Beautiful Moments

Anywhere can be beautiful. ‘Beautiful Moments’ shows Clifford Road behind Norwood Junction Station at sunset with a young couple walking happily together into the evenings adventures.

You can see the original painting as part of my show at the Paxton Center in Crystal Palace this June.

Stanley Halls Studio

I’ve been painting in the spare room at home for the past few years so I’m really excited to announce that in the New Year I will be taking a studio for the first time. It will be at Stanley Halls in South Norwood which is a great old building with a fabulous gallery and lots of creative energy going on. If you would like to visit me at the Halls please drop me a line first and I’ll be very happy to show you around.

 

Stanley Halls1

New Paintings On Show at Stanley Halls

I’ve had a change around of the paintings showing in the wonderful gallery at Stanley Halls in South Norwood. In particular the larger version of ‘Moon Over Stanley’ has gone home for a few months and will be on display alongside other new works such as ‘Climbing’ and ‘Morning People’.

The Halls are open on a slightly ad hoc basis for events so do keep an eye on their website to find out what is on. In particular the ‘Invention Festival’ of performances will be taking place at the halls on 12th/13th June. http://www.stanleyhalls.org.uk/invention-festival/

Moon over Stanley

This is a new little painting of the moon over South Norwood Hill with a couple of lovers at the bus stop and a lot of people heading to Stanley Halls for an Event. It’s a scene that I first wanted to paint back in early September. We  were driving home passed the Halls and pulled up in traffic to find ourselves stunned by a huge full moon shinning over the old tower and halls, it was great but getting the reference info has been a bit of a pain. My camera is useless at night so there has been lots of playing around working out the lighting and shadows. I hope to do a larger version some time soon although I might remove one of the cars….. they are never my favourite thing.

In the meantime I still have paintings up in the gallery at Stanley Halls and they will be open this Sat for a couple of free halloween themed films: Frankenweenie at 1pm and An American Warewoolf in London at 7pm.  One of the things I like most about Stanley Halls is that the volunteers running it are trying really hard to make it work for the local community. http://stanleypeoplesinitiative.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/a-pillar-of-the-community/Moon over Stanley

Stanley Halls Open House

Built in 1903, Stanley Halls has a grand old gallery as well as meeting rooms and a full on theatre. It’s in the process of renovation and is being brought back into regular use by the ‘People for Stanley Halls’ community group. For this years Open House the Halls will be open for tours, it’s well worth seeing. Some of my paintings will also be amongst the artwork in the very fine gallery and cards will also be for sale on the day.

Paintings go up for Stanley Halls Open House

The Stanley Halls Gallery was already looking great when I left an hour or so ago after hanging eight original paintings and two prints. Stanley Halls was originally designed and built by William Stanley who also founded the ‘Stanley Works’ of ‘Stanley knife’ fame. It is a grand public building in the true Victorian philanthropic style, built alongside the technical school it has a fine theatre, a well designed gallery with loads of diffuse natural light as well as meeting rooms. The whole space is being lovingly brought back into use by a very enthusiastic local community and it looks like going on to become an excellent addition to the local arts scene.

Tomorrows Open House tours should be really interesting and with the cafe running and art up in the gallery waiting for the tours to get started should be enjoyable too. Everything will be kicking off at 10am and the last tour will be at 4:45pm.

Here are some photos of the paintings going up.