coast down to Montrose and all the way inland to Braemar, visitors will be able to spot the characteristic yellow NEOS signs during the 9-day. In uncertain financial times for many cultural organisations, the artist-led, entirely voluntary NEOS organisation is self-sufficient.

NEOS chairwoman Morag McGee, a ceramicist and participant herself says:” At a time where so many arts organisations are struggling for funding, NEOS is continuing to grow, move forward and be as successful as ever, which is a fantastic advert for the arts and artists of the North East.”

With its thousands of visitors touring around the North East, NEOS is contributing greatly to the local economies too.

Although the majority of NEOS entrants are individual artists opening their studio doors to the public including painters, photographers, jewelers and ceramicists, there are also a number of groups displaying work in joint venues this year, such as wood turners and mental health art groups.

The popular North East Open Studios event is taking place once again between the 15th and 23rd September this year and just under 300 local artists have signed up to be part of it.

Hands-on demonstrations, live music and sculpture trails are often organised by the artists themselves to add to the 'NEOS experience'.

In addition to the wide range of artistic media that people are showing off, there is also a huge range of ages amongst participants. NEOS’s youngest entrant is 5-year old photographer Nadine Ralston, sharing the NEOS catalogue with several artists well into their 80s - but still as passionate about their work as ever.    Morag McGee loves the unexpectedness of NEOS: “You never know what you’re going to find next when visiting NEOS artists. Each year people are welcomed into the most weird and wonderful ‘studio spaces’; from village halls to living rooms, sheds at the bottom of a garden and even a toilet as a gallery. I think this is one of the greatest charms of an open studios event like this.”

www.northeastopenstudios.co.uk

NorthEastOpenStudios

Saturday 15th to Sunday 23rd September 2012

Rosy Naylor of Platform Designs, an Edinburgh based business specializing in web and print design for artists, makers and designers has been the appointed as the website and brochure designer for both the Perthshire Open Studios and also the neighboring Forth Valley Open Studios since their very beginnings.

www.platformdesigns.co.uk

Advertising.

At this time we are not accepting paid advertising or sponsorship in iMoshe magazine, but we do offer space to promote a company or organisation that we feel supports the artists community.

For consideration please get in touch.info@imoshe.com

Close, and whats coming next...

www.facebook.com/imoshemag

So, thats edition 2 put to bed, I may just be getting the hang of this ePublishing game :)

As mentioned in the intro the aim of iMoshe is to offer diversity, so a focus of the next edition will to showcase drawing and traditional printing and we will also be exploring traditional photography by going back to the work of the darkroom user (the real photographer ?)

I will be looking too at street art from Billboards to Graffiti, the sort of images that we may see every day but take for granted as being part of the urban scenery. Some folk see this as less than art or indeed in the extreme as vandalism, but the more open minded will see this as artistic expression which should be appreciated and celebrated.

I am also looking to support the experienced as well as the budding artist that seeks tuition and the chance for all to come out of their solitude existence and have the opportunity to network and to connect with other like minded folk.

Art classes are a backbone of the grass roots arts development so if you are connected with any venue that offers tuition please get in touch.

If you wish to be featured and can offer anything from an idea to a finished article please get in touch, the success of this publication will depend on its contributions. For guidelines on submissions please check the details on the iMoshe site - www.imoshe.com/submissions

Davewww.imoshe.com

Imoshe Magazine is a self funded venture supported by Wildgrass Studio - providing Fine Art Print Sales, Artwork Reproduction, Giclee Printing, Bespoke Framing and Training Workshops. www.wildgrass.co.uk