Tag: Ink Drawings

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My 20-20 vision: A virtual exhibition

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In January this year, I had a short exhibition called My 20:20 Vision at St Andrew’s Arts Centre in Gravesend. It featured quite a bit of new work, including some painting, which I hadn’t done for a long time. Many of the pictures were loosely based on memories of growing up in the Gravesend Riverarea. I sold a bit and it was lovely to see everybody who came.

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Unfortunately, my 20:20 vision didn’t extend to predicting COVID-19 and the devastating effect that is having on everyone.

I’m in a high risk group for health reasons and find myself confined to barracks. Three follow-on exhibitions I planned at The Hot Tin https://www.the-hot-tin.co.uk/ Iron Pier Brewery https://www.ironpier.beer/ and Cafe No.84 https://www.no84.co.uk/ had to be cancelled so I thought I’d do a virtual exhibition on here for a bit.

BTW if you live locally, Iron Pier are providing a take away service to keep us all going while the taproom is shut. You can find out more on their Facebook site.

Anyway, enjoy the virtual exhibition. There is a bit of blurb and information about size, medium and price of all the pictures featured in the video below, with links to my gallery www.duncangrantartist.com/shop/ where you will find many, many more pictures!


The music for the video was composed by talented musician and friend Ian Kirton. He has recently been writing some tracks exclusively for Audiojungle and this is one of them. It is available to license for media projects here https://audiojungle.net/item/relaxed-friendly-inspiring-acoustic-guitar/25685439

Details of artwork in the video
You can see all my latest work, which featured in My 20:20 vision exhibition, here https://duncangrantartist.com/product-category/new-artwork/

Road and Power Lines
I’ve always liked roads heading off into the distance. I think it’s the idea of a journey and of things yet to come. I often place man-made artefacts into my art. I think it adds to the story.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
70cm X 50cm
£140
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/road-and-power-lines/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/road-and-power-lines-print/ 

Across the Estuary
This is the view down to the Thames from the higher chalk land on the foot slopes of the North Downs. My old stomping ground as a callow youth.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
70cm X 50cm
£140
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/across-the-estuary/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/across-the-estuary-print/

 

Fifty Trees
This paining is inspired by a childhood memory of walking and cycling past this row of poplars between Higham and Cliffe in Kent. Those trees are still there today.

Acrylic on stretched canvas
70cm X 50cm
£175
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/fifty-trees/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/fifty-trees-print/

Crows on the Field
I like the lines that fields and trees make. There is a sort of bleak beauty about winter fields.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
40cm X 40cm
£90
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/crows-on-the-field/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/crows-on-the-field-print/


Migraine

Ever since my serious illness, I get really bad dreams…..I’m glad when I wake up.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
40cm X 40cm
£100
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/migraine/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/migraine-print/

 

Happy Easter
Just a little head pattern inspired by the mysterious stone sculptures of Easter Island
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/happy-easter/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/happy-easter-print/

 

In a line
Populating Smalltown. Just seeing how people and movement can be applied with a few simple marks.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/in-a-line/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/in-a-line-copy/

 

Ferry
Just my impression of people on a crowded ferry. Nowhere in particular. Maybe Tilbury, Galicia or Greece.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/ferry/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/ferry-print/

Winter Haze
As a child, I remember cement dust everywhere around the local cement works. In this picture I was trying to capture that grey, dusty environment.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
30cm X 40cm
£90
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/winter-haze/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/winter-haze-print/

 

 

Lower Hope 2
This is the stretch of the Thames below Gravesend where I spent many a day as a boy fishing and having bonfires.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
40cm X 30cm
£90
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/lower-hope-2/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/lower-hope-2-print/

Cliff at Sunset

The chalk cliffs in Kent and Sussex always impress me when I’m lucky enough to see them.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/cliff-at-sunset/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/cliff-at-sunset-print/

 

White Cliffs
I studied Geology and it was these impressive formations, made up of billions of dead sea creatures, that started my interest in the subject.
Acrylic on stretched canvas
50cm X 40cm
£125
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/white-cliffs/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/white-cliffs-print/

Under the Pylon
The 400kv Thames Crossing is an overhead powerline crossing the River Thames, between Botany Marshes in Swanscombe in Kent and West Thurrock in Essex. Its towers are the tallest electricity pylons in the UK.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/under-the-pylon/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/under-the-pylon-print/

 

 

Salt Flats
This drawing is inspired by a childhood memory of fishing and messing about by the Thames down river from Gravesend, Kent.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/salt-flats/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/salt-flats-print/

Red Sky
Chimneys were on every horizon in my childhood and, to be honest, I like drawing them and the have become a recurring theme in my art.
Ink on A4 acid-free paper
£120
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/red-sky/

A4 digital print also available
https://duncangrantartist.com/product/red-sky-print/

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Soundscapes

I wasn’t going to post again until after my visit to the Liberty factory in Italy, later this month but I wanted to share these short ‘soundscapes’ with you. They were made by talented Carlisle-based singer, songwriter and musician, Ian Kirton, using my pictures and his original music.

Ian played in numerous bands before developing an interest in music production. He now has over 10 years experience writing and recording music for film, television and video. Some of his tracks are available to license at https://www.audiosparx.com/IanKirton Links to the particular tracks featured on these videos are given below.

Ian also accepts original music commissions. If you think he can help you with your project you can contact him at ian.kirton@music2license.com

The videos are hosted on my You Tube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRlRHLlLxHsgxUPplV2WDw/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1&view_as=subscriber 

All the artworked featured can be viewed or purchased from the Gallery on this site. Just enter the title into the search box.

Licences for the tracks used on these videos can be purchased here:
Coastal Scenes
Comminic8  https://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/crumb.31/crumc.0/sound_iid.941279
Small Towns 1
A Guiding Light https://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/crumb.31/crumc.0/sound_iid.941476
Small Towns 2
Pure Touch https://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/crumb.31/crumc.0/sound_iid.941284

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Nursery tales and ink drawings

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I find children’s rhymes quite fascinating – they are still one of the few things that pass down through the generations by word of mouth.

Before modern media and even widespread literacy, these rhymes told stories, shared humour and conveyed  warnings and moral guidance across populations. These same messages persist today in the rhymes that parents teach and their  children learn by heart, even though they probably give them little thought. And as I’ve found out that is probably no bad thing!

It’s been fascinating to unearth the kernels of truth that lie behind these rhymes (or the romantic interpretation) and to try express some of them in my drawing.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells,
And cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row

 There are several interpretations of what this nursery rhyme means. The most grizzly (and the one I’ve gone with in my drawing) concerns Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She was a staunch Catholic, it is said that she persecuted, tortured and murdered many Protestants, earning her the title of ‘Bloody Mary’. The ‘garden’ in the rhyme is the ever expanding graveyard. Silver bells and cockle shells are  torture devices – look them up – and the ‘pretty maids all in a row’ are prisoners lining up to be executed at the ‘Halifax Gibbet’, a kind of guillotine.

 

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

There is speculation that  this also refers to ‘Bloody Mary’ blinding and executing three Protestant bishops, Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer, but they were burned at the stake, not blinded. It could be that their ‘blindness’ refers to their refusal to embrace Catholicism, but the whole explanation is a bit tenuous as the mice in the rhyme were maimed but not killed, and the first known date of publication of Three Blind Mice is 1609, well after Queen Mary’s death.

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin’s.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell at Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop the last man’s dead.

Just a lovely rhyme about the different sounds of church bells around London, right ….until those last three lines. Various theories have been put forward about the meaning of the sinister ending, ranging from child sacrifice and public executions to Henry VIII’s marital difficulties. But no-one really knows. The lines were added later and don’t appear in earlier published versions of the rhyme.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

Again, there have been many suggestions about what this rhyme could mean. In Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meaning of Nursery Rhymes (2008) the author suggests that the rhyme records the attempt by King Charles I to reform the taxes on liquid measures. He was blocked by Parliament and so ordered that the volume of a Jack (1/8 pint) be reduced, but with the tax remaining the same. This meant that he still received more tax, despite Parliament’s veto. Hence Jack fell down and broke his crown (many pint glasses in the UK still have a line marking the 1/2 pint level with a crown above it). And Jill came tumbling after is then said refer to a gill (or 1/4 pint) which also reduced in volume as a consequence.

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

Mulberries do not grow on bushes.  They grow on trees. Local historian R. S. Duncan (no relation!) suggests that the rhyme originated with female prisoners at Wakefield prison. A cutting was taken from Hatfield Hall in Wakefield and grew into a  mature mulberry tree. Prisoners exercised around the mulberry tree in the moonlight.

 

You can buy my original ink drawings or prints made from the originals in the Gallery on this website. Search ‘Nursery Rhyme Series’.