Lingholms' Derwentwater Fells The large canvas

First stages of drawing and under painting

using Pip Seymour acrylics

Two of the 6 canvas's arrived yesterday evening, from Harris Canvas suppliers and canvas stretchers. http://www.harrismoorecanvases.co.uk. Harris  also stock the acrylic paint that I am using which is made by artist and paintm aker Pip Seymour in his Horeton in Ribblesdale workshop. ,http://www.pipseymour.co.uk. 

I picked up a Thames radial easel from Ken Bromleys just outside Bolton, the price was excellent. http://www.artsupplies.co.uk.  Pairing two eaels together appears to hold a large central canvas well enough. There is a small amount of bounce when working on them with broad brush strokes  but not to much. The other issue is that I will have to find a way of lifting the canvas when I'm working on the lower parts if I want to be painterly and gestural. It was an exciting moment getting them out of the boxes and getting used to their weights and size. I'm still awaiting delivery of some large extra sized brushes from Great Art. 

Sketchbook notes

"The final linen canvas arrived,  late yesterday afternoon, from Harris. They were gleaming, daunting,  pristine and very white. Heavy, they seemed, as Ken the Head Gardner carried them, with assistance through Derwents door, on past the remnants of  Lord Rochdale’s library  and into the old chapel room which had been allocated to me as a studio.  I unpacked them carefully and solitary rearranged the canvas’s, easels and studio into some kind of new order.  I guessed this would suite my crusade on their bulk, and despoilment of their virginal state.  Now, I just needed the will. By late evening I was done preparing and after a last look at the mornings task.  I retired for a meal at the Swinside |Inn.  I promised myself an early start and so left the cheer of the bar to get back to Lingholm and bed. Early this morning I awoke to the sound of battle as the westerly winds  wrestled, scoured and  thrust against the old walls of |Lingholm. Stepping through dim dark I looked out of the window towards Skiddaw and saw naught but  a distant light that flickered and shone dimly across the water, through a mesh of whipped branches. Blam-wham the wind hit my window before scurrying away through the tall chimneys leaving a horizontal slide of water against the pane. Today was a painter’s day. Gone were the pale blue skies of summer, the wimpiest, innocent, lapping of small waves and the dancing polite drift of autumnal leaves. Here was a day of drang und stern high drama. Autumn blown horns herald winter and I was of no doubt,  the Gods of the north had arrived and the canvas waited."