hike | camp | paint
How have art and the outdoors overlapped this year ? 2018 was all about my debut solo show in a London gallery, and I was painting furiously for that. This year, though, I've slowed down a bit, but not been short of ideas and have a huge queue of possible paintings. The prime targets this … Continue reading Art Roundup 2019
Before you get too worried that I'm about to bombard you with loads of pictures and ask you to buy them, I'm not. I'm just going to pick out a few instances where the outdoors and art overlapped this year. Increasingly my hikes are geared around the search for subject matter to paint. Of course … Continue reading 2018 Round-Up Part 3: Art
It’s now 40 days until my first solo exhibition opens. Gulp. This sounds like a lot, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a lot. With a two week holiday away coming up , it effectively reduces my remaining preparation time to 3 and a bit weeks. With the two weeks after getting back from holiday […] … Continue reading Go Big or Go Home — matthewkingarts
Through a gap in the trees, I catch my first glimpse of the end of the loch. At the head of the glen, rises the Mountain, for the moment innocuous amidst its neighbours, happy to take a back seat for now. The path weaves a seemingly random course through the wood, one moment going up … Continue reading The Mountain
Artistically, 2017 has been increasingly busy, with my first London exhibition to prepare for, a couple of art fairs, and I also began teaching. I have, however, had some time to produce a few paintings - so here is a selection of this year's work. All items are available for sale, so feel free to … Continue reading Art of the Year 2017
If you liked my watercolour that featured in the "In the Frame" feature in the October issue of TGO Magazine, and have been burning up with curiosity as to how you could get hold of it, then I'm delighted to tell you that I have a limited run of prints of "Cairngorm Glen". These come … Continue reading Liked my picture in @TGOMagazine …?
A few weeks ago, the editor of TGO Magazine contacted me to ask if I'd like to be in their "In the Frame" feature, which showcases the work of a different landscape artist each month. Of course I said yes, and after offering Emily a selection of works to choose from, she went for "Cairngorm … Continue reading In the Frame
The track is mine and I enjoy the novelty of walking without the expectation of seeing anyone. I’m alone with the sound of my feet crunching stones on the track and birds going about their business above. A herd of deer scatter on the hillside to my left, a rabbit bounds away through the wood. … Continue reading The Moor
Amongst all of the other kit decisions I had to make ahead of embarking on the TGO Challenge this year was the one about art kit - what to take ? what would I be likely to use ? was it even worth bothering ? In the end I stuck to my usual approach of … Continue reading Art of the TGO Challenge
The date was in the diary, the pre-order had been made, the accommodation had been booked. Then the unthinkable happened - Andy Beck's book launch was pushed back from the weekend of 4-5 March to the equivalent weekend in May. Issues with the colour reproduction in the printing process necessitated this delay, and one I … Continue reading March in the Lakes – Part 1: Viewpoints
Once again I needed to pop into London and once again it was art related. There seems to be a pattern emerging here. This time it was the Works on Paper Fair, for which I’d been sent a free ticket by Matt Forster, an "überpainter" of stylised mountain landscapes in watercolour. With this unlikely to … Continue reading Art meets Science
A deadline has been pressing on me. The Late Turner exhibition at Tate Britain is due to finish this coming weekend, and I hadn't been to see it yet, even though it had been on since September and I've not had work as an excuse. So I set about rectifying that. Whilst the visit to the Tate … Continue reading A Walk Among the Artists
I've been lucky with the amount of time I've been able to take since the summer as a break from working, but it can't last for ever, and soon work will press on me again. With this in mind, and knowing that one of the ways I keep sane when working is by doing some … Continue reading A New Series of Urban Walks
It's really rather nice sitting here by Derwentwater taking in the views and attempting to transfer them to paper, and I don't regret the way today's plans have worked out at all. Never has a walk plan changed so much as today's has. Having made sketchy arrangements to meet up with Paul (@paulgbuck) for a … Continue reading Autumn in the Lakes: Arty Stuff