The Making Of It.. The making of

These are some pictures showing the progress of a painting I made for my recent group exhibition, the 'Making Of It'. The painting is Untitled at the present. I used a large very thick piece of wood to make the painting on, several people commented that they thought it was a door frame.

After sanding, priming, sanding, priming etc. I drew out the figure and blocked in the basics. 

More blocking, and no he has not got a terrible disease...

Once I had blocked in the figure I started building up the layers on the face and hands.

Then the coat got some colour and I roughly painted in areas of shade. More layers on face/hands as well.

Once I had finished the coat area I began on the blue checked fabric at the bottom, adding in light and shade.

Then colour to the background.

I then started to paint in the face and hands. This was followed by more detail on the blue check and the background.

I then thickened the black line around the homeless man to increase contrast.

Several steps ahead... I have completed the background by adding various layers of colour and added concrete to the surface.

The final step was to add in the metal poles of the railings. This was doled on to the surface and sanded to a smooth consistency. 

And voila!

Damaged Painting

At my recent exhibition in the Whitespace Gallery I was photographing some paintings for my upcoming exhibition at the Old Ambulance Depot (Entitled 'The Making Of') including the below image. And while doing this I managed to drop said painting flat on its face smashing the rather sensitive bottom section.. I was obviously pee'd off with myself. However this was a good opportunity to re-make and renew the painting as a whole. I managed to, Time Team style, attach many fragments of cement back onto the board by cleverly guessing where they had been before. Once done I added a fresh (souped up) layer of cement to fill in the cracks, I have now finished the empty areas once more and am once again quite pleased with the results. I remember seeing when I was in Germany, a refurbished synagogue in which they had glued the fragments of paint back on to the walls individually and exactly where they had come of the walls. I was giddily excited by this insane attention to detail and the finished product was quite amazing and this little project made me think of that. 

Anyway the below painting will not be in my upcoming exhibition but is going to feature in some future plans... I will be posting more info on the upcoming exhibition soon

Photo of damaged painting after repair

Whitespace Exhibition

My recent exhibition at the Whitespace Gallery was a show involving myself and Roz McKenzie. The work was a mixture of drawings, painting and contemporary stained glass. To see more of Roz's work click on the link above.. 

Roz's stained glass panels were in lightboxes which we built ourselves and hung on a particular wall of the gallery to get the right level of light (direct light from strip lights on the panels would have ruined the effect).

                                     

My work mostly involved drawings but included the watercolours and oil painting hung on this particular wall. The big painting is titled 'Arsenic Mine' and is based on drawings and photographs I took in Cornwall of abandoned arsenic mines which ran down to the cliff edges. I have previous posts on this blog and my other website. The watercolours were looking at 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. I was interested in the odd way in which these places represented the heart of our 'democracy' while at the same time looking like a cage. I found the image of tourists staring at fairly mundane scenes through bars at the police officers within like some sort of bizarre zoo. 

More hanging Roz's stained glass panels.

These small drawings took up the last wall of the gallery, they were all drawings I have done in-situ. They are mostly from the various places I have been in the previous year - Wells, Erfurt and paderborn. These drawings represent a sort of travelogue of my travels.

Downing Street/Parliament watercolours with reflections.

EXHIBITION : Patriothall/Arts Com?lex

I am having an exhibition in two parts, at the Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. The first part will show new paintings, the second part in the Arts Com?lex near Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh will showcase drawings and studies.

Exhibition Statement : 

Scratching the Surface is an exhibition of work by three Edinburgh based artists presented in two parts. These exhibitions bring together Scott McCracken, Andrew Smith and Allan Robertson who all work within the medium of painting.  Each artist has his own motivations and observations, but they are united in their appreciation and practice of paint’s materiality and the possibilities of painting as a contemporary medium.  The first exhibition will be hosted at the Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge and will show recent paintings by the artists.  The second exhibition will take place at Arts Complex at St Margarets House and will showcase recent drawings, prints and smaller works.

Artists Statement:

Andrew Smith's recent work has been a continuing evolution of previous years' paintings looking at the city in the context of civil liberties and notions of how society is sculpted. Andrew's paintings are representations that are realistic, blending into abstracted forms of the city from the distorted perspectives. I am interested in the strata of society, how this is manifested, be it visually or in a more subtle manner and questioning it through a visual means. The human environment, that is to say one that humans have specifically and systematically sculpted, has been a particularly strong theme that permeates through my work. What interests me about these environments is both their psychological effect and the social/ideological issues that they establish as well as the layers of history they reflect.


~~~ Look forward to seeing you there!

Arsenic Mines

Here's some pictures of a large scale painting I am working on. It's of Tin Mines in Cornwall and is based on the strange structures left behind on the landscape after the centuries of mining in the area.

The remains of what were arsenic mines and processing buildings were dotted all over the landscape close to Lands End. Cornwall was once the world's biggest producer of arsenic, besides copper and tin. See http://www.cornish-mining.org.uk/story/earlymod.htm for more info if you are interested. Now all that is left are strange structures rising out of the orange soil like standing stones. The landscape is bleak but beautiful with a strange mix of windswept cliffs and half buried mines dotting the cliff edges. The soil too has a weird colour, the heavy metals present prohibit any type of farming.

In this painting I am working on it in oils, ink and gouache. I intend to have it finished in the next week or so ready for exhibiting and will buy a few more canvas/board of a similar size to do a few more. The subject matter fascinates me, a 'wild' landscape that when viewed closer reveals centuries of heavy industrial activity.

A close up of the concrete pillars. The weathering effect of the Atlantic Ocean made these very beautiful and aged. More detail to come..

Artists Statement

Artists Statement for June 2009 Degree Show

The effects that people have on our environment, and each other are the underlying themes that underpin my work. I am interested in the strata of society, how this is manifested, be it visually or in a more subtle manner and questioning it through a visual means. The human environment, that is to say one that humans have specifically and systematically sculpted, has been a particularly strong theme that permeates through my work. What interests me about these environments is both their psychological effect and the social/ideological issues that they establish as well as the layers of history they reflect.

The architecture of the 60s, modernism, brutalist and corporatist style interested me particularly; they are all examples of grand attempts to sculpt society for the better which haven’t always succeeded. The blurring of Civil Liberties in recent years has been a strong element in my works this year, influenced by my paintings based on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the ‘War on Terror’

My works aim to convey the idea that the threat of terrorist attack, however vague or unsubstantiated is used as an excuse to remove the liberty of a minority of people, and how this inevitably leads to it being used on the majority of people. By juxtaposing a large, almost overwhelming painting of an ambiguous architectural space titled ‘The Tube’ against much smaller images suggesting the subtle everyday effects of the ‘War on Terror’ as well as its darker heart, the works try to convey the underlying issues which I want the viewer to think about.