Another example of how TamO'Shanter has been illustrated.

Another example of how TamO'Shanter has been illustrated.

Tam O’Shanter has been the inspiration for many artists. These old prints are the original illustrations to the poem by John Faed


 
John Faed (1820- 1902)
First published in 1892 Title:
Tam O'Shanter and the Witches
Illustration to the poem of Robert Burns

One of Burns' best-loved tales is the story of a farmer from Maidens who, against  his wife's good advice, gets into trouble as a result of his fondness for drink and an eye for the lasses. The poem is a favourite feature of Burns Suppers across the world and many Scottish pubs will give a free dram or two to anyone who can give a good recitation, start to finish, a good recital means in a good rendering of the old dialect.  

The story, which was inspired by the local tales Burns heard as a boy, is set in Ayr and Alloway, and reaches its scary but comic climax at the old Brig O'Doon. Burns based the poems  characters on his own friends and characters he knew from the local taverns. In her memoir of Burns, his wife, Jean Armour, recalls watching him laughing as he walked along the banks of the River Nith, gesturing wildly and composing the poem out loud. 

Perhaps more than any other of his poems, Tam O'Shanter captures the spirit of poetry that was first awakened in the young Robert Burns, sitting around the fire in Burns Cottage and listening to the ghost stories of old Betty Davidson.
 
The late medieval Brig O’Doon was chosen by Burns for the climax of his tale, Tam O’Shanter. It spans the beautiful river Doon, the auld brig (old bridge) gives visitors a chance to walk on the very spot where Tam’s mare, Meg, made her last heroic leap for freedom - leaving her tail still in the clutches of Nan, the “Cutty Sark” witch.

Art Sunday; Moy Mackay

                                    Moy Mackay

Moy graduated from  the Glasgow School of Art in 1990 with a BA (Hons). She was born in Edinburgh in 1966, trained in Glasgow and now works in the Scottish Borders.
Her work is rich, vibrant, based on the landscape around her and made from fibers.  She has had numerous exhibitions in the UK and USA.. She works from  her home in the Tweed Valley on the Scottish Borders creating unique pieces using Merino Fleece fibers. She uses her fibers as other would use a paint brush.
The result is a “felt painting” with warmth, texture and light. Her utter delight in the landscape is visible  in every fiber of her unique work.
Moy’s paintings are created by replacing paint as a medium with dyed sheep’s fleece, she combines traditional felting techniques with embroidery. 

Through the action of rubbing and rolling, the fibers are joined together to create a unified work, which is usually embellished with hand and machine embroidery to give results that are rich in colour and texture. 

Art. Nicol Porter

THIS IS THE FIRST NEW ART POST, THIS ONE WILL NOT DISAPPEAR ONCE MULTIPLY TURN THE LIGHTS OFF.

The Nicole Porter gallery.

This is exactly where I was, inside those purple doors sipping white wine at the opening of her most recent exhibition when I decided there really was something wrong with my eye and I needed to go home as soon as possible.

Nicole Porter was born in Aberdeen, trained as an Artist in Dundee and now runs the Nicole Porter gallery in Aberdeen.

The exhibition I went to see was not an exhibition of her work but an exhibition of other local artists. Her work was on  display at the back of the gallery and to say I was impressed is an understatement. 

This is the link to her gallery

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/

This is a link to her work

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/home.html

and please pay special attention to her portraits, they really are wonderful, full of detail, almost photographic but alive and warm at the same time. You think they will each out to touch you

Portrait paintings her

http://www.nicoleporter.co.uk/work.html

and this is a link to her blog where she talks about what is going on in the world of Art.

http://nicoleportergallery.blogspot.co.uk/

The following information is from her website. She has worked all over the world and is known internationally,

Biography

1986; Born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

2004 to 2008

First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland.

2008 to 2009

 Lived and worked in Norway. Studied with and assisted Odd Nerdrum in his international artists community.

Summer 2009

 Lived and worked in Paris. Studied with and assisted Odd Nerdrum in his Paris studio.

Autumn 2009

 Lived and worked in New York. Studied with and assisted Steven Assael in his New York studio. Studied at the Arts Students League in New York with Frank Porcu, Michael Grimaldi and Costa Vavagiaski.

Presently

 Living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland as resident artist and partner of The Nicole Porter Gallery.

She has also won countless awards including

Artist Of The Year 2011- Artists and Illustrators Magazine - shortlisted artist

Art, Samuel Poploe

This is the guy whose exhibition I went to see at St Andrews on Friday. Normally still life is not my favourite subject matter, but his are truly amazing. He is what I would call a ‘painterly’ painter, more than anything else he is into ‘paint’. When you see his work in the flesh it’s alive, vibrant and above all, he loves paint. The actual medium is as important as any thing else. I think he is a paint worshiper.

Samuel John Peploe

(27 January 1871 – 11 October 1935) was a Scottish Post-Impressionist painter, noted for his still life works and for being one of the group of four painters that became known as the Scottish Colourists. The other colourists were John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Cadell and Leslie Hunter.

More of this  here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Peploe

The Scottish Colourists

The artists, Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935); John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961); George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937) have achieved international acclaim in recent years following major retrospective exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Despite the diversity of their work and their relatively independent careers, they are now recognised as an identifiable movement within the history of art and their influence is still apparent in painting today.

The four painters became known as the Scottish Colourists because they grafted their knowledge of contemporary French Art – Monet, Matisse, and Cezanne - onto the painterly traditions of Scotland, redefining the qualities of light and colour in their still life, landscapes, figurative paintings and drawings into their own singular styles.

More of this here

http://www.exploreart.co.uk/artistic_styles_details.asp?artistid=62&artisticstyleid=4

A Biography

For those who want it, A more in depth biography:

Peploe was a passionate and serious artist who devoted himself to work but also had powerful influence on a surprisingly wide circle of people, including many artists of the next generation. Born in Edinburgh and educated at the Collegate School in Charlotte Square, he had good academic ability but no interest in the professions, preferring to walk, sail or sketch.
By 1893 he was enrolled for classes at the Trustees Academy (the forerunner to Edinburgh School of Art) and the following year was in Paris at the Académie Julian under the neo classicist, William Bourgereau and later at the Académie Colarossi. A long period of study nurtured his natural ability and helped him perfect an early style based on Dutch masters, particularly Franz Hals, and Edouard Manet. He began a lifelong habit of taking painting trips to northern France and the Western Isles, accompanied by J D Fergusson whom he had met in Paris. He was successful in exhibiting his work and regularly submitted paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Glasgow Institute and the Society of Scottish Artists.
His first one-man show was held at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh in 1903. By 1906 his earlier still life and figure paintings, characterised by dark backgrounds, gave way to paler colours, greys and pinks. This was in part due to a move to a new lighter studio in the East end of Edinburgh at York Place, from his previous west-end base at Shandwick Place. His second exhibition in 1909 was successful but his eyes were turning to Paris and the next year, he moved there with his new wife, Margaret MacKay, whom he had met on a painting trip to the Isle of Barra in 1894. France liberated his palette and on his return to Edinburgh in 1912 with dozens of paintings and a young son, Willie, the new work proved to be much too advanced for the city’s audience and his original dealer. Unperturbed, Peploe put on his own show at the New Gallery in Shandwick Place, where the Society of Eight (including Cadell, John Lavery and James Paterson) had their inaugural exhibition in the same year.
For the next fifteen years Peploe retained a brilliant palette, evolving a mature style containing elements of Cezanne and Matisse. By the late 1920s he had reverted to a more sonorous tonal painting, still enlivened by brilliant colour chords, but weightier and cooler. In 1933 he taught two terms at Edinburgh College of Art making quite an impact. Best known for his still life paintings of roses or tulips, Peploe had a wide range of subjects including figure and landscape painting.
From 1914 he was a regular visitor to Dumfries and Galloway, particularly Kirkcudbright and also from 1919 onwards to the isles of Iona. On the recommendation of Cadell he visited Cassis in the South of France in 1924, and returned in 1928 and 1930. His landscapes have a conviction and a passion, which belie the rather diffident, shy public face of the artist. His family and closest friends knew a wickedly funny, compassionate and sincere man.
Text source: Samuel Peploe (Guy Peploe, S J Peploe’s grandson); the Dictionary of Scottish Painters, (Halsby & Harris) and The Scottish Colourists, (Philip Long).

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Aug 5 the four colourists remind me just a bit of the group of seven as well. :-)

delete reply rabbitfriendhere wrote on Aug 5 this is amazing art and i love the four colourists! Samuel John Poploe was born on my birthday. :-)

delete reply artprevails wrote on Aug 5 So much good background on the way Peploe's art evolved. And I really enjoyed the You Tube video. Thank you! Peploe's art is wonderful.

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5 forgetmenot525 said thanks, glad you like them, if you want to see more of the 'Scottish Colourists', look up my tag 'scottish colouristrs', there are quite a few posts and albums of these of these painters. Thanks I will :-)

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Aug 5 these are great presentations of the medium of paint were the beauty of the work is not just the subject but how the paint is applied and draws one into the work i notice that a lot in your own work :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 nemo4sun said he knows his way with a brush! :) yep.............thats what I thought, except that sometimes he abandons his brush in favour of a pallet knife, and he still knows his way around even without the brush

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Aug 5 he knows his way with a brush! :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Aug 5 aaranaardvark said Thanks for the info on the Scottish Colourists whom I'd never heard of prior to reading your post. thanks, glad you like them, if you want to see more of the 'Scottish Colourists', look up my tag 'scottish colouristrs', there are quite a few posts and albums of these of these painters.

delete reply aaranaardvark wrote on Aug 5, edited on Aug 5 Thanks for the info on the Scottish Colourists whom I'd never heard of prior to reading your post. The Peploe paintings are wonderful, I especially like those roofscapes and churches. A very interesting bio too, the video was a good contextual aid and the music was just perfect. What more can I say Loretta? Nice one :-)

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Aug 5 Very nice art. I particularly like the second one from the top.

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on Aug 5 his works are beautiful-I love them-thanks Loretta

delete reply skaviva wrote on Aug 5 That was interesting. Thank you.

delete reply pestep55 wrote on Aug 5 Even here the vibrance and definition comes though, chipper sound on the video /:-)

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Aug 5 It's so nice you can find a video of his paintings.